The Single Mom's Guide to Conquering Real Estate Investing w/ Zasha Smith

what is meant to be will come your way, but you also have to go and search for it too. You have to put yourself in the right room. Maybe you got to pay for those right rooms, and that's fine, but that could lead to so much more. So that's why I always harp on investing in yourself, educating yourself, but also networking with other people. You never know, one person could change the trajectory of your entire life, of your entire journey. So go to those meetups. Just be open and try to think of some way too, you can add value to others.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez.

Hey, everyone welcome back to the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do yourself one teeny, tiny little favor. Make sure to give us a follow, because I don't want you to miss any of the amazing guests I have coming on this year. But without further ado, let's get right into this one. Zasha, for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to get to know you, to get to see you on IG or any of the social media platforms, tell us your quick little elevator pitch who are you and what do you do?

Aloha everybody. My name is Zasha Smith, raised here on the island of Maui, and I'm a full-time real estate investor.

All right, and this is my favorite question, because I guess people would go back in a time machine, as I like to say. So take us back in a time machine. What was it like growing up in Hawaii? What was it like as a child? Was the money, what was the topic of money and wealth? Like growing up.

Well, definitely here people have an image of what it's like to live in a vacation spot. But there's also the other side. Growing up here, drugs, low income, because the cost of living is so high. So growing up, I mean, my dad went to jail, my mom had to raise us as a single mom. We lived in low income housing. Very much money was never there, and so we were always trying to find ways to make money, as in elementary school I remember, like just buying candy from the store and then selling it at school We'd have garage sales and car washes, I don't know when I was like third or fourth grade. So we're always trying to help my mom, you know, be able to survive, especially here in an expensive market. I put my. I ended up graduating from Maui High School and put myself through college because I wanted a different route. My mom never went to college. I was actually the first one out of my entire family to graduate with a bachelor's degree and I always thought, like you know, that's the way to make it out, and especially living here, you have to be like a doctor, lawyer or engineer something in order to make ends meet. So, coming home, I graduated with a bachelor's in civil engineering and I actually also had my first daughter while I was in college, so that was a little bit of a struggle as well, but it honestly gave me more of a push to want to finish and do it, cause I don't know if you're from a small town or not, but my first year I got, like you know, I was wanting to move back home Cause it was scary, it was a new environment. I went to Cal State, long Beach, so California and Hawaii I mean similar weather kind of, but not really similar people in the aspect that you know, there's highways, there is high rise buildings, there's so many more people. But it really opened my eyes to what else is out there. It gave me the opportunity to know that there's this bigger life out there than just, you know, living on a small island. But I ended up moving back because I had my daughter realize that the cost of housing was so expensive. So I, partnered with my mom, bought our first house together as a duplex. So she lived in one side, I lived in the other. It was two units and after we sold it we realized that we didn't have to pay taxes on the profit. So we sold at 300 net profit, we split the 150 and we didn't have to pay taxes because we're living in that house for the two out of the last five years. So that got me thinking like, hey, there's something with this real estate thing. And so my job required me to work like 60 to 70 hour weeks. I was always away from my family, you know. A few years later I got married, I had my second child and really I was always tired, I was overworked. I started going to work on the weekends and it was a lot of brain work. So as a civil engineer, you're designing underground utilities for subdivisions, hotels, shopping centers, like really intense things, and so I was already used to managing crews and contractors, staying on a schedule, staying on budget, and so when I was talking to my husband one day, he was just like you know, they're getting the best of you and we're getting the rest of you. You're always tired. So that really struck a chord in me to be like, ok, I need to find something else that I can do in order to replace my income. So started Googling, like any millennial you know, like how to quit my job and get rich, or like how to quit my job and survive, or what else hide side hustles I could do. Found real estate, dove into bigger pockets, which is a free resource, a podcast they have a website up as well and from there just kind of took off.

That is an amazing story. I kind of want to touch on the the selling candy at school, because I always like to say that I wasn't the traditional entrepreneur. I got into the game a little late compared to most people. I was, I think, 20 when I read Rich Dad, poor Dad. Yeah, I was 19 when I read Rich Dad, poor Dad and then, you know, it took me a little while, but that's when my whole world kind of flipped. So, selling candy bars at school, how did that entrepreneurial spirit kind of play out throughout the course of your life, whether it was at your job, whether it was away while you're at college, like how did that help you pretty much go on throughout your earlier, earlier years?

Was more. So, you know, for me early on I did realize it was more of connections and more of catering to what people wanted. So even though the candy, you know, like we bought from Costco or I guess they have Sam's Club over there, we have Costco over here but you know you can get a pack for a certain amount and then if you divide them all out, ok, this might cost me 50 cents for one. If I go and sell it at 75 cents, I'll make like the difference and people pay for convenience. I feel like that had been the underlying philosophy that I'd learn, just being entrepreneurial and then learning how to negotiate. Because some people they don't want to pay the 75 cents. I'm like, okay, what if I include, you know, an M&M and a Snickers for this price and to make it worth their while? So I'd offer a little bit of a discount. So I think I was always just used to that mind frame of you know, people will pay for an end product or to, you know, I guess, get a result and for that it was just like candy, or like when we had car washes, right, it was like we lived on one of the main streets here, on McConny Road, and so it was easy to advertise whenever we had car washes and then we people would pull up and be like, okay, how much is a car wash? We'll be like, okay, $5. And like, oh, I only have $4. Okay, then we can only just wash down the car, we're not going to use soap or whatever. So I learned early on how to, I guess, like pivot or just kind of negotiate our way to still be able to make money too. So I think it just comes from the environment and I also had a few sisters. I grew up with three other sisters, so we're very competitive as well, but I also had the help around. It was like growing up with a little team, you know, especially around the neighborhood.

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I remember I saw my family on my mom's side of the family is Dominican and I went to Dominican Republic back I think it was 2019. And I kid you not, like whenever my uncles would go out somewhere, it's like every conversation was a negotiation, like super Chris Voss style, like every whether it was a food truck or you know a little, you know food stand, or whether they were getting a mango or you know getting plantains, whatever it was, there was a negotiation everywhere in the Dominican Republic. And I think it's a a lost start. I think people are afraid to ask, even like now, afraid to ask for what they want, because most people realize whatever is you know, don't realize that whatever is said usually isn't as far as people were willing to go, and if you know how to negotiate definitely helps out a lot, and so the transition a little bit. Then you got into the engineering space and then you said you bought a house with your mom about a duplex. When you were buying that house, was it like, okay, let's get a duplex, maybe we'll stay investing? Like did the bug kind of hit you there? Or was it just like, okay, I want to live in one unit and want my mom to live in the unit. The other unit, like what got you into investing into, you know, buying a duplex instead of just buying one big single family house.

Well, I didn't qualify on my own for anything here because it's so expensive. So, I knew I needed either a co-signer or someone else on the loan, and so my mom had been renting, I was renting, and at that time we were both single moms. So and now I was old enough, I graduated from college, I had a really good job, and so for me and her it was more so about stability. And then you know later on, if we had kept the house, we could have kept it as like a family house and started building our wealth together as a family. So it wasn't intentional to start like investing in real estate. And now the they coined the term like a house hack, right when you have multiple units on a property and you collect rent. But my mom ended up moving out because she moved to another island for a job opportunity and so I ended up renting out her side. I think our mortgage at that time was only like 1500. So I rented that side for 1500. And then I also I had a three bedroom. So I rented out one of the bedrooms to one of my friends and she was paying me $400 a month, so that helped cover utilities. So I was basically living for free. You know, I think I was 24 at that time and I mean I didn't, like I mentioned, didn't intentionally start investing, but then that got the wheels turning to like, okay, if I have multiple, if I'm living in the house, I get a place to stay, plus I have other people like paying for it and then building wealth and appreciation and all those other stuff. It really did A light bulb went off, but not necessarily to become a real estate investor, it was more so. Okay, I got to figure out this, how I can do this more often, and I think it's a good place to start too for people who are just beginning, even in your life. Like don't go and buy that first home with a white picket fence. That's everything you always dreamed of. Like you can always move. You just need something like start building your wealth now by something and living it, even if you qualify. If it's just a little condo or something like that, you can always house hack by renting out rooms. If you buy a duplex, you know, of course if it's connected to you, you want it to also be somebody you trust, so very much vet those people. But there's a lot of opportunity there. If you can only qualify for something on your own, or if you want to start but not be so intentional like I want to be investor, I got to buy a rental property. Know your rental property could be your property.

Yeah, 100%. It's funny. So I'm licensed as an agent but I really don't like doing any agent stuff. I stopped doing it a while ago. I told you before we hit record that I'm more like the marketing and the course stuff started things now and in the podcast, of course but I was talking to my best friend's dad and he was sending me a couple properties in this one town. It's known around here as not to be like the town you want to live in, but he's under your purple properties. He was just like John, if I like, if I have to sleep on the floor, I'll do it like I don't care. I just like I just want to get into home ownership and it's like I mean maybe not going to that extreme, but like he has the right idea. It's like people, so you know, want to get into like yeah, I got to have this that this new floors knew this, knew everything, and then have a first-time home buyer budget and it's like I don't know how any of this is gonna work out. But we could pray, right, that's probably the best we could do. And so let me ask you now. So you got the duplex, you ended up selling it. I didn't have to incur any taxes on it because you guys lived in it for after a while. I know you. I think you already had a couple I think close to 30 40,000 on IG, so I'm a little late to your journey as to when everything started picking off. I know you got a lot more now, but what was your journey? So, after you sold the duplex, of course, how did you really get started in real estate investing? Like what was your process? Where you're going to network and meet up, do you have like a local RIA? Like what were you going to? And how did you start getting like the knowledge to Really get your investing career and journey started?

Well, so from that house we decided to sell because my mom actually needed the money. And then I got married and so I was looking for another house to live in and, like I mentioned before, even with my husband's income we could barely qualify for things. Or we're just realizing, like our mortgage payment would be so high if something happens to one of us, like we might end up in foreclosure. So we started looking at those foreclosed properties that were listed on the MLS and then my uncle had told me that he had bought a home. At the courthouse I was like what, how do people do that? What does that mean? So I started, you know, diving deep into foreclosure auctions and started attending them actually live here on Maui ended up that's how we bought our first home and From doing renovations, from going through that whole process, there was like a freaking clouded title. There was an expired permit, like we still limit it to this day because we're still closing. We finally got the title cleared, we Close the permit, and it was like it took four years to do that. So be mindful that any of these strategies off-market that you try to do, or if you're doing creative financing and all that, there are some downsides to it or some things to challenges to be aware of when you're buying off-market, because you don't have that realtor or the escrow company there to kind of protect the ownership of the home and be able to trace it back. Or if there is like open permits and things like that, unless you go and check with the county prior to buying and I was very new to this, I didn't even know to check for those things. But we fixed that up and Ended up going to the bank and I was like, oh my gosh, we just spent all our savings, all my money, from one house to another. And I was just talking to a teller at Bank of Hawaii and she's like, well, why don't you get a key lock or do a cash-out refinance to get your money back? I was like, what are those things? So it was just like asking the right questions to the right people. From there we ended up doing the bird strategy. So we bought the house, we renovated it well, burr, that we lived in and we ended up refinancing, getting back all our money that we put in. I think we were all in about 80,000 getting a conventional loan. We got all our money back and then we also got a hundred and twelve thousand dollar key lock on top of the home. So there was already built-in equity. So from there that was like, oh shoot, how the heck did we get this money like, and we don't have to pay taxes on it or anything? So that kind of blew my mind too. I was like, wait, so we sold this house, we lived in it, we didn't have to pay any taxes. Then now we're pulling out money from this other house. We don't have to pay taxes on that. I was like, okay, now I got to get more into this real estate thing. So with that hundred grand we ended up buying our first rental and then I bought my first flip. We started going to meetups, like really diving deep, and then I joined a mentorship. So it wasn't it wasn't necessarily like me getting into these networking space and being around other people. It was like seeing for my own eyes from purchasing my own homes like, wow, there's really something to you can really like. This is how the rich get richer. Like you know, leveraging equity and leveraging loans and debt.

No, 100%, and it's one of those things where there's so many different ways that you can make money in real estate. It's insane and it kind of separates perfectly into my next question which I wanted to ask you. You've met a lot of people from all different experience levels in terms of their real estate journey and, as you know, there's like a trillion different vehicles in real estate alone, like on the investing side. Then you have like the agent side of things. Like there's so many different avenues in real estate to make money, to build wealth. From what you've seen, what are some of like the biggest misconceptions? Because real estate is like I mean, we have bigger pockets, we have all these different real estate influencers and it looks like amazing from social media, but like what are some of the biggest misconceptions behind the scenes? Screw ups, whatever that usually doesn't get shown on social media, that people don't know what they sign up for until they actually get into it?

A lot of it has to do with the construction part and the rehab. That's where things can go left, especially if you're not working with good contractors. So there's some contractors I've worked with them once they did great jobs and then, as things go on, then they slack or they ask for bigger payments up front and then don't end up doing the work. So I think that's something to be very much. If you're doing these high rehab homes, being aware that there's going to be additional costs, it's always going to go over budget and over the price, over the timeline as well, like it's just inevitable. Every single project that I've done and we've been conservative with it, it's just that's. It always happens. If you're in the fix and flip game, and even in the refinance game, now you see interest rates are way higher than they were before. So some places that we wanted to keep as rentals, we're just flipping them because we couldn't even project before. When you buy a property, say, for me, it usually takes me six to eight months to renovate it. So in that six to eight months timeline, like the interest rates doubled and we maybe we said, okay, it's 3% now, maybe it'll be 5% or 6% Now it's like 8%, 9% for investment loans. So with that, just to give you perspective, if you had, like you were projecting an 1800 a month, you know mortgage payment, now it'll be 2400. Like that's a huge gap difference. And of course in a lot of places the rent doesn't always keep up with the actual cost of the home. So expenses come in. Putting aside when people say, oh yeah, I'm renting this, my mortgage is 3000. I'm renting for six, so I'm making three grand it's like no, you have to set aside money for insurance, taxes, emergencies, maintenance, like there's going to be. These big capital expenditures come up like leaks that happen in the home, even if it's a brand new home. Some something gets stuck in the tub or in the toilet and then you know leaks everywhere. So it's just to be mindful that you have to definitely put aside extra money for those types of expenses that do come up, and they do come up often 100%.

So I got three things from that, the first of which is always run your numbers before you get into anything real estate related. The second thing is always run your numbers conservatively. And then the third thing is always have a plan B. And so I kind of want to ask you on that third part, because in life we always hear the if you want to seize the island, burn the bridge, burn the boats, right. If you want to seize the island, burn the boats. But in real estate investing it's like the complete opposite. So I want to ask you like what mindset shifts do you have to adopt to find any level of success in real estate? Because, as you know, the failure rate is extremely high and most people don't stick with it long enough to see the light of day. So it's like what do you have to that mentally going in, now that you have a lot of experience, now, now that you know a lot of other people would experience, you talk to these people, like what mindset do you have to adopt to start finding success and be able to persevere through the thick of it when you're starting off?

I think you have to realize that you're not alone. There is always somebody that can help you, but oftentimes that comes at the price you might have to give up some equity, like, say, you are going to flip something and then now you have to hold it long term but you don't qualify for a conventional loan. Go and partner with somebody that does qualify and that can get you out of that situation. So it's being able to pivot in those times and make use of your network, because they're going to want to do it If it's a good deal and a cash flows and you already ran your numbers for that. But there's, I've been able to scale so quickly through partnerships and it has to be the right partner. Right, you have to have the same morals, integrity and vision in order to partner. But there are people out there, especially if you find a really great deal that you can leverage to get out of situation. So it's I think the mindset is always knowing that there is a solution, like you'll never be backed into. Even when you're backed into a corner, there always is a way out. It just might cost you a little bit, or like if you have to hold something for a while and it's negative cash flowing like but it's an appreciating market. You know there's there's always different angles to look at things and sometimes it takes working with an experienced investor to really see that.

Yeah, and so I want to actually because, like working with someone, I feel like a lot of young people have this ego. Because you're young, you're hungry and I'm actually speaking about myself right now You're young, you're hungry, you're passionate, you're energetic, you have a good head on your shoulders and it doesn't play out like play out the way you draw it up a lot of the times and that could be very discouraging. So it's like, what have you done in the days that it didn't go as planned? To pick yourself back up Like what? What does it look? Cause for me, as I said, I ended up pivoting entirely out of real estate to, as I said, now I'm doing like marketing and stuff like that for realtor. So it's like for the people that want to stick in it, right, how do you pick yourself back up and just keep on pushing through when it doesn't go as planned and when you have might have that ego that kind of gets in the way, whether it's the ego getting away of a potential partnership, that it's beneficial, or getting in the way of a deal or whatever it may be. But how do you pick yourself back up?

I think it's just realizing that, like, 50% of something is better than 0% of nothing. So for me, even when I do feel like, man, I really messed up or this deal or I could have done this differently, I just keep moving. I just keep pushing because I know there's so many more deals out there that I could be getting or that will pick up or even out whatever loss that you may have taken, and that's fine For me. I already know this game is a roller coaster Like investing in real estate is crazy. But what is more, I think what gets me out of that slump is that, one, a lot of my rentals that I have now are Section 8 or HUD or have people in it that have rental assistance. And two, my slips majority of them I sell to first-hand home buyers or somebody local here that will add value to the community. They don't always have to be the highest price, the highest offer or, you know, have the most money or the most stability. If I know that that family really wants that place. Like I, put a lot of hard work and effort into these homes I wanna see somebody in it that'll appreciate it. So if I'm making whatever I gotta make and I could be making more selling to a cash buyer or somebody who wants their second home. That's not really my target. So I think you just stepping back one, remembering your why, being like okay, I'm doing this for, build wealth for my family, inspire others. But two, you're really the impact or the difference that you can make on other people's lives that's what's kind of pulled me out of or shifted me out of having these challenges along the way is like, okay, why am I really doing this? Just taking a step back and figuring out what I gotta do next time too to prevent that, but also just staying motivated, right If I feel like in a slump or something's gotta change. So what can I control? I can only control myself. Maybe I just start reading more, maybe I start getting up earlier, maybe I start ramp up my exercise routine, maybe I've been a little lazy, I don't know. There's a lot of factors that can contribute to you feeling a certain way, and a lot of times it's mental right.

So thinking about that health side of it, that'll help pick up that professional side too 100% and like on this topic, like the mental side of things, are there any like real estate people that you looked up to that helped you get started to just learn about real estate? Once you decided to take this seriously, like, how did you begin investing in yourself? I know you mentioned networking meetups. I mean, I don't know how many of us live in Hawaii so we might not be able to attend yours, the ones that you go to but at least digitally. What did you do? Like what programs, if you don't mind me mind sharing did you start looking into that helped you? Or what YouTube you know YouTubers or blogs that you just did you start reading? Or podcasts that help you get started learning about this stuff? Cause we both know it's a lot to kind of consume and there's like a lot of technicalities and it's like the more you do real estate, the more you realize how much you actually don't know any of it, because there's always some law or by law or zoning code or something that just always pops up. So like, how do you start in, you know, learning about this stuff? So, for anyone that wants to get started, For me.

I joined a mentorship. I got my first two deals. I was running to Lowe's on my lunch break. I was meeting contractors on the weekend, paying them cash. Some of them weren't even completing the jobs. So I learned a lot, even though my first deal, my first flip, I made 103 net. With making all those mistakes, it was a different market in 2019. So now you have to be much more conservative. But I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and so I knew I needed more guidance and I wish I had joined a mentorship earlier, just so that I wouldn't have to go through that Cause it was still working full time as well. But it was a learning lesson. I ended up joining Ryan Pineda's Wealthy Investor and, honestly, that's how that opened up my mind to like, holy moly, these guys are doing things on like such a large scale and doing things all across the country, and so that's kind of what shifted in me, and I mean, since I joined his program, I joined Peace Morbis program. I'm constantly joining these programs that I'm interested in because I know whatever I put in, I'll get back. Like 10 times I've partnered with people in those programs that I've made six figures with five figures with Like just different streams of income have come from that and you know, the content creation side ended up blowing up as like a frigging influencer who knew on Instagram and get deals. I've raised over a million dollars off Instagram. I've partnered, I don't know, on nine, nine or 10 deals just this year from social media and people bringing me deals. So it's been a crazy kind of transition from going from full time engineer working in the office in a cubicle all those years. You know, for a decade I didn't start till I was freaking 30. And then I got financial freedom at 33. So it only took me three years to become a millionaire, to build up, you know, and now I have 17 rentals. Now I'm 37, just FYI. So it's been a while but I have 17 rentals. You know I'm a co-GP, I'm a general partner in 100 to 200 unit apartment projects. I've made over a million dollars fixing and flipping. I raised private money off Instagram and social media and connections and networking. So if ever you're thinking like man, you know you have this self doubt or self limiting beliefs are like oh, I don't know if I should go to this meetup. I get a lot of people that come to our meetups here and they're like oh, I don't know if I should be here. I don't know anything about real estate. I was like that's exactly why you need to be here. You need to be connecting with people, because I partner all the time people in this room. If you have a deal, somebody, you will be able to get the money. It's no doubt. You'll just have to figure out the equity splits and what that looks like. But you know what? I've had a lot of people launch off, partner with me and then be able to do their own thing and fly, and I love that. That's the one thing that keeps me going in sharing and having this abundance mindset. Like you know, some people are like oh, I figured out the secret way of like how to get deals and I got to keep it to myself, or I got to. You know it's. You have to have that mindset of abundance and just believe that you know what is meant to be will come your way. But you also have to go and search for it too. You have to put yourself in the right room. Maybe you got to pay for those right rooms and that's fine, but that could lead to so much more. So that's why I always harp on investing in yourself, you know, educating yourself, but also networking with other people, because that's how I got into. I did it. I just got into apartment buildings last year. I know, I know what's it called drive to want to become an apartment investor. It's just I linked up with one guy. One thing led to another. He's like there's this great opportunity, you could be a partner on the deal on this 110 unit in Austin, texas. I was like, okay, what do I got to do? Like you know, so it was already. Had built that rapport with him. I had built that connection, met him a few times and, just you know, scaled from there. So, you never know, one person could change the trajectory of your entire life, of your entire journey. So go to those meetups, just be open and try to think of some way to you can add value to others. So if you're really good at Excel or bookkeeping, you know, add that value to other people. Brandon Turner, who lives right here on Maui he ended up hiring this local guy who was, like you know, a good at accounting and Now they're, he's a part of their team. He has equity in their billion dollar company. So you never know what value you have to add to somebody else.

I love that you mentioned that. I think like this could be a quick game plan, and this is what I've done, honestly, is survey people but don't make it seem like they're being surveyed and just ask some questions like, hey man, what are you struggling with? And act as if you know you're there and you want to just generally have a conversation with. What are you struggling with? What are your biggest fears around? Whatever this topic? For me, in my case, it was content creation. Right, you know? What are you currently doing for? Fill in the blank, what do you would like to be like an ideal world. And then my favorite question is if you could wave a magic wand, what would help get you from where you at right now to where you want to be? And then, whether that's for content creation or whether that's for being, you know, a bird dog that helps find people deals, whether that's driving it for dollars, but finding I think the best skill you could have as someone that's young or someone that's inexperienced is the ability to find gaps, and I love what you said about, you know, going to networking events and just seeing how you can provide value to people, and finding the gaps will help, definitely help me get to where I'm at. I'm not a big shot yet, but it definitely helped propel me in my journey. So I want to, you know, sell everybody. Where can we find you at? As I said, I've been keeping up with you for quite some time now, but for my audience, who might not know you yet and wants to learn more about what you have going on, sasha, where can we find you at?

I'm mostly active on Instagram at invest with Sasha, or you could go to my website, sasha Smithcom, but I love sharing my life. I love doing the stories on social media and just giving people real insight, letting them know I'm still a real person, I go through a lot, but it often inspires other people to know that, you know, we I've came from nothing now made you know millions of dollars to real estate, but I'm still the same person, and so I love to showcase that as well and hopefully inspire other people to at least get started, at least buy your first home. You know, even if you can buy one property, one property can change your life and your family for generations 100%.

And now it's time for our rapid fire round. Question number one what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life?

The most impactful lesson is that somebody always has it harder than you. So renting to people on Section 8 or on rental assistance whenever you know I walk through them in the home like the look of appreciation that they have that somebody will even work with somebody on rental assistance is huge. It's a game changer. And then it also makes me realize how blessed I am to have been successful. I've worked for it, you know, all my life. But now I'm able to give back to other people who some other you know landlords overlook. So that has been one of the key pivoting moments and what keeps me driven to keep doing this.

What is the most admirable trait a person can have?

The most admirable probably perseverance, I would say ability to get through anything pivot, be able to figure out different strategies or different ways that things can go and, like I mentioned before, just always be able to find solutions. There's always a way that you can get out of something.

If you had to change someone's life but only had one book, which book would you recommend?

Which book I would say atomic habits. I believe that you making a schedule, making best use of your time, time blocking and just getting into the habit of doing the small, boring, monotonous tasks or waking up early in the morning, creating a routine, will definitely help set your mind, first and foremost, and then set you up for success for the entire day, especially if you're very intentional about what you need to do.

Question number four what is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind?

Definitely that you can build wealth while making an impact, a positive impact on your community. For me it's all about. You know, not necessarily even with my kids. Now I tell them they're not going to just get handed down everything. They have to work for it. So my daughter at 16 years old, she just read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I'm going to be teaching her kind of how she can manage properties, how she can get into it. She talked to me about possibly wholesaling, but I want to leave the opportunity open to her. She wants to get. She's seen all these stuff on TikTok like vending machines and point operated laundry and things like that. So I definitely want to instill in her that entrepreneurial mindset, but also making sure that along the way she is giving back in some sort of capacity, whether that be renting to people that actually need the home or that be donating to some sort of charity and, you know, just remembering that the more money we make, the more we have to get 100%.

And final question for anyone that wants to embark on their walk to wealth today, what is the first step you recommend they take?

Surrounding yourselves by like minded people or people who are where you're wanting to be. So, whether that be attending a free webinar, listening to walk to wealth podcasts or, you know, just going to a meetup, actually, I think once you take yourself out of your comfort zone, you'll realize that it's not as scary as you thought it was, and so for me, that's been. Networking with other people had got me started listening to bigger pockets and just filling my mind with positive things and even doing affirmations in the morning.

When. That is all for this episode. As I said, I've been looking forward to this for a while now. We've made it through all the hiccups in the obstacle that you know life through our way during this interview, but thanks again for having. I'm so excited to have been able to have you on a podcast and I'm looking forward to staying in touch.

You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walk to wealthcom. That's walk the number two wealthcom so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of walk to wealth with john mendez.