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Itunes – www.TonyJavier.com/itunes 

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Guest Bio: Alex Pardo

– Family man first: Married to Natalie, and have 2 beautiful girls (Arianna & Alessia)

– Worked in Corporate America at GE Capital for a few years before starting my entrepreneurial journey in 2005

– Closed somewhere north of 600 deals

– Main niche is wholesaling in South Florida, and building a free and clear rental portfolio in Cleveland, OH

– Host of The Flip Empire Show (Podcast). Launched in 2016, with more than 420 episodes published

– Co-Founder/Coach with ASCEND (Mastermind & Coaching Program for Entrepreneurs who want a better LIFE & BUSINESS)

– Co-Founder of Holiday Mastermind (100% of net proceeds go to Charity)

More about him – www.TonyJavier.com/alexpardo

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Show Transcription:

Tony (00:02):
Hello. Hello. Welcome to today’s show. We’ve got Alex Pardo. He is a real estate investor in South Florida. He has done over 600 deals in his career. He runs a very successful podcast himself and also runs Masterminds. So I’m excited to have him on the show. How are you doing today, Alex?

Alex (00:19):
I am Fantastic, Tony, thank you so much for having me on the show brother. Loved the fact that you’re doing this now. So cool.

Tony (00:26):
Absolutely man, glad to have a seasoned pro on the show here. So I’ll just open it up to you, man. Just give us a little background about yourself, what you’ve done and, you know, we were just talking a little bit ago and it seems like we’ve kind of gone down similar paths. So just kinda jump in and tell everybody your story and how you got where you are.

Alex (00:44):
Yeah, man. So, you know, I think back, I think my story was born and raised in Miami. Cuban parents, my sister and I were the first ones born in Miami and you know, 10, 11, 12 years old. I grew up playing baseball. So I was at the park every single weekend. And after games I would always go and buy baseball cards. And then I quickly found myself essentially flipping or wholesaling those cards to my friends. And I didn’t even know what that was at the time, but I’d buy a card for two bucks and I’d sell it for three. And I just kinda got a kick out of transacting basically and fast forward, about seven, eight years I got into college at FIU and I don’t know if it was an ego thing, but I wanted to, I saw myself as like a CEO or a CFO of a fortune, like a big company, like a fortune 100 company. So I started interviewing with Johnson and Johnson’s of the world and ended up getting a job with General electric in their financial management program. Well brother three months into that job averaging 70, 75 hours a week. you know, my eyes were just cross-eyed from looking at Excel all day. Absolutely hated it. I was like, I could never work for somebody else. I looked at my boss and her boss and all the way up the ladder and I’m like, you couldn’t pay me enough money to do this. It just wasn’t for me. But I had a two year contract. So I finished that off during that time I discovered Carleton sheets and bought.

Tony (02:04):
That’s how I got into it.

New Speaker (02:06):
There you go, man. So I thought real estate was about assuming loans. That’s the funny thing. Right. but that really opened my eyes to the fact that, Hey, like there’s a business here and there’s a lot of moving parts. So I just started to educate myself. I stumbled upon Robert Kiyosaki and obviously read rich dad, poor dad, and then thinking about growing rich. So I knew I was going to transition out of the corporate world and I was going to start my own real estate business. I just didn’t know what that looked like. So I moved back to Miami. I moved into my back to my parents’ house, which is a key part of the story I’ll circle back to and I ended up backpacking around Europe for three months. So went to like 20 something countries, 50 something cities and towards the tail end of that trip, I’ll never forget. I was in an internet cafe in Ibiza and a buddy of mine sent me an email, a guy by the name of Dave Lindahl was doing this like marketing for Dios bootcamp in Atlanta. It was 997 bucks. That seemed like all the money in the world. To me, I had financed this backpacking trip on my credit card, seven grand in debt and it was a defining moment for me and I almost didn’t do it. Thank God I did end up paying a thousand bucks. I got back from that boot camp and I essentially took a pre-foreclosure letter. I ripped it out of the three-ring binder I made photocopies. You could still even see the little like holes. And I started stuffing envelopes and stamping them. And I sent out about 320 something letters to a pre-foreclosure list. One thing led to the other, I set up some appointments, had no idea what I was doing fast forward, about two, two and a half months ended up closing my first deal, which was 44 grand, almost as much as I was making a GE. And that was late 2005. And been doing that ever since.

Tony (03:49):
That’s sweet man Like, so I, first of all, we didn’t talk about Carleton sheets. You’re one of only like myself and I think one or two other people that I’ve actually heard bought that course that actually use it and made it work. Like I’ve heard, like I’ve literally probably met a hundred people that were like, Oh, that really works. And they have it on their shelf. They’d never listen to this. You know, it just came on CDs when I bought it was on tapes like the year before. That’s how long ago it’s been.

Alex (04:16):
Just to be clear, so it actually didn’t work, but not it’s just because I didn’t put it to work. I think what the credit I give Carleton sheets in that program is that it just opened my eyes to the fact that, Hey, I can make money with real estate, but I didn’t actually implement, I was still working my corporate job. I didn’t do any real estate until that was 2003 a couple of years later when I got out of that program. but it just more kind of gave me the springboard and the confidence that, Hey, I can do this.

Tony (04:41):
Sometimes that’s all you need. We talked about that a little bit ago is you just need the vision, man. Like you get a vision of something. It doesn’t matter how you get there. You’ll figure it out. If you have a vision of something, man, you’ll figure out the tool and the mode to get there.

Alex (04:53):
Hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Tony (04:55):
So cool. So you’ve been successful in real estate, you’re still doing that. you know, we, we kind of talked about your transition into kind of helping people a little bit more. So you’re running mastermind groups, you’re doing your podcast. So tell us a little bit more about that and your mission to kind of cue people to get out of the not necessarily rat race, I guess rat race could be part of it, but just kind of entrepreneurs getting their own way. So tell us a little bit about that.

Alex (05:22):
A hundred percent, you know, back about 2009, 10, 11, I kind of got into the internet marketing world and I created a course on wholesaling and did a big product launch and all that. And that’s really when I got the taste of helping people and impacting others the first four or five years, I was kind of a one man show. And then I hired a VA after reading Tim Ferriss’s four hour work week. And I started to kind of build a little bit of a mini business. Right. But it was all about me. And after creating that course, it helped a lot of people. And I would have people randomly reaching out to me and say, Hey, thanks for that course. That really helps. And there was a certain kind of high I got from that, if that makes any sense and then I continued doing deals and building a business and because of that course, every year, a handful five, six, seven people would come to me and would want coaching. So I would take on coaching clients on a one on one basis. It wasn’t a coaching business. I just wanted to kind of taste it. And I really enjoyed it when it was with the right person. But over the last couple of years, Tony, what I’ve realized is that I’m not passionate about real estate investing anymore, like chasing deals and closing deals. Don’t get me wrong. The money’s great, but I get more happiness out of seeing my team win than I do. Just because of that wire that comes in from another deal, that’s closed that we’ve done so many of them and I don’t take it for granted, but it’s just another deal. Right?

Alex (06:42):
I get more fulfillment out of somebody reaching out to me randomly and saying, Hey, that podcast episode was on fire or it really helped me do this. I truly get more enjoyment out of that then closing another deal. So about a year ago, a year and a half ago, I kind of felt, I don’t know what your beliefs are, but mine are, you know, I felt God was kind of tapping me on the shoulder. Like Alex, there’s something bigger you’re supposed to do with your life. Not just, you know, have a wholesaling business and do a bunch of deals every year. And so I started to do a lot of inner work and figuring out what, what made me tick, what gave me fulfillment, what gave me energy. And that’s when ascend was born, which essentially it’s a mastermind, a pretty intimate mastermind. It’s not like a very big group. For entrepreneurs that’s who I enjoy working with. Not necessarily just real estate investors, but entrepreneurship is what I’m passionate about and people that I saw, so many people, Tony sacrificing relationships, health, and life in the pursuit of a bigger business and more money. And my belief is you can have both, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, and I’m sure you, you know, several people that they make a lot of money, but they’re miserable or their relationships suck or they’re overweight, or they’re just not in good health. And so through a lot of the work that we do in life and air, I’m sorry through ascend, which I learned from life and air was having a vision for your life and then designing a business to support that vision versus what I think a lot of people do, which is the reverse, you know, they, they sacrifice life in their pursuit of money in a business and then they’re just not happy.

Alex (08:14):
And for me, uh, dude, happiness is like the ultimate ROI. You know, the other stuff is, is kind of the vanity metrics. In my opinion, it’s important that we all know our KPIs and our numbers, but, um, I don’t measure success anymore by how much money that I make this year. It’s about, am I happy? Am I fulfilled? I realized that kind of sounds up in the cloud a little bit. and I probably didn’t feel this way years ago, but I’ve kinda gotten to a point in my career where it’s, I get more happiness out of just impacting others.

Tony (08:44):
Well, you know, the, the most successful real estate investors that I know are the ones that have moved on to something that’s more fulfilling. Right? I mean I’ve seen guys doing a thousand deals, like literally a thousand deals and I can tell that they’re probably pretty unhappy and then I’ve seen, you know, the other side of it. So, you know, like I said, we have similar stories and the fact that we don’t love real estate that much anymore, I still like seeing the deals come across. I still like growing the team. I still like having the culture that we have in our business. but to me it’s more than that. Like, you said, the real measure of success is like how fulfilled you feel at the end of the day, I used to chase so many different rabbits down a hole and I would do it because I wanted more. Right. I wanted to achieve more. I wanted to make more money. Now, when I take things like this podcast here, it’s to, you know, have something that’s more fulfilling. It’s to provide value to other people. And I have, I have a rule now I don’t take anything on my plate that I don’t love doing and that if I grow it, it’s not going to take that much more energy from me. It’s going to actually bring energy to me. So I don’t know how you feel about all that, but it sounds pretty similar. Yeah.

Alex (10:06):
You took the words. I mean, it’s all, so along those lines, it’s very similar. I now filtered like my decision making process isn’t necessarily how much money am I going to make? As an example, does this bring me closer to my vision? This gives me energy and fulfillment or does this suck away some energy. So, um, but when you establish boundaries and you’re very clear about what you want, it gives you the headspace to make those decisions, like with a clear approach, if that makes sense. Ao yeah, you and I are in alignment there.

Tony (10:38):
Cool. Yeah, someone said it the other day. I was teaching something, an online class and someone mentioned that they’re like, you know, either something gives you energy or something sucks, your energy away very quickly. It’s one or the other, some are in between. But usually…. So my deal is I want to take the things that suck my energy and get them off my plate and put as many things that provide energy to me. Like these conversations like masterminds, we both love masterminds and stuff like that.

Alex (11:09):
Something I’ll add Tony for you know anybody listening ask yourself, does it give me energy? Does it take energy? And then I always ask, I’m always challenging myself. Like, can I outsource this? Can I delegate it or can I delete it right? Can I outsource this to another company or service? Or can somebody get this off my plate? Can I delegate it to somebody on my team? Or can I just delete it? there’s been so many times where I’ve found myself doing things because I’m just accustomed to doing it. But when I really stepped back and asked myself, like, what’s the desired outcome here? Like, why, like, why do I have to do this? Oftentimes it’s you don’t, it’s just you get comfortable. You’re used to kind of doing it. It’s your routine and you can free up a lot of time, which can be used much better just by asking yourself those three questions.

Tony (11:55):
That’s interesting because I call it the 3d method. I try and do this every single day. What can I delegate to someone else? What can I delete that I don’t need to be doing? And what can I defer until later? Like, there’s things that you just have to do. It may not even be important to your mission, your vision, your business right now, and defer to later. So you can, you know, do the things that are most important to you in your business right away.

Alex (12:18):
So that’s good. That’s good. I like that.

Tony (12:19):
Yeah.what else do you want people to know about you?

Alex (12:24):
Oh man. You know, it’s the weekend that’s a loaded question. you know, it wasn’t always this way we talk about passion and we talk about purpose and mission. And I don’t know if you would agree with me here. What I find is when I have conversations with people about what’s your passion, what’s your mission? What’s your purpose? Most of the time, you kind of get a little bit of a blank stare and that’s because it’s kind of hard to figure that out. And I think people are just not spending enough time to get super, super clear on why they’re here. You know, it’s my belief that we all have a unique ability. We all have God given talents. And I think, you know, if you’re listening to this and you take nothing else from this, but you take this away, I think it’s going to be extremely valuable for you to get very clear on what your talents are, what your gifts are. It’s so much easier to Excel and succeed in something when you’re tapping into your unique ability.

Alex (13:16):
Are you familiar Tony with Dan Sullivan from the strategic coach? And he talks about the genius zone, you know, where you send an email out to 20 people that know you and you basically ask, Hey, what do you think is my superpower? What do you think comes natural and easy to me? And I have found that in doing that, sometimes people will recognize a gift or a talent in you that you didn’t even think you had. You know, when I did that, I’ve done this several times, but the last time I did it, I had more than half of the people tell me, Hey, you’re a really good connector. And I never once associated myself with being a good connector. And when I think about it, I’m like, yeah. You know, when I talk to people, I’m always fit. I can add value in their life, you know, and how I can be able to resource or connect them to something or someone. So, you know, figure out what you’re talented at and then lean into that. You know, and along with those lines, if you’re fearful of something and it’s a healthy fear, or if it’s not a healthy fear, right? Like touching a stove is a healthy fear. You don’t want to do that for obvious reasons. But the non-healthy fears, like for me years ago, it was public speaking. Like even being on video, I’ve never wanted to do this. I realized years ago I have to lean into this. And now it’s been one of the best platforms I’ve ever had in the podcast. And it’s given me opportunities. So there’s so much to be said for leaning into the things that were fearful of.

Tony (14:38):
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So people may be tuned in because they’re like, man, these guys have done quite a few deals between the two of us. We’ve done well over a thousand deals. So some people probably want some nuts bolts, so let’s try and give them some nuts and bolts. So what are some things that drive your business? Like if you had to look at a couple of things in your business that said that, you know, these things drive your business, whether it’s something in marketing, whether it’s something, you know, you do with your team, what are some nuggets you can give to people that you can say, drive your business.

Alex (15:08):
There’s, three that immediately came to mind for me. Number one, it’s consistency. Right? We can talk about every marketing channel under the sun from, you know, something old. And non-sexy like bandit signs to direct mail, to something like text message marketing or whatever, right. It all works. If you work right, you have to remain consistent with these actions. Number two, you have to track, you have to know your numbers. You have to know your key performance indicators. You know what you might hear. KPI’s are an acronym thrown around a lot. You have to know your numbers because it’s going to help you make decisions moving forward about your business. it’s like as if you’re driving in the spirometers broken, you know, and you’ve got a cop behind you, you don’t even know if you’re following the law, if you’re not following the law. So to me, the KPI’s is the speedometer on the dashboard and like your RPMs and all that other stuff. Number three, surround yourself with the right people. Like to me, that’s a make it or break it thing. I’ve had great team members and the business has thrived and I’ve had the wrong team members and the business has failed. The businesses that have failed because of them. It failed because of me. Cause I wasn’t clear in the fact that I was putting the wrong people. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book by, um, what’s this guy’s name, a good to great Jim Collins talks about putting the right people on the right bus, in the right seat. If your business is failing and you have the wrong people that’s your fault. So take ownership and take responsibility, take accountability for that. It’s not their fault.

Alex (16:37):
Number two there’s a culture in your business, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, you have to be very purposeful about creating the type of culture that you want. And that starts with setting the tone. And number two, you have to get very, very clear on the type of people that fit that culture and are going to enhance the culture that you want in your business. So consistency, KPIs, and then just make sure that you’re hiring the right people. Um, those three things have probably been aside from mindset and some of those other things that are just very obvious. Um, those are probably the three biggest factors, when I’ve achieved success.

Tony (17:15):
Yeah. I think the people piece is huge because obviously we can’t do anything without other people. So that’s other people in your business as employees, that’s contractors, that’s people you hang out with on a daily basis. They say you’re the average of the five people you hang out with the most. And so if you want to make more money, you hang out with people that are making more money. If you want a more positive mindset or better energy, you hang around positive people. I just, I swear I have like a negativity meter, like these days, like I am very sensitive to negativity. Like if someone says something negative, like I’m seriously just want to walk in the other room.

Alex (17:49):
I’m the same exact way man.

Tony (17:52):
Yeah. I can’t stand it. So those are some really good points and, you know with surrounding yourself with good people, that’s why you have the masterminds, right? Because you want to make sure that the people that you bring into the group, they’re going to be good for each other and help each other. That’s what’s great about the mastermind. So I guess a little bit more into that. So tell us, your experience with your masterminds, I guess, masterminds in general and why people should look at getting into masterminds?

Alex (18:25):
Such a great question. And I’ve been a part of masterminds, Tony for the better part of 10 years. I think I joined my first mastermind in 2008 or 2009. I want to say I’ve been a part of a number of masterminds. Some have been fantastic. Others have not been so great. First thing, you know, if you’re considering a mastermind, let me take a step back. Let’s say you’re not considering a mastermind. Why would you want to make a large investment? Number one, this sounds very obvious, but the best investment you can make is in yourself. I don’t know if you, if you know, ed my lead, very successful entrepreneur and he talks about this analogy. So I want to give him credit about it. Think of a thermostat on the wall. And we all have, we’re all set to a certain degree. Let’s say most of us are 70 degrees. Well, if you open the door and a bunch of cold air comes in that AC, that thermostat is going to kick up the heat up the room. And when we get in mastermind, when we get around other successful like minded people that are high achievers the degree in the thermostat goes up. Like now all of a sudden we become 80 or 90 degrees because we’re in a room filled with other people that are operating at a higher level. Now the reverse also happens, right? So like, if we’re hanging around the wrong people, people that are not high achievers that are lazy or whatever, we’re gonna kind of cool back down, and that’s not where we want to be. And so what masterminds have done in my life is they constantly push my degrees up where I may have started at a 70 degree, or now I’m closer to 90 or a 100 degrees because I’m constantly immersing myself in that kind of environment where brother, I don’t know if you can relate to this. I’m sure you can. But when I leave a mastermind, I find myself thinking a little bit different. I find myself thinking bigger, saying, I can do more. I can achieve more. And it doesn’t necessarily mean a number of deals or in dollars, but sometimes it’s just one little slight tweak in how I think about something or a different perspective or a mindset shift that unlocks so much like opportunity and potential. Um, and so masterminds, you know, realize it’s an investment in yourself. And also it’s, it’s hard to do this alone. You know, like sometimes entrepreneurship can be very lonely and when you have a community of people that you can tap into, Hey, I’m struggling with this. This is my challenge. People can walk alongside, pour into your life and in your business. And it’s very hard to accomplish that when you’re not part of a community of other entrepreneurs.

Tony (20:53):
No doubt. Yeah. I’m a part of several different masterminds. And you said you had a bad mastermind experience. Honestly, I can’t say that I have had a bad master. Well, I’ve had a semi, like I joined a mastermind one time. It was super high level. I enjoyed the group. I was in it for a year. I got tons of value, but at the end of the day it was like, it wasn’t the perfect fit for me. So it wasn’t necessarily a bad experience. It just wasn’t quite the right group. But still, I got like 10 to 20 times the return on investment. Right. Um, but…

Alex (21:26):
No, I was going to say Tony, when I think back now, the only mastermind that I’ve had a bad experience with was a free mastermind. Okay. So maybe that was coincidence or maybe not, it, it wasn’t structured. It wasn’t organized. It was just kind of like, let’s figure it out. Let’s hop in a room and no agenda that there’s no formality to it. So I think that says a lot, but you were kind of going down this path, my apologies for jumping in, but you got to get clear on what you want, where you’re at in your life, where you’re at in your business. There’s a lot of great masterminds out there, but you have to figure you out first and then find, look at leadership, look at the people that run the mastermind and ask yourself, is this primarily just a business for them? Because it’s a very lucrative business. Let’s be honest. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but is their heart in it? Are they passionate about really helping people and enhancing the members’ businesses or lives? So interview leadership as much as they might interview you and make sure that you’re associating with one that’s going to help you get to where ultimately you want to go.

Tony (22:29):
Yeah. I always say that you’re, you know, one conversation, one relationship, one tip, one tool away from completely changing something that you’re doing or your whole business potentially. Yeah. And that’s what I love about, you know, being around other people and you know, for the first 10 years of my business, I never, like, I literally almost never asked for help. Like I thought if you asked for help, you were weak and you didn’t know what the hell you were doing, which honestly, I kind of didn’t, you know, the first 10 years you’re figuring things, especially the first five years. And so I kind of just put my head down and just like, didn’t ask for help. And it’s in social media, it’s a lot easier these days you can post something on Facebook and probably get an answer. But when you’re in like an intimate room and you can say, Hey guys, I’m struggling with cashflow or I’m struggling with an employee or I’m struggling with, and you have like 5, 10, 15 people like hammering down on that with you and just saying, here’s what I’ve done. Here’s what I, what I think, I mean, it’s just, it’s crazy the amount of good feedback you can get from dozens, if not hundreds of years of experience from those people in the room.

Alex (23:36):
Yeah, I completely agree with you. And it’s interesting, you know, because I think back to before when I was a mastermind, when I first heard about that concept, I think I read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich . And I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. I could see that being valuable. And then I started looking into masterminds and I saw what the cost was. And that was the key right there. I was looking at it as a cost, as an expense, not an investment. And I’m like, why would I spend 10, 15, 20 plus thousand dollars to be a part of a group? Like I’m not going to buy my business friends. Right. I almost looked at it kind of like a fraternity or something. Um, and man, that’s just a faulty mindset, you know? Cause I’ve gained so much more from masterminds then, you know, when I consider the investment, it’s a fraction of what I’ve gained.

Tony (24:19):
Yeah, no doubt about it. So what’s next for you, so you’ve got, you know, you’ve got your real estate business, you’ve got your mastermind, you have your podcast, anything new for you? Like anything like, what’s your, I guess what’s your long term vision? Do you have a long term vision for what you want or are you just kind of in the moment with what you’re doing

Alex (24:36):
A little bit of both men? Um, so I might be, you know, I might be potentially selling the business, you know, and, and with the real estate business. Okay. The real estate business. Yeah, I want to lean more heavily into the podcast. I want to lean more heavily into our ascend mastermind and coaching community. You know, there’s so much, I want to lean into building a, more of an online, like a, a brand and building a bigger audience because I feel like that’s one too many like that’s how I’m going to be able to impact and help more people so yeah, and then right now I’m just having fun, my family and I love to travel, you know? And so this is a very much so a lifestyle businessI don’t have any desire to build the biggest building in town doing the most deals in town like that’s, that’s not what drives me anymore I think once, you know, it used to, but, so I’m very much about lifestyle man, you know, and just living my vision and just having fun in the process, if that makes sense.

Tony (25:34):
Yep. And really, it just takes like small tweaks in your business. Right. I mean, there’s obviously big things you can do. Right. But really it’s like you said, like consistently doing things on a daily basis that are just little tweaks that’s right what you’re doing like longterm just makes a huge, it’s kind of like a plane going from New York to LA. Right? You, put that off just a little bit you’re all, you know, you’re out in Europe or whatever. So

Alex (26:00):
Yeah, I think of golf too you, I’m not a big golfer, but I really enjoy playing. I’m not, I’m not great, but I know how to play and sometimes man, it’s just a slight shift in how you swing. That can mean the difference between putting it like on the greens versus like just completely like yelling for, you know what I mean?

Tony (26:16):
Literally it’s like millimeters in God.

Alex (26:18):
That’s all it is, that’s it? You know, I think of the other saying small hinges, swing big doors. So if you’re in your business right now and you’re struggling, it may just require a few shifts, a few tweaks and going back to what we talked about, I think that’s where a really good coach can kind of, he can give you that bird’s eye view that because you’re in it, you can’t see and, or a mastermind where you can open up and say, Hey, these are my challenges and men, oftentimes it’s just those little millimeter shifts we’re talking.

Tony (26:46):
Yep. So I’ve got a coach or coach I’ve got a couple of coaches I’ve got, you know, masterminds at 10, I’ve got masterminds. I run, I’ve got books, I’ve got audible like I’ve got YouTube. What are some other things that you do to help, I guess, keep yourself going. I mean, obviously like you’re shifting towards things you love doing more so it’s not as hard to probably motivate you from day to day, what other things like keep you positive, keep you going, help you work on yourself?

Alex (27:13):
Great question, Tony. And for me, it starts with a morning routine, you know, and I’ve published several podcasts on I’ve experimented with different morning routines, expressing some gratitude and some basic things that everybody probably knows about but I recently, when I say recently the last four or five months, I learned transcendental meditation and do TM has been awesome like it I’ve been able to quiet my mind I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but sometimes I think as visionaries and entrepreneurs are minds are always racing.

Alex (27:42):
Oh yeah.

Alex (27:43):
Thinking about building and creating and this and that. And then for me, I struggled I remember about a year, year and a half ago, I was with my family and I’d struggled with just being present because I was constantly thinking about just the next thing or this or that and I had to learn how to quiet my thoughts and just be in the moment and be present and do what I actually preach and, and help others. TM has been a big help. So, and then, you know, obviously the podcast, you listen to constantly monitor and take inventory of the things you feed your brain. And that can be the environment you’re in, that could be the books and audios you listen to, what you watch, we have a no news policy in my house. You know, you talk about negativity. Dude I couldn’t tell you anything going on with COVID in the news and the last call like I just, first of all, you’re going to hear it anyways or you have access to social media, but we just, we don’t watch the news, man. There’s just nothing positive that comes from it.

Tony (28:40):
Yeah. When COBIT happened, I was watching it for like a few weeks, pretty religiously just because I was like, what’s happening? What do I need to know? You know, that kind of thing. And after a while you’re at me and it’s just a drain and it’s like, man, I just can’t take this and I’ll still flip it on every once in a while cause I kind of still want to, cause I got to see what was happening with current events. So now I still kind of want to know a little bit, I kind of feel like I need to be in the know on some things, but you’re right, man. Just like the normal news, for sure. Like who’s gotten killed, who’s robbed, you know, it’s like, why do they watch, why are we watching this?

Alex (29:13):
I always walked away from watching the news feeling worse than before and I’m like this just if it doesn’t, it’s kind of the news outage, if it doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t read. And it was just affecting me and also like, I just, I disconnected from the news a long time ago.

Tony (29:29):
Yeah. Cool. What else do you want to share with the community? What else do you feel like has been some keys to your success? Anything else you’d like to share.

Alex (29:39):
I mean Tony? You know, it’s nothing sexy. I wish I could come on here and say- Hey, this is the latest strategy or technique or the older I get. And I’m about to be 40 and you know a couple of weeks or whatever it’s going to be the more I realize that if you just keep things simple and don’t get in your own way, don’t complicate things, but that the simpler you can keep it the better overall men and this is not just in business but in life. So I try to set my routine up in my life for success. So whether I know I want to wake up early and hit the gym or go for a run, you know, I just, I create the environment that’s conducive to me just naturally going down that path, you know?

Alex (30:22):
And you talk about, I don’t know if you’ve read Tim Ferriss is a tribe of mentors. You know, he interviewed all these people and asked the same questions. Most of them would have their workout clothes ready in the morning, you know, and they set their alarm not right next to them but across the room so they have to get up and go like, so there’s, there’s ways you can set up your environment for success. Take inventory of your thoughts, you know, take inventory of the people that you’re around. We talked about that. Are you investing in yourself or are you the same person that you were 365 days ago? You know, cause if that’s the person you are, you’re slowly dying, you know? So, and there’s a number of ways to invest in yourself some of it’s free, others are paid resources, but, yeah man, I just I hope people are hungry for more because life can give us so much, but it’s not going to land in our lap.

Alex (31:12):
We just have to, we have to go out there and get it. You know, I don’t want to use the words take action cause I think that’s so overused, but dude, we only get one shot at this, you know? So like, are you maximizing it? Here’s one last thing I’ll share. I went through an exercise about a couple of years ago that was really impactful for, not just me, but my wife was actually in tears when she went through this. Have you ever heard of the eulogy exercise?

Tony (31:36):
What is it?

Alex (31:37):
Eulogy exercise?

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Oh yeah, Right.

Alex (31:42):
It’s a two part exercise, right? On a paper you just write, you know, if, if you died today and somebody was giving a eulogy about you, what would they say? And here’s the caveat: they couldn’t lie so they were going to speak in front of hundreds of people or thousands of people, whatever you envision or 10 people, whatever, what would they say about you and your life and they couldn’t lie. Right. And then the second part of that is what would you want them to say? And then see if there’s a gap in between those two, if there’s a gap and there most likely is for a lot of people, I find that’s what you need to focus on that you need to really consider. Right. Because, um, you only get one shot at this so don’t live with any regrets.

Tony (32:27):
Yeah. I’ve actually heard of that exercise. I did it once a long time ago. I need to do it again to see if.

Alex (32:32):
it’s really powerful.

Tony (32:33):
Oh yeah. For sure, It actually makes you realize that at some point that’s going to happen. Right. I mean, when you sweat the small stuff and you, you look at those things, it’s like, man, you know, there’s only so much time and the one thing that I, you know, I’ll kind of touch on some of the things you said, like one of the things I look at now, like I used to sweat all of the small stuff I mean all of the, like of a contracted didn’t show up, I was like sweating bullets like just stupid little stuff like that. But when you sit back and look at it, like, and you look at the world in general, like we could have been born in a country that doesn’t have running water that doesn’t have toilets.

Tony (33:11):
In fact, Bill Gates has a documentary. I’m not a huge fan of Bill Gates anymore because of the stuff he’s done, but that’s a different path to go on. But one of the, one of the documentaries he actually did do well on this when they told this story is he went into parts of Africa and they were, they had toilets outside is like an outhouse kind of thing they would go in the toilet, it would run into the river. And they would bathe in that same water in that river, like there’s countries and places like that and drink out of it. Like there’s places like that, that, I mean, don’t have beds, don’t have clean water, like those types of things. So when you take it from that perspective, I think, I don’t even know what the numbers are, but it was pretty, pretty substantial that like, you know, at least half the world is in some kind of poverty like that. And we are so blessed to live in the US we’re so blessed to have, like, to be entrepreneurs and to be able to determine our own destiny dude, when you just sit back and focus on that. So part of my morning routine is gratitude, I try and say nine things I’m grateful for and just the simple things, man, are just when you sit back and look at those, it’s like, okay, whatever happens today is really not that bad.

Alex (34:24):
I love that you ended with that because just look at this right here, man you’re in San Diego, I’m in Miami and we can see each other. We can communicate, this is going to be published and broadcast to a bunch of people I mean, it’s just, it’s incredible. I was in Guatemala in January for a mission trip and when you do things for others and you get in these environments, you said the right word, it’s perspective, you realize that the crap that we complain about sometimes is just foolish, man, It’s nonsense. These people we visited were families that lived literally in a six by eight space with dirt floor, no running water, when it rains it leaks into like the metal tin house that they have. They share your point of view in the outhouse with other families in the little community and yet they’re so grateful. Guatemalans are there always with a smile on their face and it gives you perspective. It really does.

Tony (35:21):
Well. Cool, man, this is awesome. So you and I, I don’t think I’ve really officially met until now. You haven’t, we’ve been a part of the same groups and I think even say masterminds, it didn’t really know it, but it seems like we are almost twins. I turned 40 last year and you’re getting ready to turn. Yeah. We both bought Carlton sheets. We both have our delegate, but they do. There’s so many commonalities. It’s pretty, it’s pretty awesome. So there’s obviously a reason that we reconnected and I’m in another group and I reached out to you to do this so well, thank you really. Yeah, man. I appreciate it. I love what you’re doing, man. I have so much respect and admiration for people that are just, you know, creating content and giving and helping others. Because if this just impacts one person that listens to it or watches it. Man, done our part and that’s, that’s an amazing thing.

Alex (36:09):
So thanks for, uh, you know, for inviting me and for giving me the platform to share my story.

Tony (36:14):
Absolutely, man, you touched on it. It’s like, man, if you can just affect one life and make a better life for one person with what you’re doing man it’s totally worth it because I’ve been given so many opportunities and been able to get in front of so many people and have so many mentors and coaches and people that have inspired me. So I just love when I can inspire someone else and bring people on like yourself that can inspire them as well. So.

Alex (36:36):
Thank you my friend. Appreciate you.

Tony (36:38):
Yeah. Appreciate your time and look forward to connecting again.

Alex (36:41):
Awesome. Have a great one guys.

Tony (36:42):
All right. You too, man. Cool man.

Alex (36:48):
Cool man.

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