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Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
How A Second Chance In Real Estate Built Legacy, Community, And Freedom with Armando Roman
Start before it’s perfect. That’s the heartbeat of our conversation with real estate broker, investor, and developer Armando Roman, whose journey stretches from low-income housing to leading a growing brokerage while flipping and holding properties across Western Massachusetts. We explore how faith, mentorship, and daily systems convert adversity into advantage—and why waiting for ideal conditions is the fastest way to stall your future.
Armando breaks down how he moved from landlord to the BRRRR strategy—buy, rehab, rent, refinance—to scale acquisitions and recycle capital. He shares the moment he earned his license to move faster on distressed multifamily deals, then co-founded Signature Realty to create a win-win platform where clients and agents could thrive. We dive into the mechanics of finding and structuring deals, the power of value-first networking, and the underrated skill of bringing mentors something tangible—like a real lead—so you can learn while you earn.
The conversation isn’t just tactics; it’s mindset. We tackle limiting beliefs rooted in scarcity, how language shapes outcomes, and why your closest circle often predicts your trajectory. From navigating divorce and career pivots to raising kids and building systems, we talk about planning tomorrow tonight, holding yourself accountable, and protecting your energy so you can lead with generosity and grit. If you’ve hesitated to buy because rates aren’t perfect or to start a project because the path isn’t clear, this is your push to act, iterate, and let time and equity do their work.
If this story moved you, tap follow, share with a friend who needs momentum, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Tell us: what action will you take this week to move your life forward?
Connect with Armando:
Website: https://flippingroman.com/
Instagram: @flippingroman
Facebook: @armandoromanrealtor
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. I am so excited for another amazing conversation today. So I'm gonna quickly introduce our guest. His name is Armando Roman. He's a seasoned real estate broker, investor, and bilingual professional, fluent in Spanish and English with deep roots in Western Massachusetts. He's built a strong reputation by flipping 10 plus properties a year and selling over 150 plus homes. In addition to his work and brokerage, he's actively involved in real estate development. As a co-founder of Signature Realty, he's dedicated to providing his clients with exceptional service, always rooted in excellence and integrity with their real estate needs. So I want to hear a little bit about how you even got started, got into this. Give me your against all odds story.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So thank you, first of all, Maria, for having me on your episode or your show, right? And your audience as well for tuning in. So yeah, when I first got started, I was in college. Growing up, it was a struggle because my parents were in housing complexes. We were getting food stamps, pretty much being a low-income family. And owning a property was something that seemed such a daunting task. So growing up, I saw my parents struggle through getting all these apartments and just rough areas in general or poverty. And then eventually I saw them buy their first property and not a great area, also, but at least we own something, which is cool. So that all seeing that whole process inspired me. So I went to college at UMass Amherst, and I've always was passionate about real estate. And then later I was able to explore it. But once I graduated college, I bought my first multifamily, ended up selling it. Wasn't sure what I was doing, to be honest. I was like an amateur investor. Then I got married, bought another property. Then briefly before we got divorced, I sold the properties and was in a weird space, kind of lost, not sure what I was gonna do. And I had started a couple different businesses. Most of them had failed for different reasons. And then I ran, fell back into real estate, which is my original passion, and really just started um learning and understanding how it works and teaching myself a lot of the skill sets that I have today and realizing that I'm not a victim, but I am the person that's gonna write my own story uh through the path of God, right in his direction. I was able to do that, and here I am today.
SPEAKER_01:That's amazing. That's awesome. I love that sometimes we just need redirects in life. I've had many in my life, so I definitely understand that, and I think that it's all in perfect timing. Like you had the taste for it, the passion for it, and it wasn't the time for it. And then it came back to you when you were ready, when your soul was ready for that change, and when like I was explaining to you before we jumped on the recording that I started this podcast, and this is season three, but I took a break a year off because it didn't on the soul level, just it wasn't working. And so I I understand we're like having to come back and find that passion for something absolutely when it's in the right time. How has the journey evolved from agent to investor to developer?
SPEAKER_02:Sure, sure. So when I first started, like I said, I was pretty much just a landlord and buying properties. And at some point, like I said, when I got reconnected with real estate and landed back on the track of real estate, I met my current partner in North, and he started talking to me about the idea of buying multifamilies that are distressed, fixing them up and refinancing, recover back our money and renting them and keeping them. It's also known as the Burr strategy, which is buy, rehab, refinance. I'm sorry, rent and then refinance. It allows you to acquire properties as you're doing this. So that's how we pretty much started. And at some point, I realized that the realtors I was working with, I wasn't satisfied with how quickly they're responding or prioritizing us as clients. And we wanted to be moving quickly to secure these properties, these multifamily homes. So I got my real estate license at that point and realized that okay, it's helping me individually, but am I who am I helping else in my community? And I realized that I can make money as well by helping others. So it seemed to be a win-win situation, which I'm big on any work that I do or anything that I'm involved with. I feel like it has to benefit overall the community that I'm a part of. And everyone should win and get a piece of the pie. Um, that usually becomes much more satisfactory and it's more rewarding that way. So I've always been like that. I like to others to win as well, not just me. I don't want to be selfish, I want to be a team player. So by doing that, it would benefit my business partner. People were buying properties with me. I was helping them. People that didn't think they could own a property, I was showing them the way and being patient and being empathetic to whatever situation they were going through and their struggles. Because a lot of folks, like most of us, were busy. We pretty much came straight from work to record today, I noticed, and dealing with traffic. So I learned to be flexible with clients, patient, and treat them the way I would want to be treated and my family to be treated. So that led to becoming a successful real estate agent while I was working a full-time job, had the kids at home, homeschooling from basically during the COVID time. And at the same time, I was going through my separation and later divorce. I had a lot going on and uh just really developed the skill set of really just prioritizing, time blocking, time management, and just being laser focused. And then eventually, like I said, I went full-time as a real estate agent. Then at some point, I met my other business partner, current partner as well, Carl Mack. We started the brokerage called Signature Realty. Um, we started recruiting agents. Now we're we range anywhere from 30 to 40 agents at any given moment, people come and go. But yeah, and this is all I do full-time. And it's funny because uh I'm a man of faith, and it does require faith when you have sometimes you have to jump without knowing where you're gonna land, but just have faith that in that jump, I guess, mid-air, that God's gonna catch you and you're gonna be all right. So uh it does require action and faith. And I've seen his hand work to my favor and to my family's favor and those around me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. I think that doing something, I feel like when your heart is connected to it, we oftentimes we pray and we pray to God, but when we start following our heart and our intuition, it's God talking through us.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that when something feels on like a heart level, it feels right. It is God's way of like taking us down that path.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And so yeah, I I love that you said that because I agree. I I think that a hundred percent like when you have to jump and your wings will grow at that point because sometimes when we're so cautious about things, it's like this we're doing it without the faith that it'll work itself out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and something that I've that it has been a challenging, like against all odds, right? And the whole thing, idea of limiting beliefs is people around you are not necessarily going to believe in what you're working on or doing. So I think one of the issues, Marie, that I had with my other businesses part of it, right? Was I wanted to get reassurance from other people, maybe family members, and uh or self-doubt, right? Because feeling like I'm by myself, doing this, trying to figure it out, not having a lot of support. So you start doubting yourself and you put that out there, and next to you're walking in a negative path, even though you're trying to do something positive, which is crazy to me, but it's a reality. So some of these limited beliefs that I grew up with, and I had to break that and like I said, not be limited, is there's an old Spanish saying that I would hear a lot from people in my church community at the time, or even in my family, was la piña estagria, which doesn't make a lot of sense in English, but the pineapple is it's not sweet, it's sour, exactly.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, and then that's just one expression of many things that were negative that I was like, you know what, doesn't make a lot of sense because actually fruit isn't sour necessarily, it can be sweet. So, how do I like fix my foundation? Or in the case of a plant, how do I prepare the the el terreno, the ground so that it cultivates better? So I have to change a lot of rewire my brain on a lot of this stuff.
SPEAKER_01:That is very prevalent. Um, it always looks at the victimhood of a situation rather than the faith of it and the positive of it. I'm Puerto Rican, and it's there's so many of those little things that you're like, oh yeah, I grew up like learning all of these things, and then I'm like, but how is that serving me and serving the people that I care about?
SPEAKER_02:It's not so yeah, I and a lot of folks they just repeat these things, repeat over and over, and it goes from one generation to the other, and it just becomes a thing that nobody questions.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that it's loving is always gonna be agree, like that fruit is always gonna be sour, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. So and then just a lot of things like that. Even the idea of if you're born into poverty, you're gonna be stuck in poverty, and if you're not poverty, you're someone that's also my case in or in English right now, but that's prideful, prideful, yeah. And then it's so wrong because some of the most people that are generous and the nicest people, a lot of them are wealthy individuals that understand that by giving they receive more. So just a lot of these ideas that I had to pretty much break out of in my community. And even when we look at the Bible, Israel, they didn't want to conquer the land because the people in the land that they wanted they were gonna conquer were these giants and they saw all the obstacles, and yet it took one or two people to say, you know what, maybe they're not as big as you think. We can take them. So it's sometimes you have to have a little bit of that crazy, that valiant in you as a man or woman of God, and say, you know what, there's a lot of odds against me, but I'm gonna I'm gonna push through it and we're gonna make it. And just having that mindset of who cares what the obstacle is or what's against us, but I gotta be a little crazy and just realize that you know what, I'm gonna get through it, I'm gonna be successful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I so when I was born in Puerto Rico and we were my my dad was a watchmaker who he owned a jewelry shop um my entire life. He had a very successful jewelry shop in Barranquita, Puerto Rico. We lived in Naranjito, so it like we had he had built the his the house that we lived in from a very small home, and little by little, like it was one of the most like beautiful homes in that mountain area. So we're four. My oldest brother is ten years older than me. The one that follows is seven years, I'm number three, and then my little sister is three and a half years younger than me. So there's four of us. My mom has a successful seamstress business from home. My dad has a very successful watch repair jewelry shop, like very successful. There was he was like, there was weeks that he used to call me Tita, but he was like, Tita, there was weeks that I would I could bring home like on a holiday$25,000. It was we were doing well. And like that obviously offset like the slower months, but he was always busy, he was always very fair. He never overcharged, he wanted to make sure that not only was he feeding his family, but he would go out to a regular jewelry shop and like 10 times what he was charging. Oh wow, so he was very fair and honest with people, fair and honest, and so that's what I grew up with. But when I was four and a half, he came to Orlando with my uncle. He was moving from Puerto Rico to Orlando, and he came with my uncle to help him find a house. All of a sudden, my mom gets a phone call saying, Start packing. I just bought a house in Orlando. And my mom was like, What? Number one, we don't know the language, they didn't speak English. It was literally starting from zero. We sold the house in Puerto Rico, they moved their family of four, they bought a house in the suburbs of Orlando, and he didn't have his own business at the beginning. Like I remember he worked at like what they used to call Lucky Seven, which is like 7-Eleven now. But at that time, that place was called Lucky 7. And he worked there for some time and just stuff that he was not, it wasn't his forte until he could find a location for his shop. And so he found a location for his shop. He was like, I remember when there was times where I didn't know if I was gonna have money for food on the table. And we went through times that like people in our community would come together and help us out, but I had faith that this is where I needed to be. Honestly, I couldn't imagine my life not being where I was raised and the opportunities that we got. Like my oldest brother worked for NASA. We've done things with our lives that probably we weren't gonna have the opportunity to do if we saved her, we did. And so it was having faith and saying, Well, this seems like a good area. I'm gonna go ahead and buy a house. Right now, they my mom still lives in the same home that they bought in 80, I think it was like 88. And it's evolved, it's like been renovated, it she just redid her bathrooms, like all these amazing things. Before my dad passed away, he was like he found a person to redo their kitchen and dining, like it the house has completely changed since I was raised there. However, it was having that blind faith of like I just have the faith that this is the right thing to do and jumping and it working out the way it did. And having four children with successful careers and families, and all of that came from that blind faith that he moved from you know a little town in Puerto Rico with a successful business to coming back and like starting from ground zero. Um and he worked till maybe a month before he passed away. And he loved what he did. He was so passionate about it, and he was so well known. He left a legacy that was absolutely beautiful. His celebration of life was full from the front of the room to the back of the room because he left the imprint of his uh humble beliefs and humble faith, and it was just beautiful, but it was coming from a place of like complete blind faith.
SPEAKER_02:Gotcha, gotcha. He jumped right ahead and almost like it almost like Abraham when he was called. He didn't know where he was going, but he just followed the calling. One thing that I think I read it somewhere. There's a person that did like a study and interviewed a bunch of people that were like under end of days, kind of like elderly, maybe in a nursing home. And what things they regretted or what things they wished would have been different. And I think the majority of people answered all the chances I didn't take, the risks I didn't take, the trips I didn't go on. It was all these experiences and just opportunities to like push boundaries or push yourself beyond that limit of what you think you're capable of doing and stepping out of your comfort zone. Nobody ever regretted material goods or other things that weren't. It was the simple things, spending more time with their family, their loved ones. So obviously, when you're able to leave a legacy, when you're able to be in a position where you have the resources to give your family experiences similar to what your dad did, that allows to create better, more joyful moments. So that's something that I definitely aspire uh with my kids is to be able to give them memories, create and not work just to survive, but work to have freedom, which I do enjoy now by the grace of God. And all these limiting beliefs that I was mentioning to you, and the Bible has a response to all of them, and the people just are always putting themselves in this like mental jail cell, but the world's against you, the world is against me. So people say, Oh, the world's against me. Well, you know, Romans 8 31 talks about if God is for us, who is against us? As an example, people believing that they're gonna they're born poor, they're gonna die poor, and again, not everything is like money. Obviously, scarcity does not let you have live an enjoyable life, yeah. And you can do more. And the ceremony, the teronomy 818 talks about hey, he gave us power to produce wealth, like we have power, and a lot of folks they use their tongue to speak negative, and our words and our tongue has power behind it. Yeah, so if we're constantly speaking negative and cursing and speaking poorly to our children, which is horrible, or speaking negative to our friends and family, or having people around us that are negative speaking to us, that's not gonna change your trajectory. And I think it's very important that we're conscious of who we spend time with, number one, what we're saying, what we're hearing, because that could be the a big reason why you're not in a good place right now in your life. If you gotta auto-examine who is around me, who are the people closest to me, how are they living? Because again, another Spanish saying is uh the man like the and it's very true. And the American way would be hey, you're the equivalent of the five closest people to you, or you're similar to them. So if the five closest people to you are negative, are not well spoken, they're always cursing, always talking about the victim mindset that you spoke about earlier, then you're gonna become the sixth victim. And at the end of the day, like I don't want to live a victim life, I want to live a life of glory and of victories and go from glory to glory because I want to grow.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And then also like surround yourself with people that that you are not the smartest person in the room, like because the only way that you're gonna always want to level up is when you surround yourself with people that are leveling up. So it's so important who you do surround yourself with.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. I love that so much because I feel like that is so I if I if you're watching with your eyes to the podcast, I always have something purple. I have my hair is purple, you can't really tell, but oh, I couldn't tell you but I always have something purple, and to me, purple is this like radiant energy that I want to bring into my day every day. So everything that I like, I always have either like my purple watch or purple shirt or purple pants or something purple, and if not my hair. Okay so I feel like part of the legacy that I want to leave. I have this lady at work and she has like shouted me out a few times, and she's like, You're my purple energy girl, and I love it so much because my whole office is purple, and when I walk down the hallways, I always have a bright smile on my face because the energy that I'm putting out is what I'm gonna feel.
SPEAKER_02:Right, so you're gonna attract, yeah, you're gonna attract that same energy.
SPEAKER_01:And so I want to always be in a place of like if I go to work and I'm like, oh, another day, whatever. And it doesn't do us any good, right? It doesn't serve us, it doesn't serve other people. And so I again falling back on things that my dad always said, when you would ask him, Hey, how are you, Manuel? He would say, Elegante buen moso iguapo, como le siamo. And so basically he was saying, I'm elegant, I'm good looking, and I'm handsome, just like my mom would tell me. And so that it's on his gravestone. Like, that's literally it was the way that he greeted you always. And it was with the energy of like, no matter what is happening, he was doing you know, leaving chemo, and the nurses would say, Oh, thanks, Mr. Ponte. How are you today? I'm elegante but mostly guapo, like my mom would say. And so, like, he would always bring that kind of energy to every room. And I think that's part of uh again, leaving that legacy, but has shown me that what energy I bring into the room is going to change the trajectory of who I surround myself with, who I attract, who what I accomplish in life, who I can serve, that's the legacy that I want to leave. Because that's what he left me.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's something that we can control, right? So there's so much out of our control in life, and the one thing that we can control is what we're giving out to the world and how we're presenting ourselves and the place or where we come from in gratitude and how we present ourselves to everything else. That is what we can control. And I think that that's the opportunity that we have every single day.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's like are you gonna be grateful or are you not gonna be grateful? The old thing with the cup, somebody says if it's if it looks like it's in the halfway point, it's either half empty or half full. Yeah, and if some people choose to see it as half full, and guess what? If you do that and you're gonna enjoy it more, first and foremost. Second of all, you're gonna look forward to like filling it more versus if it's half empty and you have the scarcity mindset that might kick in. Oh, I have to preserve what's there, I'm not gonna do anything. You start getting your stalling and I mean living in a mediocre life, and then you know what's gonna happen is because you're trying to protect something instead of growing it, it's gonna end up getting smaller. So a lot of people, their blessings are smaller, their joy is diminished, all these things, their health starts diminishing because they don't have the energy or the willpower to go out there and maybe go to the gym and work out. It just affects so many areas of our life. And then mental health is such an important thing that I'm always mindful of, especially now that I'm entering into my 40s now, is I want to make sure that my mind is sound and that I keep myself active, not just with the work, but also my mind active and positive and moving forward. Because the minute you stop moving forward, you start actually falling behind. And I don't want to go backwards because even being still, you're falling behind because the world's moving forward. You got AI now, you have all this technology, you have all these younger generations that are hungry, ready to take over. And if you're not growing, you're gonna fall behind very quickly. And it's not a competition, it's not necessarily a race, but I am in competition with myself. I want to be the best version of myself, as such as anybody that's listening to the this podcast. And I'm sure Maria, you feel the same way. We're always trying to just be the best version of ourselves, put the best energy out there, like you referred to. I can see your smile. You've been glowing the whole time, right? And just staying positive, even through adversity. And you gave some good examples of that, including your father. And I think a lot of times we can overcome things if we have a good positive outlook, even when things don't look that great at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I've been through divorce as well, so I know how is difficult that can be. And so I understand. And I was a single mom of three, and at some point I was on food stamps, and on some at some point I was in housing that was income controlled, and so or income based. I have been in those situations and have I feel grateful that I had the opportunity to understand that I can still get myself out of that. I went from having a 10-year career in the travel industry where I was at the height of my career and there was a huge three company merge, and I was their highest paid director and their first to be let go. And I went from like six figures to nothing with having three kids to feed, right? So I I also saw myself in moments of adversity where I was like, okay, well, I've worked my entire life. I'm gonna utilize the resources that I have so that I can get through this moment in time. However, I can get myself out. And I started a brand new career. Um I worked from home for many years in different things. I had my own business and in the online health and fitness space. I helped people get healthy because I was doing it for myself. I worked from home with Jet Blue. So I've done many things. And then after my dad passed away, we used a hospice company. And I felt like the last 13 days of his life because I played such a big role in caretaking for him, it really just it was such a blessing, right? They what they were able to provide in that short period of time was such a blessing. And I was able to fully focus on my dad and my mom and my family in that time period. And so I felt like eternally grateful. And when my friend that works at that company was like, Oh, they have an open spot, I was like, Oh, okay. Well, it was starting off like as an assistant, and and I was like, I've again made six figures. Is this something where I want to start again from the bottom? And but I had to also step back and say, listen, I've also been out of the like regular workspace for a very long time. I will start where I can and I know what I can give in whatever work that I do. And so I started about a year and a half ago, and in six months I got promoted from the assistant role to the person that I was assisting. And I'm in like quality control aspect of it. And so I don't work with patients directly, but I know that the little bit of the touch that I give into the work that I do has made a difference in how our teams work with the patients and so forth. So I've seen a change. I work for the company called Vitas and I got Vitas best award for the year, and I was like, oh my god, that's nice. Thank you. But it's something again. I I went from travel industry to health care to like health and fitness to hospice care. So it completely different trajectories. I had Jet Blue in the mix of all of that, but completely different.
SPEAKER_02:I love I love Jet Blue, by the way.
SPEAKER_01:I do too. It's my favorite travel company. Um like I I feel like I've done so many like different things that I was just like, okay, I'm just gonna trust that this is gonna get me to where I need to be.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. You were open to change and you stay flexible, and I think that's important. Yeah, especially as people get older, a lot of times they don't want to listen to others, they don't want to listen to the direction God's trying to direct you differently, and yeah, they stay stuck and are not flexible. And the fact that we do have to stay flexible because yeah, we don't know what the plan that God has for us, and we have our own plans, but if we can align with him and allow him to guide us, then what seems to be a misdirection, it could be a realignment. And yeah, so kudos to you for being open and being okay with starting over, and it's a new leaf, a new page that you were able to write, I guess, a year and a half ago.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um it's exciting to just see that again, that blind faith of okay, I well, I'm just gonna say yes, because whether it's my heart, my intuition, like that gut feeling that you're that there's something there, and like I said, we pray to God, we pray up to God. But when we don't listen to our intuition or our heart, it's like he's talking to us and we're not listening.
SPEAKER_02:So exactly.
SPEAKER_01:I yeah, I feel wholeheartedly with that, with that that listening to my intuition is usually just the guidance that I need.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely from a bad that gut feeling that people will tell you a lot of things deep down, you know, what your based on your experiences, based on what you've been through, based on different outcomes. And at the end of the day, you we have you have to believe on yourself and believe in your decisions and put your best foot forward. A lot of times you're gonna succeed because you did your own homework and you're consequent. Each and every one of us, we understand how we operate, and yeah, who's best to kind of like direct us, then obviously God first, but us to be able to say, okay, you know what? I'm gonna stop listening to all this noise, and I'm just gonna really focus on what I need to do. Remove the noise and focus.
SPEAKER_01:Every time I moved over the years, I would always know where to move because I walked in and felt it. Like it felt right. And at one point I was I was working with a realtor and it was my brother's best friend, and I was renting a house. I was looking for a rental, and uh he had a bunch lined up for me, and everything was like indicated in the specific things that I had asked for. And I would walk in and I'm like, Nope, this isn't it, and he'd be like, You haven't seen it. I was like, I'll look at it, but this isn't it. And it's funny how I think I had opened something or looked on a website or something at that point, because that was years ago, and I saw this house, it was a little over my price range, so it wasn't being seen because it wasn't in the search parameters.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:But I was like, hey, can we go see this house? And so he makes it happen. And as soon as I walked in, I was like, Yep, this is it. And he's like, You haven't even seen it, and I'm like, I can't even explain it, but it's like my gut, my heart is meant to be here, and it felt right immediately walking in. So I can't explain it.
SPEAKER_02:That's just the way believing in yourself, trusting that you're that you know what you're doing, and that's gonna be good. Are you still living there or just no?
SPEAKER_01:This was this was years ago, yeah. No, we have uh we bought a house and all of that. And all nice, congrats.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. And we know that this isn't like our forever home either. So okay, when starting back into the real estate sector, I feel like also you have to be open to this is what works right now, yeah, yeah. And this is what you know is within the budget right now in a few years, it may be completely different, and kids are growing and all of that.
SPEAKER_02:So it's so something that release a lot to the real estate, right? This that's what I do, is people they're looking for perfection at this time, and you're never gonna get perfection.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02:You could always build up from where you're at, like kind of what you did, but they don't realize that hey, I'm gonna buy a property, it's not perfect right now, right? The interest rates are a little bit high, price points, as we know, they're high. But hey, right now I'm paying 100% interest to the landlord, right? Which is nothing wrong with renting, but a starting point. Instead, I can pay six percent interest to the bank, and now I get to own the property, let it appreciate because properties are appreciating. I'm sure your property has appreciated since you got it. Yeah, and now I have all this equity that had I been stubborn or put a tantrum because I don't have everything perfect that I want in the property, and I just keep waiting, waiting, and delaying and delaying. In the meantime, you've been able to secure a house, nobody can tell you what to do for the most part, right? But uh, it's your space, your family space, or your sanctuary with the kids. You can paint the walls, whatever color you decide to do. You have full authority. You've been enjoying it, you're growing the equity. So I guess the point is make that decision, buy that property, start that business, start the podcast, start investing, but take action. It doesn't have to all align perfectly, it's never gonna happen, quite frankly. You're gonna be a bit disappointed if you're expecting that, unless I guess you hit the lotto or something. I don't know. But the idea of things have to be perfect, it's pretty crazy to put it in simple terms. And like I said, you can always upgrade. And what's the beauty about life is the ability to grow and to see where you're at today, and you can say, again, back to the cup, half empty, half full. You can say, Ah, I don't have everything I was expecting to have today, but that's such a negative outlook because just take a quick peek and don't stay there, but take a quick peek to what you've been through and all that you've overcome and all that you've grown, and all the failed relationships that you were able to survive out of and level yourself up, right? And the jobs and be like, oh, I've come a long way. I've been through, I don't know, 20, 20 different tribulations, and here I am today. 10 years ago, I was in level three, here I am on level eight in life, and I'm I feel pretty good. My kids are healthy, things are looking very positive in the forward outlook. So it's just appreciating what we have today. Obviously, maybe not being complacent because we're always looking to grow and have, I feel like if we don't have goals and things we want to accomplish, then there's not a lot of reason to live at that point. So I think there's always going to be personal goals, goals with the family, health goals, you name it. And I think that's what keeps us going. That's what keeps fueling me. Is like, okay, what's next? What can I accomplish? How can I better my situation, my family? Yeah, how can I put myself in a position where I can help others without hurting me? That's really a place that I think a lot of people they care about all those shit to try to get to, and it's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_01:I love it. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
unknown:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:So we talked about limiting beliefs and roadblocks. Is there anything else you want to share that you feel like you had to overcome in terms of limiting beliefs or roadblocks?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I think the biggest piece was like not knowing and not having a mentor. So I think if the 41-year-old version of me was to give advice to, I don't know, the 18, 19, 20-year-version of me, or even the 25-year-old version of me, just a younger version of me, I would say find a few mentors, like real mentors, people that aren't just talking the talk, but they're actually have walked the walk or walking the walk. And I think a lot of people, a lot of men, because I know a lot of men that they struggle with the pride, or oh, I'm too good to ask others to help. It makes me look weaker. No, it actually makes you it makes you stronger. You're a stronger person. If you can accept, hey, I haven't figured everything out yet. I I have a lot to learn, I'm only starting. Let me find a good mentor or two mentors to help me avoid all these pitfalls, right? And falling and getting up, which is that's gonna happen too. But there's a lot of things that can be avoided if we're open to uh the guidance. And I guess to the part to the limiting belief or the struggle that I had was no one in my family had really done what I've done and doing at this level, and now I there's people around me that are at a similar level, if not higher than me, is going blindly at it, trying to figure things out, even when that shouldn't have always been the case. I could have found a mentor. So I guess a good takeaway for the audience is whatever it is that you want to accomplish, or whatever goals you have, find someone, find someone that you can reach out to, someone that organically and generally you can connect with that is where you want to be at or has done things that you want to accomplish, and try to add value to that person because a lot of times we just want to take, and I see a lot of people struggle with that. They're just they want a lot, but don't give anything in return. I think it should be a mutual beneficial relationship, even this person's at a higher level. But there's other areas that you can help and be a resource and real estate. A lot of people want to flip houses, they want to invest. And I always tell them, hey, show effort. Have you listened to any podcasts? Bigger pockets is a good one for real estate. Have you read any books? Have you done any research? Have you tried to put together a business plan about flipping houses? Have you done anything? And then, second, is how can you bring value to me? Because I have to tell them this because they're always gonna hit this roadblock where no one's gonna be willing to help them because they don't have the skill set to do that. Because even socializing and networking, it's a skill. Yeah, it's a skill that you have to be good at it and to master it again in a general way, not in a way that you're manipulating people. So I have to teach them hey, when you need something from me, you have to bring value. So as an investor, go try to find a deal and say, hey, Armando, I have this deal, I don't know what I'm doing. Right now, with this deal, I really can't do anything, I can't monetize it. But what if I brought you on and I learned the ropes from you and you and I mutually benefit from this deal? We'll work it together. I'm sure you're gonna do most of the heavy lifting, Armando. But at the end, I brought the deal. We figure out the percentages, we split the profits. But now not only have I made money, I got a deal that I was able to learn from. I learned from Armando, I got free education, I still made 50%, whatever it is, I still made money. And now, if Armando likes the way I operate and work, now we can go from there and grow more, or at some point I can venture out and do my own deals and keep more of the percentage of what I want to do. Maybe I can do both, I can do some projects on my own, but also still work with Armando. And again, it's just being open-minded and understanding that this idea of like I want to have a hundred percent of this business or of this venture, it's really a limiting belief. Instead, if I can get 30, 40% of the watermelon versus 100% of the grape, the 30, 40% is a lot, it's gonna fill me up a lot better than the small little grape.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Yes, absolutely. I love that so much. So, what daily habits or rituals would you say have helped you get to the level of success where you are now?
SPEAKER_02:So the biggest thing, jumping from a corporate role or government job like I had before, where everything's structured, right? Everything's pre-planned for me. They have systems, they have processes. The government definitely has that uh working at Social Security for many years. Is I got to the workplace and I was expected to do certain tasks by a certain time. I was expected to take breaks when they wanted me to take the breaks, and I was expected to deliver results. And I knew what the expectation was. So when I go from a structured place of having a boss, to now I'm self employed and I'm my own boss, this idea of no accountability destroys a lot of business owners and a lot of entrepreneurs. And so my daily role is. I say starts the night before, so tonight is planning ahead for the next day. What am I gonna write down in a piece of paper or my phone, right? In the notes, I'm gonna put my schedule for the next day, or if it's Sunday night for the week or Monday, I'll do a couple days. I like the daily approach because I already have an idea of what I want to accomplish any given week or any given month, but the daily allows me to see on a more micro level. Okay, what did I actually accomplish today? I only did three things. That's not good. Tomorrow I need to handle what was left behind from today, and I need to make, I don't know, 20 more phone calls. I gotta call 20 more folks that might be on the fence of selling their house, for example, as a real estate agent. I'm gonna call another five realtors that are in these companies where I see that their marketing is not great, but we have great marketing platforms. Let me call them, let them know hey, when can we grab coffee? When can we sit down? Have you considered our brokerage at signature? So just organizing, structuring my agenda so that I can hit the ground running at eight in the morning once I drop off the kids to school, and I'm making calls on the ride too, but hit the ground running. I'm not trying to figure out in the morning of or 10, 11 o'clock.
SPEAKER_01:What is it that I need to do?
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. So treating it as I am my own boss, but I need to hold myself accountable. Yeah, so that's some of the things that I do, and obviously creating systems and processes for my business.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like your old self taking care of your future self kind of thing. So, like when you meal prep for your own for your week, you're meal prepping. So it's your past self helping your future self. And I have to have like what I'm doing tomorrow. I already have little check marks or whatever on my notepad at work, right in front of my computer. And okay, I know that I need to do this, this, and this. If I do this, this, and this, it was a successful day. If I do more, then yay, great for me. But at least if these are my like top priority, if these things get done, then today was successful and I get to celebrate. I celebrate the wins anyway. It's like leave your past self helping your future self. And that's what I gathered from from what you said.
SPEAKER_02:Love that, love that. No, absolutely. I never thought about it that way as your past self helping your future self. That's a great outlook. And I think it's like, okay, if I'm not helping my future self, that means I'm not gonna grow. So and I want to grow. I'm always thinking about growth.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Oh my gosh, Armando, this was a great conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for jumping on. And thank you. Listeners, I hope you got as much from today's conversation as I did. I will put all of Armando's information in the show notes. So please look out for that so you can connect with him, especially if you're in the Massachusetts area. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Peace out, guys. Love your life. Bye. Thank you.
