August 22, 2023 • 34 mins
Join us as we navigate the compelling narrative of Michael Valdez, a man who knows a thing or two about growth in the real estate industry. As the Chief Growth Officer for EXP, he’s risen through the ranks from a Senior Vice President role at Rilogy and shares his unique perspective on the turbulent journey that led him here. His father's remarkable story as a political prisoner for Fidel Castro, the impact of 9/11 on his career course, and his transition to investing in Miami real estate, are pieces of a puzzle that assemble to form an inspiring story of resilience and perseverance.
Our conversation with Michael takes a deep dive into his ancestral legacy, the influence of his resilient grandmother in Spain and an unexpected health diagnosis at 25, which changed his perspective on life. We chat about navigating the challenges that life throws at us, and how the person in the mirror and the legacy we leave behind is truly what matters. Michael also offers his predictions on the upcoming trends in the real estate market.
In the concluding segment, we tap into the paradoxical relationship between struggle and growth. Michael shares the importance of holding onto humility amidst success and the need to understand and appreciate varying perspectives. We also explore the metaphor of throwing a child into the water to teach them how to swim, reflecting on how it's the struggles that shape us. From Marcus Aurelius’ choice to sleep on the floor of his palace to the importance of gratitude, this podcast episode is a treasure trove of insights.
Our conversation with Michael is more than a career journey; it's a life journey filled with invaluable lessons and inspiration. You can connect with him on social media to keep the conversation going. So, sit back, grab a cup of coffee and prepare to be inspired by this truly remarkable story.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome everybody to another episode
here of the Stole Cage ofPodcast.
Have a super cool guest here ontoday.
I have the Chief Growth Officerfor EXP and this is not a
recruiting video here.
So we're going to step into themind of someone who's been in
the finance industry, been inthe real estate industry and
going to hopefully be able toshed some light here and add
(00:21):
some value, and hopefully I knowfor certain he's going to be
able to.
Michael Valdez, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alex, thank you so much.
My brother, he's the best,sharpest dressed man in real
estate.
Your charmer.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you, sir.
Well, hey, why don't we offerthe audience, just so they get a
little bit of a texture on yourbackground?
Why don't you give us theencapsulation of what brought
you even to this point here?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, for sure.
As you said, I'm the ChiefGrowth Officer at EXP.
I've been at EXP a little overthree years now.
Prior to that, I was a seniorvice president at Rilogy and I
was at Rilogy for 15 years.
Were your audience members thatdon't know Rilogy?
That was the holding companynow known as Anywhere.
That was the holding companyfor Sotheby's, cobble of Anchor,
(01:05):
century 21, era, better Homesand Garden and Orcren.
I led the global expulsion forall six brands which, when I
laughed in 2020, we were at 113countries at about 300,000
agents.
Then I met Glyne Sanford.
I actually met JasonGessing-Furze, who was our CEO
(01:26):
at EXP at the time.
He and I sat on a panel onglobal real estate in New York
at the end of 2019.
I had met Glyne at Inman at theend of 2019, beginning of 2020.
We were supposed to have justabout a 20-minute conversation
on what would an EXP global looklike.
(01:48):
That meeting ended up being twoand a half hours and it was one
of these things where I justsaw the vision of what Glyne was
doing and what he had createdwith EXP.
I thought, oh my God, this is atrue disruptor in our industry.
Conversations progressed, Ijoined in May of 2020, and we've
(02:09):
been able to open up over 20countries in a little over two
years without getting on a planeduring a pandemic.
It's something that's neverbeen done in our industry, and I
think it's been done because ofthe platform that this was
created.
Prior to that, I was in bankingfor 10 years at Deutsche Bank,
and so a lot of finance andglobal experience.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Fantastic.
That's a great encapsulation,Dave, for me.
I'd like to go back a littlebit to your Deutsche Bank days.
What kind of Deutsche Bank wasbefore Realogy?
Oh yeah, Wait before.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It was in my 20s?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, what was it like at Deutsche Bank back there
?
I'm more really curious,because Deutsche Bank gets a
little bit of a rub about beinga little bit of a dumping ground
for the global ecosystem as faras banking's concerned.
I'd love to hear your take onthat.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's an interesting thing.
I was literally in my 20s whenI was in banking and this was in
the late 90s.
I am much older than I look.
This was during that time andit was really interesting
because I was really building astrong portfolio and I was
(03:26):
dealing with three differentgroups of clients.
One my real focus was AmericanIndian tribes and I was doing
diversification of their assets.
The American Indian tribes fellunder the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, which was under the DOJ, and they were obviously a
tax-free entity Prior to 9-11,if we did a JV, that junior
(03:51):
partner actually inherited theirtax status.
We did a lot of diversificationwith the Indian tribes and at
one point I had 18 Indian tribesthat I was representing.
Then I was doing a lot of thewealthy Latino families around
the world just because of myheritage.
It was a lot of focus indifferent areas and then, of
(04:16):
course, the tech industry,because it was basically the
start of the internet.
It was three really interestingfocus groups that I was working
with.
When 9-11 came, obviouslyeverything changed.
I was in banking at that timestill, when risk management
(04:39):
changed and obviously everythingchanged overnight, then it was
a time of trying to re-figureeverything, if you will and
still serve the client's needs.
Everyone was trying to figurethat out at that point in time.
By that point, I had been inbanking almost 10 years and
(05:01):
decided that an early retirementwould have been good.
I did that and startedinvesting in real estate just
from my own portfolio.
That's how I got licensedactually was from my own
portfolio.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So when you do, was that investing down in Miami?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I did.
I started investing a lot inMiami.
I already I had a home in NewYork, I had a home in Hamptons,
and Miami to me was aninteresting investment.
I started investing in Miamiearly on in 2004 or so.
So this was almost 20 yearsthat I've been investing in
Miami real estate and itcertainly has changed a lot in
(05:44):
the last two decades, but it'sbeen something that I enjoyed
and the reason that I actuallystarted buying in Miami was
because it was sometimes lessamount of time to get to Miami
than it was to get to my home inHamptons.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Well, yeah, you know I want to shift gears here a
little bit.
I'm curious always is you'reobviously a high performer,
right, and so I was like thestep in the minds of a high
performer and bring that valueto the audience.
So what kind of?
Where did you go to college andwhat kind of led you down this
path of incredible success, youknow, and a real diverse success
(06:22):
as well.
What was kind of yourbackground?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I'm border raised in New York, I'm into NYU and
had, I think, a lot of it camefrom my dad.
My dad was Batista's ChiefLegal Counsel in Cuba and was
arrested as a political prisonerwhen Castro came in and was
released in a prisoner exchangeprogram during the Bay of Pigs,
and so there was a history therewhere you know someone who
(06:49):
worked really hard and then hadeverything taken away from them
was a sense of tomorrow's neverpromised, and I think there's a
certain amount of whatever driveI might have inherited that is
subconsciously inbred by that,by that experience.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Feel that back a little bit, man.
I love that tomorrow is neverpromised.
Is that part of what drives you?
I was talking to the agency theother day and you know some of
them are struggling and then Isaid, well, you're gonna have a
struggle there, and then thenext struggle is when you
actually are okay financially.
How do you keep that hunger?
Is that the kind of thetomorrow is never promised?
Is that what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think a part of it was through living my life
through my father's lens, butalso at 25, I was actually
diagnosed with colon cancer andso went through that almost 30
years ago.
At this point I'll be 57 thisyear.
So when you start going throughthat in your 20s, when you're
(07:51):
not, you know you're notsupposed to talk about your own
mortality when you're in your20s, and so I think both of
those experiences wheretomorrow's never promised was
actually, you know, really sortof exemplified in my life, and I
think that from there it reallyis seizing something that is
(08:14):
before you.
One of the things that reallyirks me about anyone is laziness
.
It is something where you knowwe're all fortunate enough to
have opportunities presented tous that are limitless.
The only thing that's finite istime.
Everything else is infinite,and if somebody doesn't really
take advantage of what's beforethem, just think of it as
(08:36):
irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You know it's funny because it seems like the
experience from your father thatwas passed down and then it was
crystallized with that coloncancer experience that you went
through right, which obviouslyhad a visceral experience on you
rather than ancestral.
What do you think not to getnegative or anything, but like
what do you think, kind of, isthe thing that keeps people back
(09:04):
, like, when you do have thisinfinite time and you have, and,
coming from Cuba, the infiniteresources and the infinite
opportunities that we have here,what is holding people back?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
The belief that they can't, and I think that that, in
my estimation, is our only.
We have our own self-imposedprisons, right, and the irony of
it is that we're also theprison guard and yet we hold the
key.
And there's, it's almost aself-fulfilling prophecy in
(09:39):
saying I can't do that, or youknow, the greatest one is the
thing of all try, and trydoesn't exist in the human
language.
You know you can't try to dosomething.
If you challenge somebody totry to pick up a pen, they'll
either pick it up or not, right,so try doesn't exist.
(10:00):
You either do or you don't.
And you'll know from the verystart.
If you, if you have somebodywho says you know, come, come to
, to my party on Friday, and youknow you'll say I'll try,
you'll know, you know you're notgoing.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know you're not going right, yeah, so try
doesn't exist right, so you'llknow from the start.
And so in our vocabulary it'sjust almost like a comma or like
or like a stop, and to me it'slike when we actually sort of
put it into our own world andsay I'm going to try to do this
(10:38):
or I'm going to try to succeed.
It's a self-professing failurebecause you're not going to do
it.
If you say I'm going to go andand succeed, it's.
It's a roadmap, right, you knowwe don't get into a car without
sort of hitting our GPS orhitting ways, and you know.
(10:59):
You put an address into yourcar or into your phone and you
sort of know how you get there.
You have a roadmap.
So if you know where you wantto end up, that's the first step
and then you work backwardstowards it.
So people that are saying youknow failing at what they're
attempting, it's simply becausethey're not attempting.
(11:19):
Attempting is trying.
So you have to actually go inwith a, with a game plan.
It's so shocking to me how manypeople in our own industry who
are really just CEOs of your owncompany, if you're an
independent contractor and anagent do not have a business
plan.
What do you, as a soleproprietor, ceo of a company
(11:43):
which is your own company, as anindependent contractor, not
have a business plan?
How do you not know what youwant to earn at the bottom at
the end of the year?
How do you not know what yourcustomer acquisition cost is?
How do you not know what yourmarketing costs are?
How do you not know thesethings?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Do you do you uh, there's so many different places
we go with this Do you do youplace the blame on the
traditional education system?
I mean, you'd have to go toWarden or something like that to
get that acumen.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Oh, oh, oh, oh, come on.
No, it's like you know I'mbaiting you a little bit, but
I'd say it's, uh, it's.
Look where we're in.
A people business.
You do business with peoplethat you like, and trust period
right, you don't have to goanywhere for that.
You just have to be likable andtrustable.
And so if somebody has trust inyou and likes you, you're 80%
(12:40):
of the way there.
You have to be transparent.
You have to really care aboutsomebody else.
You know it's, it's, it's trulybeing a, a, a, a humble servant
to somebody else.
It's how somebody really doesgain success in their own.
I mean, it's the old ZigZiggler quote.
It's the idea of going andhelping as many people as you
(13:03):
can is how you become wealthy.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I love that we could dig into that, but I want to big
jack up because I didn't.
I didn't think I articulatedthe question well, uh, the
financial acumen right, sopeople get into real estate.
Maybe they are great people,people pleasers, right?
Or or they're.
They're good at buildingrelationships and they're good
at following up in that, butthey're not good business people
, which would be to have thatbusiness plan.
(13:30):
I guess that was my question.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I'll hire somebody to do it, but you need to sort of
have a roadmap, right?
It's the idea of you want it,no, and and and, by the way,
it's it's simple that you don'tneed to go into.
You know the, the ROI of an adthat you put into Facebook or
social media, not asking that.
You know.
(13:52):
If you want to earn $100,000 ayear or a million dollars a year
, just figure out what's youraverage sales price in your
market.
How many homes do you have tosell in order to reach that?
What's your, what's your splitwith your company in order for
you to reach that?
What's going to go in yourpocket?
So this is simple math, right?
(14:13):
So, from every transaction, howmuch will you earn?
What percentage of that willget you to your goal?
And then, how many calls or howmany, how many sort of meetings
do you have to have to have thelistings or to have the buyer
to get to where you want to toachieve?
So it's simple math.
The other complicated math youcan hire an accountant for to
(14:35):
get the P&L and that Sure.
Yeah, even the P&L, I think ispretty easy too.
You know, you put everything onyour corporate credit card.
You figure out what you'vespent.
You figure out what you'vespent per listing, you'll figure
out what your cost was for thatlisting.
I mean, it's all segregation ofexpenses.
So parts of it are pretty easytoo.
(14:56):
But start simple.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Let's shift gears here a little bit.
So your dad obviously had thatexperience, but he was a mentor
in working hard and tomorrow isnot promised.
I love that one.
Who were your early mentors?
I mean, you had a roadmap rightso we can know where we wanna
go, we want.
Do you believe it's good tohave guides along the way, and
(15:21):
those could be in the form ofmentors?
Who were some of your earlymentors?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, I think mentors happen every day.
I'm like you know.
I still look to mentors formyself even today, but I think
that there was for me early on.
It was actually my grandmother,and so I spent a lot of time
with her, and she actuallypassed away when I was 13,.
(15:47):
But I spent every summer withher and she was from Spain, and
so I would spend my summers withher in Spain and she was a very
resourceful woman who was.
She was widowed when my motherwas five years old and she never
remarried.
So you know, she was a humblewoman, but she really needed to
(16:08):
figure things out, and there wasa lot of tenacity in her that I
admired and still do, so Ithink she was one of my early
heroes.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Well, the Spanish are certainly renowned for their
tenacity, was she Basque orCantononian.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
She was Galicia.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
What would you say a couple of the top lessons were
that she taught you.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well, I would sort of say it's resilience, it's
survival.
You know, when you start sortof thinking about, as a single
mother of two children my motherand my uncle at such an early
age where she needs to fight and, by the way, it was my maternal
grandfather died of coloncancer at 33 and I inherited
(16:55):
that G, so that's, and I waslucky that I actually found out.
When I did so, I found that asa blessing and to me it's really
anything that happens throughyou in life where it might seem
as a tragedy in some instancesit's the greatest gift ever.
So to me it was.
(17:15):
You know, when I was diagnosedat 25, I would be like my God,
you know, this is horrific, it'sthe end of the world, right.
So you can look at it any wayyou want to.
But what I actually sort oflooked at was I cared less about
what people thought of mebecause it wasn't paying my
(17:36):
mortgage.
I didn't really care.
And in your 20s it becomes yourworld that you want to be liked
, that you want to be, you wantpeople around you to really
accept you, and that to me earlyon was a great lesson that I
just needed to like the personthat I saw in the mirror, and so
(17:58):
that early on was a greatlesson for me, because it was
every day was a gift.
After that, and now we're goingon 30 years of gifts, so that
to me is a great blessing.
And you start looking at how doyou leave your legacy from here
, right?
So what is it now?
(18:18):
That's the next chapter ofleaving a legacy behind for
others.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Hmm, love them.
Man.
I'm learning so much about youand talk to me a little bit
about resilience.
You know, there's some like howdo you take survival?
Like you have to be resilientif you want to survive.
When you get into abundance,and then it's sometimes the
littler things that can kind ofderail people.
(18:44):
What advice would you give tosomebody who maybe lives in this
world of abundance?
You know, should they go to adeveloping country and really
see what it is to the lack ofabundance and the need for
survival, what could they do tohelp?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
them.
Master resilience Only if itresonates with you, right?
It depends on who you are as aperson.
It's there.
Listen, I have billionairefriends that are really sort of
like, so joyful and wonderful,and they're friends that are
really cramming.
It's not the money, it is, it'swho your heart is and your
(19:23):
heart doesn't change.
Your heart doesn't change.
The money doesn't make youholder.
It doesn't, if anything, itexemplifies who you always were,
and so when you start lookingat opportunities and where you
can help others, I think as youget older it becomes more of
(19:45):
your mission, right it's?
I've got less days on thisearth than what I've lived
already, so for me it's the,because I don't think I'll live
to be 112, but do we have?
The other side of that is whereI now have a responsibility to
(20:05):
give back.
I now have a responsibility tomake sure that whatever doors
were opened for me, I now openfor others, and that really is
something that's passionate inmy life right now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
That's awesome, and I'm reading a book right now
called Strength to Strength andit kind of talks exactly what
you're talking about.
In this latter stage of ourlives, I got a few great hairs
myself.
You know that you've gonethrough kind of a lot of the
struggle, and then this is nowour season.
Talk to me about that.
Is that?
Do you think that we kind ofcome into this season of giving
(20:38):
back?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I think it's our responsibility too.
I think it's.
You know, we're all a part of ahuman race, and there is others
that helped us get to where weare, and it would be selfish of
us to think that it was just us.
No one arrives anywhere in anylevel of success by themselves
(21:00):
no one.
And so whomever helped you wasbecause they were probably
helped also, and so this is thebeautiful part of the cycle that
should continue, and for meit's a passion for it to
continue.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Let's shift gears here.
So I know your time is very,very precious.
Where do you see so we'll gointo the real estate market here
where do you see kind of theindustry going You've been
through all these differentiterations of it with franchises
and so forth Kind of.
Where do you see this next fiveto 10 years?
What's your forecast?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, actually I'm gonna just stick to right now.
I think that in the last fewyears we have had such a bull
market, then I think it'sactually a disadvantage if
you've gotten into this businessin the last five years.
I agree, I think if you didn'tneed any skillset whatsoever and
you know and I say thissometimes and people get angry
at me, but it's actually areally true statement it was no
(22:03):
different than being a baristaat Starbucks.
It was like you were taking anorder, that's all you were doing
, and some people could takeoffense for that, and that's
okay.
It's the idea that in the lastfive years you didn't need to
have any skillsets.
You know, listen, I bought alot of properties in the last
five years and I can't tell youhow many times I've put in
(22:25):
offers where that realtor nevereven bothered to call me back
because I wasn't the winning bid, right?
So and for some of you folksthat are listening, they know
that they were probably doingthe same thing right, because
you were in the moment.
You had an offer, it closed.
You put something up in themorning, by lunchtime you had
(22:46):
eight offers and then you closedit three days later.
That's not a normal marketright.
What you didn't cultivate wasrelationships.
You didn't plant any seeds.
So the other eight people thatyou never call back that
actually put in the effort towrite you an offer.
Now you're trying to call, andwhy would they do business with
(23:07):
you?
So you need to cultivaterelationships and right now,
when there's a shifting market,I always say greatness happens
in down markets.
And when you start looking atthings historically, in 2008,
which was our last big recession, whatsapp was founded, uber was
(23:31):
founded and in 2009, obviously,exp was founded.
But you have some, and thereason they were is because
there's a pause in theconversation, when not all is
busy, right.
So when there's a pause, youstart getting creative, because
there's less transactions,there's less buyers, there's
(23:52):
less sellers.
Sellers still want to have theprice that they had two years
ago, which isn't happening.
So, as the market really sortof balances itself out, we have
to remember that our role asbrokers or agents is to put
buyer and seller together.
Price has no concern with us.
The market determines the price, we do not.
(24:14):
So the market determines price.
Our only job is to put buyerand seller together, but if you
have less of those two parties,you have a lot more time to
think, and so greatness happensin those times.
So, whether that's newtechnology that comes out,
whether that's new companiesthat come out, whatever that is,
(24:36):
you know that when I was inproduction in 2008, it was the
best year I ever had, and mostof my colleagues were actually
like really having the worstyear of their entire careers.
And why is because I shifted.
So my clients became financialinstitutions and hedge funds
(24:57):
that were buying properties atbulk.
So I was buying at a discount,but I was buying properties for
other financial institutionsbased on what their parameters
were.
So, yes, I did come from afinancial background and, yes, I
did have these contacts, butthere was always an opportunity
(25:19):
if you're agile and you figureout how to shift.
So I think that markets arecyclical.
I think this is a very healthymarket for us, where it becomes
healthy because they happen tohave cycles.
This last bull market we hadwas an extended period of a
cycle.
So this is so much better forus.
(25:39):
And you know, interest ratesare high.
Who cares?
Interest rates also go throughcycles.
So for somebody to say I'm notbuying a property because
interest rates are at 7%, it'slike you know, when I first
started buying properties,interest rates were double
digits.
So I think you just need tofigure out what the opportunity
is, figure out what your holdingperiod is, and this market will
(26:04):
normalize right.
And I think that a lot of thepeople that were in the market,
that shouldn't have been in themarket because they were just
order takers the market willtake care of that on their own
and those people will no longerbe part of our industry, and so
where you actually end up is anindustry full of professionals
again, with a market that willnormalize and we'll all have
(26:28):
good livings again.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I love the sound of that.
It reaffirms to me I appreciateit.
I got in in 2003 and I wentthrough that crazy up and did
some things that probably and Ilook back and I'm actually kind
of glad that I didn't make asmuch money as some of the others
did I was selling land and Ifigured out some things, how to
do it over the phone, beforethere was Mojo and all that but
I digress.
(26:50):
You know my dad, short salescame into play and I wanna ask
you this.
So it was very challenging,similar to this market in a way
that we have to go back to askills-based market and if
you're a barista and you have tohave skills, there's a bit of
friction there right to go frombeing a barista to know how to
actually cultivate the beans orwhatever metaphor you wanna use.
Do you think that opportunitylies in?
(27:14):
Because people are moving awayfrom something?
And then, is that what you'retalking about?
That gap?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Opportunity lies for people that look for
opportunities.
So when you have less people inthe industry that are and
you're right, probably baristasprobably had more skill sets
than agents did in the last fouryears they gotta figure out how
to put a smiley face with foam,right.
So there are some tricks there.
(27:39):
But seriously, I think that asyou have less people or less
competition, if you will andagain in air quotes then you are
.
If you're that professionalthat's trained and that's
focused in it, you are goingback to basics and being a
transparent informer ofinformation, right.
So if you're asking somebody topay you 3% or 6% of a
(28:03):
commission of a multimilliondollar sale, why should you earn
that?
What value do you bring to it?
Once you actually can answerthat question, then you have the
answer to the greater question.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I Guess digging a little bit more into that.
I love that, do you?
You think that we have tocreate more value in ourselves?
And that does have.
I'm trying to, I guess, digInto this friction because I
just I get so much pushback onhey, come to roleplay so you can
get your skills better.
I know how to talk to people.
It's like, do you?
Because you're you knowSomething's missing here because
(28:40):
you don't have the closingsthat you want.
So come in, is I love what whenI would talk about it?
You know, back a little bit tothe, the stoicism.
Right, marcus Aurelius used tosleep on the floor of the palace
and he was the most powerfulperson in the world.
To remind himself of that lifeis struggled to put himself kind
of in the place of those people.
So do you think that puttingyou know, say, for instance,
(29:03):
yourself, right, you most people?
Oh my god, it's good.
A house in the Hampton music atthis.
So this, why is he?
Why is he continued?
Do you continue to do difficultthings?
Talk to?
I was thinking this morning of,like what, ask him about his
morning routine.
So do you continue to kind ofdo challenging things like that
to hone yourself, or is thatjust sorry you?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
think you know.
But but we're already Definingit as difficult.
I think that it, once you gointo your habits, they're just
habits.
So, yes, I do wake up at fivein the morning.
I have my trainer was, was washere at 6 am and so I had my
workout and then I went for arun.
(29:41):
I come back and started mycalls around 8 30 this morning
and Will continue on, and mostnights I'll have a dinner with
friends or a colleague or aprospect or something for
someone within the organization.
So I have a dinner tonight.
So it'll go through and thenworking on what we're doing for
(30:05):
others as we go into largerprojects.
Right, so we've got two largeevents that we're doing.
You were part of a mastermindthat Leo and I did we're doing.
We're planning our last one inin Texas next month.
So we've got things that we'redoing and things that we're
juggling.
So, but yeah, no, I I startevery morning at 5 am.
I.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Figured?
I guess so, and I know I gottwo more minutes of your time
here.
What I meant by that was andMarcus really did this as well,
and it's in meditations that Hisalarm would go off.
Or maybe it was the rooster, Idon't know, but he would say to
himself like he could stay inthe warm sheets.
But then he said to himselfthis is not what a human was
(30:47):
built for.
This is not what even evolutionis.
Evolution has friction in it.
It's difficult to be that fishgoing out of the water becoming
a mammal over time, like why didit do it?
Do you think that we're builtlike Stride over the fittest?
That kind of thing like youwere meant to struggle to, to
grow.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I think we're built to evolve and I think of that
you know you, you were, you weresaying earlier, you know you
got to compare.
We don't know what darkness isuntil we know light, right.
So as we comparing, when you're, when you're saying, are we
meant to struggle?
Well, let's compare what thatstruggle means.
(31:28):
Sure, right.
So struggle is a is is a veryPersonal word, right, someone,
someone.
Struggle is another person'snirvana, and so I think, as you
start comparing things, it's,it's it's difficult to label,
(31:48):
right, because we can only labelfrom our own lens because
that's the only lens we've got.
But as we start looking out ofmore Global lens, I think it's
we turn the lens inward.
How do others see us Right?
And then it actually putsthings in perspective.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, I guess, and again, we were at 230 here.
I'm gonna have one morequestion for you.
If we, if we so say, forinstance, this say you're
somebody that's had a cushy lifeand Then that's been taken away
, that cushiness, if you will,you're on your own, maybe, maybe
you're, maybe you're 18 and youhad a cushy life, right, and
(32:30):
now you're off on your own andyou never were really kind of
those skills weren't built tohave the resilience to have the
dad that was, you Know, takenover, you know and and taking
things taken away from them andso forth.
What would you say to thatperson about?
Hey, it's time to read, maybereadjust that lens and Build
(32:50):
some resilience.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I think that if you're put in a situation, or a
person is put in a situation,where those skill sets are
tested, it's almost like whenyou throw a kid in the water and
he either you know, you knowyou're gonna save him, but he
doesn't Right, and so you'redoing it to teach them to swim.
(33:12):
But imagine that small childwho can't touch the bottom of
the floor and Thinks he's gonnadrown.
Right, it's.
No parent will let the childdrown, but the child in his own
lens.
They was.
Somebody just pushed me in thewater and I'm about to die.
(33:34):
But then what happens?
The child learns to swim.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So we have to push ourselves and get water in the
water, love it.
Well, I took one more minute ofyour time and, michael, thank
you so much.
Is there any way people canreach out to you?
You know what?
Do you want to give any specialkind of plugs or anything like
that?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Me on all social media to Michael Valdez global,
all my handles are the same andit's a little bit social media
and I love to respond and answerany questions and help anyone
that I can.
You're true.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You're, you're a true gem.
Michael, thank you very muchfor your time.
You've always been graciouswith it.
You've always had a smile onyour face and a great
Encouragement and notice thelittle things of like about my
daughter and that kind of stuff.
You're, you're.
You're a genuine, you're agenuine gift and I want to
appreciate you and thank you foryour time.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Thank you, my brother , for everything that you do and
everything that all the livesyou have touched as well.
So thank you for who you are,alex, and it's always a pleasure
to be with you.
All right, welcome everybody to another episode
here of the Stole Cage ofPodcast.
Have a super cool guest here ontoday.
I have the Chief Growth Officerfor EXP and this is not a
recruiting video here.
So we're going to step into themind of someone who's been in
the finance industry, been inthe real estate industry and
going to hopefully be able toshed some light here and add
(00:21):
some value, and hopefully I knowfor certain he's going to be
able to.
Michael Valdez, welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Alex, thank you so much.
My brother, he's the best,sharpest dressed man in real
estate.
Your charmer.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you, sir.
Well, hey, why don't we offerthe audience, just so they get a
little bit of a texture on yourbackground?
Why don't you give us theencapsulation of what brought
you even to this point here?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, for sure.
As you said, I'm the ChiefGrowth Officer at EXP.
I've been at EXP a little overthree years now.
Prior to that, I was a seniorvice president at Rilogy and I
was at Rilogy for 15 years.
Were your audience members thatdon't know Rilogy?
That was the holding companynow known as Anywhere.
That was the holding companyfor Sotheby's, cobble of Anchor,
(01:05):
century 21, era, better Homesand Garden and Orcren.
I led the global expulsion forall six brands which, when I
laughed in 2020, we were at 113countries at about 300,000
agents.
Then I met Glyne Sanford.
I actually met JasonGessing-Furze, who was our CEO
(01:26):
at EXP at the time.
He and I sat on a panel onglobal real estate in New York
at the end of 2019.
I had met Glyne at Inman at theend of 2019, beginning of 2020.
We were supposed to have justabout a 20-minute conversation
on what would an EXP global looklike.
(01:48):
That meeting ended up being twoand a half hours and it was one
of these things where I justsaw the vision of what Glyne was
doing and what he had createdwith EXP.
I thought, oh my God, this is atrue disruptor in our industry.
Conversations progressed, Ijoined in May of 2020, and we've
(02:09):
been able to open up over 20countries in a little over two
years without getting on a planeduring a pandemic.
It's something that's neverbeen done in our industry, and I
think it's been done because ofthe platform that this was
created.
Prior to that, I was in bankingfor 10 years at Deutsche Bank,
and so a lot of finance andglobal experience.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Fantastic.
That's a great encapsulation,Dave, for me.
I'd like to go back a littlebit to your Deutsche Bank days.
What kind of Deutsche Bank wasbefore Realogy?
Oh yeah, Wait before.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It was in my 20s?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, what was it like at Deutsche Bank back there
?
I'm more really curious,because Deutsche Bank gets a
little bit of a rub about beinga little bit of a dumping ground
for the global ecosystem as faras banking's concerned.
I'd love to hear your take onthat.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's an interesting thing.
I was literally in my 20s whenI was in banking and this was in
the late 90s.
I am much older than I look.
This was during that time andit was really interesting
because I was really building astrong portfolio and I was
(03:26):
dealing with three differentgroups of clients.
One my real focus was AmericanIndian tribes and I was doing
diversification of their assets.
The American Indian tribes fellunder the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, which was under the DOJ, and they were obviously a
tax-free entity Prior to 9-11,if we did a JV, that junior
(03:51):
partner actually inherited theirtax status.
We did a lot of diversificationwith the Indian tribes and at
one point I had 18 Indian tribesthat I was representing.
Then I was doing a lot of thewealthy Latino families around
the world just because of myheritage.
It was a lot of focus indifferent areas and then, of
(04:16):
course, the tech industry,because it was basically the
start of the internet.
It was three really interestingfocus groups that I was working
with.
When 9-11 came, obviouslyeverything changed.
I was in banking at that timestill, when risk management
(04:39):
changed and obviously everythingchanged overnight, then it was
a time of trying to re-figureeverything, if you will and
still serve the client's needs.
Everyone was trying to figurethat out at that point in time.
By that point, I had been inbanking almost 10 years and
(05:01):
decided that an early retirementwould have been good.
I did that and startedinvesting in real estate just
from my own portfolio.
That's how I got licensedactually was from my own
portfolio.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
So when you do, was that investing down in Miami?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I did.
I started investing a lot inMiami.
I already I had a home in NewYork, I had a home in Hamptons,
and Miami to me was aninteresting investment.
I started investing in Miamiearly on in 2004 or so.
So this was almost 20 yearsthat I've been investing in
Miami real estate and itcertainly has changed a lot in
(05:44):
the last two decades, but it'sbeen something that I enjoyed
and the reason that I actuallystarted buying in Miami was
because it was sometimes lessamount of time to get to Miami
than it was to get to my home inHamptons.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Well, yeah, you know I want to shift gears here a
little bit.
I'm curious always is you'reobviously a high performer,
right, and so I was like thestep in the minds of a high
performer and bring that valueto the audience.
So what kind of?
Where did you go to college andwhat kind of led you down this
path of incredible success, youknow, and a real diverse success
(06:22):
as well.
What was kind of yourbackground?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
So I'm border raised in New York, I'm into NYU and
had, I think, a lot of it camefrom my dad.
My dad was Batista's ChiefLegal Counsel in Cuba and was
arrested as a political prisonerwhen Castro came in and was
released in a prisoner exchangeprogram during the Bay of Pigs,
and so there was a history therewhere you know someone who
(06:49):
worked really hard and then hadeverything taken away from them
was a sense of tomorrow's neverpromised, and I think there's a
certain amount of whatever driveI might have inherited that is
subconsciously inbred by that,by that experience.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Feel that back a little bit, man.
I love that tomorrow is neverpromised.
Is that part of what drives you?
I was talking to the agency theother day and you know some of
them are struggling and then Isaid, well, you're gonna have a
struggle there, and then thenext struggle is when you
actually are okay financially.
How do you keep that hunger?
Is that the kind of thetomorrow is never promised?
Is that what you're doing?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think a part of it was through living my life
through my father's lens, butalso at 25, I was actually
diagnosed with colon cancer andso went through that almost 30
years ago.
At this point I'll be 57 thisyear.
So when you start going throughthat in your 20s, when you're
(07:51):
not, you know you're notsupposed to talk about your own
mortality when you're in your20s, and so I think both of
those experiences wheretomorrow's never promised was
actually, you know, really sortof exemplified in my life, and I
think that from there it reallyis seizing something that is
(08:14):
before you.
One of the things that reallyirks me about anyone is laziness
.
It is something where you knowwe're all fortunate enough to
have opportunities presented tous that are limitless.
The only thing that's finite istime.
Everything else is infinite,and if somebody doesn't really
take advantage of what's beforethem, just think of it as
(08:36):
irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You know it's funny because it seems like the
experience from your father thatwas passed down and then it was
crystallized with that coloncancer experience that you went
through right, which obviouslyhad a visceral experience on you
rather than ancestral.
What do you think not to getnegative or anything, but like
what do you think, kind of, isthe thing that keeps people back
(09:04):
, like, when you do have thisinfinite time and you have, and,
coming from Cuba, the infiniteresources and the infinite
opportunities that we have here,what is holding people back?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
The belief that they can't, and I think that that, in
my estimation, is our only.
We have our own self-imposedprisons, right, and the irony of
it is that we're also theprison guard and yet we hold the
key.
And there's, it's almost aself-fulfilling prophecy in
(09:39):
saying I can't do that, or youknow, the greatest one is the
thing of all try, and trydoesn't exist in the human
language.
You know you can't try to dosomething.
If you challenge somebody totry to pick up a pen, they'll
either pick it up or not, right,so try doesn't exist.
(10:00):
You either do or you don't.
And you'll know from the verystart.
If you, if you have somebodywho says you know, come, come to
, to my party on Friday, and youknow you'll say I'll try,
you'll know, you know you're notgoing.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know you're not going right, yeah, so try
doesn't exist right, so you'llknow from the start.
And so in our vocabulary it'sjust almost like a comma or like
or like a stop, and to me it'slike when we actually sort of
put it into our own world andsay I'm going to try to do this
(10:38):
or I'm going to try to succeed.
It's a self-professing failurebecause you're not going to do
it.
If you say I'm going to go andand succeed, it's.
It's a roadmap, right, you knowwe don't get into a car without
sort of hitting our GPS orhitting ways, and you know.
(10:59):
You put an address into yourcar or into your phone and you
sort of know how you get there.
You have a roadmap.
So if you know where you wantto end up, that's the first step
and then you work backwardstowards it.
So people that are saying youknow failing at what they're
attempting, it's simply becausethey're not attempting.
(11:19):
Attempting is trying.
So you have to actually go inwith a, with a game plan.
It's so shocking to me how manypeople in our own industry who
are really just CEOs of your owncompany, if you're an
independent contractor and anagent do not have a business
plan.
What do you, as a soleproprietor, ceo of a company
(11:43):
which is your own company, as anindependent contractor, not
have a business plan?
How do you not know what youwant to earn at the bottom at
the end of the year?
How do you not know what yourcustomer acquisition cost is?
How do you not know what yourmarketing costs are?
How do you not know thesethings?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Do you do you uh, there's so many different places
we go with this Do you do youplace the blame on the
traditional education system?
I mean, you'd have to go toWarden or something like that to
get that acumen.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Oh, oh, oh, oh, come on.
No, it's like you know I'mbaiting you a little bit, but
I'd say it's, uh, it's.
Look where we're in.
A people business.
You do business with peoplethat you like, and trust period
right, you don't have to goanywhere for that.
You just have to be likable andtrustable.
And so if somebody has trust inyou and likes you, you're 80%
(12:40):
of the way there.
You have to be transparent.
You have to really care aboutsomebody else.
You know it's, it's, it's trulybeing a, a, a, a humble servant
to somebody else.
It's how somebody really doesgain success in their own.
I mean, it's the old ZigZiggler quote.
It's the idea of going andhelping as many people as you
(13:03):
can is how you become wealthy.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I love that we could dig into that, but I want to big
jack up because I didn't.
I didn't think I articulatedthe question well, uh, the
financial acumen right, sopeople get into real estate.
Maybe they are great people,people pleasers, right?
Or or they're.
They're good at buildingrelationships and they're good
at following up in that, butthey're not good business people
, which would be to have thatbusiness plan.
(13:30):
I guess that was my question.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I'll hire somebody to do it, but you need to sort of
have a roadmap, right?
It's the idea of you want it,no, and and and, by the way,
it's it's simple that you don'tneed to go into.
You know the, the ROI of an adthat you put into Facebook or
social media, not asking that.
You know.
(13:52):
If you want to earn $100,000 ayear or a million dollars a year
, just figure out what's youraverage sales price in your
market.
How many homes do you have tosell in order to reach that?
What's your, what's your splitwith your company in order for
you to reach that?
What's going to go in yourpocket?
So this is simple math, right?
(14:13):
So, from every transaction, howmuch will you earn?
What percentage of that willget you to your goal?
And then, how many calls or howmany, how many sort of meetings
do you have to have to have thelistings or to have the buyer
to get to where you want to toachieve?
So it's simple math.
The other complicated math youcan hire an accountant for to
(14:35):
get the P&L and that Sure.
Yeah, even the P&L, I think ispretty easy too.
You know, you put everything onyour corporate credit card.
You figure out what you'vespent.
You figure out what you'vespent per listing, you'll figure
out what your cost was for thatlisting.
I mean, it's all segregation ofexpenses.
So parts of it are pretty easytoo.
(14:56):
But start simple.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Let's shift gears here a little bit.
So your dad obviously had thatexperience, but he was a mentor
in working hard and tomorrow isnot promised.
I love that one.
Who were your early mentors?
I mean, you had a roadmap rightso we can know where we wanna
go, we want.
Do you believe it's good tohave guides along the way, and
(15:21):
those could be in the form ofmentors?
Who were some of your earlymentors?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, I think mentors happen every day.
I'm like you know.
I still look to mentors formyself even today, but I think
that there was for me early on.
It was actually my grandmother,and so I spent a lot of time
with her, and she actuallypassed away when I was 13,.
(15:47):
But I spent every summer withher and she was from Spain, and
so I would spend my summers withher in Spain and she was a very
resourceful woman who was.
She was widowed when my motherwas five years old and she never
remarried.
So you know, she was a humblewoman, but she really needed to
(16:08):
figure things out, and there wasa lot of tenacity in her that I
admired and still do, so Ithink she was one of my early
heroes.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Well, the Spanish are certainly renowned for their
tenacity, was she Basque orCantononian.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
She was Galicia.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
What would you say a couple of the top lessons were
that she taught you.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Well, I would sort of say it's resilience, it's
survival.
You know, when you start sortof thinking about, as a single
mother of two children my motherand my uncle at such an early
age where she needs to fight and, by the way, it was my maternal
grandfather died of coloncancer at 33 and I inherited
(16:55):
that G, so that's, and I waslucky that I actually found out.
When I did so, I found that asa blessing and to me it's really
anything that happens throughyou in life where it might seem
as a tragedy in some instancesit's the greatest gift ever.
So to me it was.
(17:15):
You know, when I was diagnosedat 25, I would be like my God,
you know, this is horrific, it'sthe end of the world, right.
So you can look at it any wayyou want to.
But what I actually sort oflooked at was I cared less about
what people thought of mebecause it wasn't paying my
(17:36):
mortgage.
I didn't really care.
And in your 20s it becomes yourworld that you want to be liked
, that you want to be, you wantpeople around you to really
accept you, and that to me earlyon was a great lesson that I
just needed to like the personthat I saw in the mirror, and so
(17:58):
that early on was a greatlesson for me, because it was
every day was a gift.
After that, and now we're goingon 30 years of gifts, so that
to me is a great blessing.
And you start looking at how doyou leave your legacy from here
, right?
So what is it now?
(18:18):
That's the next chapter ofleaving a legacy behind for
others.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Hmm, love them.
Man.
I'm learning so much about youand talk to me a little bit
about resilience.
You know, there's some like howdo you take survival?
Like you have to be resilientif you want to survive.
When you get into abundance,and then it's sometimes the
littler things that can kind ofderail people.
(18:44):
What advice would you give tosomebody who maybe lives in this
world of abundance?
You know, should they go to adeveloping country and really
see what it is to the lack ofabundance and the need for
survival, what could they do tohelp?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
them.
Master resilience Only if itresonates with you, right?
It depends on who you are as aperson.
It's there.
Listen, I have billionairefriends that are really sort of
like, so joyful and wonderful,and they're friends that are
really cramming.
It's not the money, it is, it'swho your heart is and your
(19:23):
heart doesn't change.
Your heart doesn't change.
The money doesn't make youholder.
It doesn't, if anything, itexemplifies who you always were,
and so when you start lookingat opportunities and where you
can help others, I think as youget older it becomes more of
(19:45):
your mission, right it's?
I've got less days on thisearth than what I've lived
already, so for me it's the,because I don't think I'll live
to be 112, but do we have?
The other side of that is whereI now have a responsibility to
(20:05):
give back.
I now have a responsibility tomake sure that whatever doors
were opened for me, I now openfor others, and that really is
something that's passionate inmy life right now.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
That's awesome, and I'm reading a book right now
called Strength to Strength andit kind of talks exactly what
you're talking about.
In this latter stage of ourlives, I got a few great hairs
myself.
You know that you've gonethrough kind of a lot of the
struggle, and then this is nowour season.
Talk to me about that.
Is that?
Do you think that we kind ofcome into this season of giving
(20:38):
back?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I think it's our responsibility too.
I think it's.
You know, we're all a part of ahuman race, and there is others
that helped us get to where weare, and it would be selfish of
us to think that it was just us.
No one arrives anywhere in anylevel of success by themselves
(21:00):
no one.
And so whomever helped you wasbecause they were probably
helped also, and so this is thebeautiful part of the cycle that
should continue, and for meit's a passion for it to
continue.
Love it.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Let's shift gears here.
So I know your time is very,very precious.
Where do you see so we'll gointo the real estate market here
where do you see kind of theindustry going You've been
through all these differentiterations of it with franchises
and so forth Kind of.
Where do you see this next fiveto 10 years?
What's your forecast?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, actually I'm gonna just stick to right now.
I think that in the last fewyears we have had such a bull
market, then I think it'sactually a disadvantage if
you've gotten into this businessin the last five years.
I agree, I think if you didn'tneed any skillset whatsoever and
you know and I say thissometimes and people get angry
at me, but it's actually areally true statement it was no
(22:03):
different than being a baristaat Starbucks.
It was like you were taking anorder, that's all you were doing
, and some people could takeoffense for that, and that's
okay.
It's the idea that in the lastfive years you didn't need to
have any skillsets.
You know, listen, I bought alot of properties in the last
five years and I can't tell youhow many times I've put in
(22:25):
offers where that realtor nevereven bothered to call me back
because I wasn't the winning bid, right?
So and for some of you folksthat are listening, they know
that they were probably doingthe same thing right, because
you were in the moment.
You had an offer, it closed.
You put something up in themorning, by lunchtime you had
(22:46):
eight offers and then you closedit three days later.
That's not a normal marketright.
What you didn't cultivate wasrelationships.
You didn't plant any seeds.
So the other eight people thatyou never call back that
actually put in the effort towrite you an offer.
Now you're trying to call, andwhy would they do business with
(23:07):
you?
So you need to cultivaterelationships and right now,
when there's a shifting market,I always say greatness happens
in down markets.
And when you start looking atthings historically, in 2008,
which was our last big recession, whatsapp was founded, uber was
(23:31):
founded and in 2009, obviously,exp was founded.
But you have some, and thereason they were is because
there's a pause in theconversation, when not all is
busy, right.
So when there's a pause, youstart getting creative, because
there's less transactions,there's less buyers, there's
(23:52):
less sellers.
Sellers still want to have theprice that they had two years
ago, which isn't happening.
So, as the market really sortof balances itself out, we have
to remember that our role asbrokers or agents is to put
buyer and seller together.
Price has no concern with us.
The market determines the price, we do not.
(24:14):
So the market determines price.
Our only job is to put buyerand seller together, but if you
have less of those two parties,you have a lot more time to
think, and so greatness happensin those times.
So, whether that's newtechnology that comes out,
whether that's new companiesthat come out, whatever that is,
(24:36):
you know that when I was inproduction in 2008, it was the
best year I ever had, and mostof my colleagues were actually
like really having the worstyear of their entire careers.
And why is because I shifted.
So my clients became financialinstitutions and hedge funds
(24:57):
that were buying properties atbulk.
So I was buying at a discount,but I was buying properties for
other financial institutionsbased on what their parameters
were.
So, yes, I did come from afinancial background and, yes, I
did have these contacts, butthere was always an opportunity
(25:19):
if you're agile and you figureout how to shift.
So I think that markets arecyclical.
I think this is a very healthymarket for us, where it becomes
healthy because they happen tohave cycles.
This last bull market we hadwas an extended period of a
cycle.
So this is so much better forus.
(25:39):
And you know, interest ratesare high.
Who cares?
Interest rates also go throughcycles.
So for somebody to say I'm notbuying a property because
interest rates are at 7%, it'slike you know, when I first
started buying properties,interest rates were double
digits.
So I think you just need tofigure out what the opportunity
is, figure out what your holdingperiod is, and this market will
(26:04):
normalize right.
And I think that a lot of thepeople that were in the market,
that shouldn't have been in themarket because they were just
order takers the market willtake care of that on their own
and those people will no longerbe part of our industry, and so
where you actually end up is anindustry full of professionals
again, with a market that willnormalize and we'll all have
(26:28):
good livings again.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I love the sound of that.
It reaffirms to me I appreciateit.
I got in in 2003 and I wentthrough that crazy up and did
some things that probably and Ilook back and I'm actually kind
of glad that I didn't make asmuch money as some of the others
did I was selling land and Ifigured out some things, how to
do it over the phone, beforethere was Mojo and all that but
I digress.
(26:50):
You know my dad, short salescame into play and I wanna ask
you this.
So it was very challenging,similar to this market in a way
that we have to go back to askills-based market and if
you're a barista and you have tohave skills, there's a bit of
friction there right to go frombeing a barista to know how to
actually cultivate the beans orwhatever metaphor you wanna use.
Do you think that opportunitylies in?
(27:14):
Because people are moving awayfrom something?
And then, is that what you'retalking about?
That gap?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Opportunity lies for people that look for
opportunities.
So when you have less people inthe industry that are and
you're right, probably baristasprobably had more skill sets
than agents did in the last fouryears they gotta figure out how
to put a smiley face with foam,right.
So there are some tricks there.
(27:39):
But seriously, I think that asyou have less people or less
competition, if you will andagain in air quotes then you are
.
If you're that professionalthat's trained and that's
focused in it, you are goingback to basics and being a
transparent informer ofinformation, right.
So if you're asking somebody topay you 3% or 6% of a
(28:03):
commission of a multimilliondollar sale, why should you earn
that?
What value do you bring to it?
Once you actually can answerthat question, then you have the
answer to the greater question.
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I Guess digging a little bit more into that.
I love that, do you?
You think that we have tocreate more value in ourselves?
And that does have.
I'm trying to, I guess, digInto this friction because I
just I get so much pushback onhey, come to roleplay so you can
get your skills better.
I know how to talk to people.
It's like, do you?
Because you're you knowSomething's missing here because
(28:40):
you don't have the closingsthat you want.
So come in, is I love what whenI would talk about it?
You know, back a little bit tothe, the stoicism.
Right, marcus Aurelius used tosleep on the floor of the palace
and he was the most powerfulperson in the world.
To remind himself of that lifeis struggled to put himself kind
of in the place of those people.
So do you think that puttingyou know, say, for instance,
(29:03):
yourself, right, you most people?
Oh my god, it's good.
A house in the Hampton music atthis.
So this, why is he?
Why is he continued?
Do you continue to do difficultthings?
Talk to?
I was thinking this morning of,like what, ask him about his
morning routine.
So do you continue to kind ofdo challenging things like that
to hone yourself, or is thatjust sorry you?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
think you know.
But but we're already Definingit as difficult.
I think that it, once you gointo your habits, they're just
habits.
So, yes, I do wake up at fivein the morning.
I have my trainer was, was washere at 6 am and so I had my
workout and then I went for arun.
(29:41):
I come back and started mycalls around 8 30 this morning
and Will continue on, and mostnights I'll have a dinner with
friends or a colleague or aprospect or something for
someone within the organization.
So I have a dinner tonight.
So it'll go through and thenworking on what we're doing for
(30:05):
others as we go into largerprojects.
Right, so we've got two largeevents that we're doing.
You were part of a mastermindthat Leo and I did we're doing.
We're planning our last one inin Texas next month.
So we've got things that we'redoing and things that we're
juggling.
So, but yeah, no, I I startevery morning at 5 am.
I.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Figured?
I guess so, and I know I gottwo more minutes of your time
here.
What I meant by that was andMarcus really did this as well,
and it's in meditations that Hisalarm would go off.
Or maybe it was the rooster, Idon't know, but he would say to
himself like he could stay inthe warm sheets.
But then he said to himselfthis is not what a human was
(30:47):
built for.
This is not what even evolutionis.
Evolution has friction in it.
It's difficult to be that fishgoing out of the water becoming
a mammal over time, like why didit do it?
Do you think that we're builtlike Stride over the fittest?
That kind of thing like youwere meant to struggle to, to
grow.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
I think we're built to evolve and I think of that
you know you, you were, you weresaying earlier, you know you
got to compare.
We don't know what darkness isuntil we know light, right.
So as we comparing, when you're, when you're saying, are we
meant to struggle?
Well, let's compare what thatstruggle means.
(31:28):
Sure, right.
So struggle is a is is a veryPersonal word, right, someone,
someone.
Struggle is another person'snirvana, and so I think, as you
start comparing things, it's,it's it's difficult to label,
(31:48):
right, because we can only labelfrom our own lens because
that's the only lens we've got.
But as we start looking out ofmore Global lens, I think it's
we turn the lens inward.
How do others see us Right?
And then it actually putsthings in perspective.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Yeah, I guess, and again, we were at 230 here.
I'm gonna have one morequestion for you.
If we, if we so say, forinstance, this say you're
somebody that's had a cushy lifeand Then that's been taken away
, that cushiness, if you will,you're on your own, maybe, maybe
you're, maybe you're 18 and youhad a cushy life, right, and
(32:30):
now you're off on your own andyou never were really kind of
those skills weren't built tohave the resilience to have the
dad that was, you Know, takenover, you know and and taking
things taken away from them andso forth.
What would you say to thatperson about?
Hey, it's time to read, maybereadjust that lens and Build
(32:50):
some resilience.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I think that if you're put in a situation, or a
person is put in a situation,where those skill sets are
tested, it's almost like whenyou throw a kid in the water and
he either you know, you knowyou're gonna save him, but he
doesn't Right, and so you'redoing it to teach them to swim.
(33:12):
But imagine that small childwho can't touch the bottom of
the floor and Thinks he's gonnadrown.
Right, it's.
No parent will let the childdrown, but the child in his own
lens.
They was.
Somebody just pushed me in thewater and I'm about to die.
(33:34):
But then what happens?
The child learns to swim.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So we have to push ourselves and get water in the
water, love it.
Well, I took one more minute ofyour time and, michael, thank
you so much.
Is there any way people canreach out to you?
You know what?
Do you want to give any specialkind of plugs or anything like
that?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Me on all social media to Michael Valdez global,
all my handles are the same andit's a little bit social media
and I love to respond and answerany questions and help anyone
that I can.
You're true.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
You're, you're a true gem.
Michael, thank you very muchfor your time.
You've always been graciouswith it.
You've always had a smile onyour face and a great
Encouragement and notice thelittle things of like about my
daughter and that kind of stuff.
You're, you're.
You're a genuine, you're agenuine gift and I want to
appreciate you and thank you foryour time.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Thank you, my brother , for everything that you do and
everything that all the livesyou have touched as well.
So thank you for who you are,alex, and it's always a pleasure
to be with you.
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