Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have Ties of vot in the Building, creator of Loving Listenings on v H one, and founder of Agents in La, Agents of La of La. My bad. I'm sorry, I'm starving. It's noon over here and we have a table full of food and I'm dying to know what you're gonna have me eating while you're broke. But where you're gonna have me eating today.
Well, we don't have organic turkey, but we are going to do some tacos.
You're gonna do tacos. Everyone loves tacos. And what I like about tai guys, just so you know is I was trying not to bother you and text you too much. I was like, okay, you're doing tacos, Like what are the ingredients? And I didn't want to pester you, so I was like, you know what, I'll just I'll just get typical taco ingredients. But Ty was really cool. He
was like, you're you're missing a couple of things. I'm gonna go shop and I'm gonna I'm gonna bring the missing ingredients for you, So go ahead, tell us what the ingredients are for today's tacos.
Well, we got the onions, obviously, every good taco has a little sprinkle onions. And then we have these peppers, you know, I mean I like everything spicy, obviously that I'm tie and you know I love all the different kinds of pepper types, ghost peppers, you know, to tie chili peppers. So I had to bring that to bring the fire avocado, right, okay, I mean that's just like that boogie.
Yeah, that's that you were eating avocado when you were broke.
Though I think I was picking picking them up from the trees. But my dad had them all right, So I.
Was like, okay, okay, I could I could respect that with the taco shells, the lettuce, the cheese, the salt, so all of it hrking me hot sauce. I love that you brought these hot sauce packets and you were like really gunn hull about them.
I mean, you get these things for like free taco bell.
Right, not anymore though? Don't they charge?
I don't know. I mean there's teenagers working there.
They give them, you know, when I go and I'm like, can I get an extra answer? Like you need to order five more nuggets for that.
I'm like, no, where are you going?
I haven't done it, but every once in a while it happens to me. It's like when I go to grocery store and they charge you five cents for a bag. I don't know why. Infury furiates me. I'm like, yo, are you really counting the bags?
Well, I mean it's that stupid law right where the recycle law where they have to like tax everything. I mean, well maybe that's just another tax law, right.
I don't is it a real law or is it just they're trying to make some money. California being California is the only city there.
Yeah, we we have a lot to say about that.
But I tell people all the time in California, you're just paying for the weather. You're playing a premium for the weather, are we them?
Because it's just like some like who bunch of seating in the clouds and.
I like the weather every there's no other city that compares weatherwise.
I mean, is consistently. I feel like, because yeah, that's a whole other topic.
That's a whole other topic. So go ahead, start cooking up this dish, and while you're cooking. Take me back to what was going on in the days of there's a lot of things going on. Oh, you know what. The first two knobs are your the knobs you're cooking on.
You know what the problem is? Guys all guys, well, well understand this. We try to cook things as fast as possible. Okay, women, everything is like xanax, right, everything is like so relaxed. I'm goen I have a good time. But guys, it's high and cook the ship fast.
Okay, that's good because I'm starving. Cook it, don't burn it.
And then for us, all right, cool, good.
And then this is electric Okay, you got.
It, all right.
So I'm assuming that these tacos was a staple at some period in your life. Take me back to what was going on during this the taco bell tie phase of your life.
I mean, there's been a few times in my life right where you know, you overspend and you want to you want to keep up with the Joneses, right, So keeping up with the Joneses, it's like a certain kind of attire. You have to dress in a certain kind of facade. You have to keep up. And in that it's if you don't have the foundation right built out. You know you can go broken then, right. So I have had many times in my life where I've had my ego getting the way and I've purchased bigger items
than I probably could afford it. Right, I've always had really nice things, nice houses, brand new, nice cars. I mean right now, I think I've had over thirty five different kind of cars. Wow. You know I've probably spent maybe over a million dollars in cars.
Wow.
Yeah, a lot of people can't say that now.
But take me back to your home life, like you're growing up prior to all of this middle class.
Rich Okay, so this is the thing, right, home life. My grandfather and my father are from Thailand, right from a third world country, and they came over to the States and where they met my mom. Right. My dad and very modest. My family in Thailand is very predominant, but my dad did not like the politics and decided that he wanted to live a very humble life and so moved out to the valley where he met my mom. Right.
My mom also had humble upbringings, but my grandfather on my mother's side did inherit quite a bit, but she never ever took anything from her family. So we have two individuals that had you know, these these prides that wanted to do things everything by themselves, right. So it was always that you know, if I take some with my family, then I owe them something, right. So my mom struggled. She had my sister, my oldest brother, my
well I'm the middle, I guess, my older brother. So there's four kids essentially, right, So she struggled to try to raise us. She had multiple husbands that failed, and you know, just trying to make ends meets right, and then you know, meeting after meeting my dad. You know, my dad was very frugal with money, you know, because he didn't have anybody to call, right, He wasn't calling back in Thailand and Mom, can I borrow some money?
None of that stuff. So he worked as a bartender and which was not like a very noble job, right, but he saved up enough money to buy a piece
of real estate. And he bought that first piece was an eleven unit, you know, which I don't even know how he did this, but what he did was, which was super cool, is he bought these pieces of real estate from I want to say, like Palm dar l Lancaster pulled them out of the ground, right and cut them in half and then moved him actually in I want to say our Leita, California, so eleven years.
Give me he really uprooted it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, First off, how do you think about that? How do you do that stuff?
Like hey, on a whole other level?
Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's really cool. I'm not trying to burn this but no, no.
I mean each fire is low. It seems maybe it's just the.
Yeah, I'm trying to make it.
Out of it, because your story is really interesting. So your mom had the kid, the four kids after him, or there was this after after him.
But I'm just kind of giving a little bit of backstory. You know who my mom is. It's not like she's taking money from our family. You know, my dad hasn't taken any money from the family, so you know, they really had to do it themselves.
And did you guys know it growing up? That's your your relatives had money. Was it kind of frustrating a little bit at times? Or no?
You know what, when you have a certain amount of love, money can't replace it, right, So you on a homework cart by the way probably, yeah, but it's just how I feel.
So no, that was beautiful. That was like the most beautiful sentence ever.
You know, when your daughter looks at you and gives you a hug. You know, yes, sure it's great that you bought the brand new bike, but that hug that as apparently you feel that you know, it means more than the bike. Mom. If you can afford it, you know, that's amazing. But your love is always going to cover me and everything that I need. Right, And you know, it reminds me of that story obviously with the Ukrainian War and a lot of these politics that you know
we're seeing with this war. Right, And there was this this starving child right with her mom and she she must have been like seven or eight years old, and her mom was in the background. They were doing an interview, and she told the cameras that she doesn't want to upset her mom and that she doesn't want her to feel the pain that she's suffering, and that even though her stomach was growling right, growling, she said that she didn't want her mom to suffer. Okay, a little girls
did that? You know. So when I see stories and hear stories about that kind of stuff, you know, purity children that really look after us versus we looking after them. You know. That's why it's so important to really make sure we take care of our children and never have
them suffer. But it's so sad to see that the child was taking care of her parent and because the mom, the mother felt so bad that she could not, you know, get her daughter food because you know, when they were trying to get food for the daughter, they were blowing up people. And this was in the Middle East, right, And I'm not trying to pick sides, but regardless, anytimes there's kids involved and a mother involved, you know, there is no sides to me. There's what's right and what's
wrong exactly. And it was just very disheartening that we would even do that. And it makes you it makes you think that, you know, love is so beautiful and it fills your soul and it fills your gut right with everything you might need, you know. So that's probably the best meal you could ever have.
Yeah. Yeah, So you're going back to your dad uprooting these buildings. You were you were how old when you witnessed this whole endeavor?
You know to which part I mean I mean there's certain parts of my childhood that for some reason it's just really unclear. My mom got through it, got through a divorce with my father. My father was cheating on her, which probably most men do. Yeah, why you say that?
Yeah, I mean, shout out to my husband. He knows that, he knows that I talk smack. But yeah, yeah, yeah, shout outs to him. He gave me the four one one education.
I'm just saying, you know.
But yeah, okay, so he cheated and then your mom was like I'm out.
Yeah, my mom is out. I mean it's I think it's different back in the day, and maybe it's not. I mean, at first of I don't want to get
smack right now. So you know, there's needs and there's a lot of like anxiety when especially when you don't have the money that you you know, you see all your friends have, right, So like sometimes there's an escape, like me say, me and you, right, you know, we're in a relationship, we have we have kids, and you know maybe that we're fighting so much that we tend to forget about us, right, and we have to stress because what are the stress? Stress is really about not
providing for your children. Yeah, so it was it was a lot. I think for my mom, you know, it was there were two struggling young, you know, individuals that were trying to provide for their kids. And I think my grandmother and you know, and his mom had money, but no one was helping out and they were staying
out of it obviously in any kind of relationship. So, you know, I think by my dad had the intentions to find somebody else and not to deal with that right, which is definitely not the right way, because you know, I was one of the kids, you know, that had the experience that it's it's you know, there's no right
or wrong, there's just a lesson right. And I think we all take inside, especially the children, we're kind of like these sponges that really just absorb it all and it's it's kind of it's sad that it happens like that. You know, it's not just putting food on the table for your kids, but it's obviously the missing love that you should probably should have had. Yeah, and just because you feed, you know, your family, doesn't mean it's the
same as loving your family. So there's there's different things in my life that I've experienced and I don't regret any of it, you know, because what I do think is that it's taught me a lesson. It depends on each individual if you're willing to understand that lesson. Right, So, I'm a I'm a very big believer in the Bible and reading stories that can resonate with myself. I don't believe in pushing it. But if those stories resonate with you and you learn something from it, then maybe you
can utilize it in your life. That was kind of deep, I don't know, real deep.
So so I'm trying to get back to your So your father starts this endeavor in real estate, because I sure you and you know your whole most of your resume is in real estate and production. But I'm curious to know how this realest him getting into real estate impacted your journey.
Well, it's not just my father, it's I think my whole family has been into real estate. My grandmother worked in real estate, buying and selling houses at an early age. She worked at I think Centray twenty one when they first opened, right probably, I don't even know, it's in the sixties. And you know she she loved real estate. My father, you know, saw that that you can make money off of tenants. And you know, this is the
thing about immigrants, right, My dad was an immigrant. I'm a I'm a TI citizen, an American citizen, so I have to have a certain appreciation for the hustle that immigrants have in this country, right. Yeah, And you know for what he did to work as a bartender and to make millions off of real estate, right and getting a piece of that American dream, right and without an ego,
I have a lot of respect for that. So you know, as a as a kid growing up, I worked in real estate, but not through the same conventional ways that they did, right. I worked in a bank, not by choice. There was a girl I was dating and the dad wanted to kick my ass and he said, you're coming to work with me every day. So that's exactly how I got into real estate.
That's hilarious. Well that's how you got into real estate, or into banking real.
Estate, real estate because it was a mortgage bank.
It was a mortgage bank, so you don't like home loans.
Home loans, So this guy wanted to kick my ass because no, it wasn't really an offer of a job. It was more like if you keep on dating my daughter, that's you know, sneaking out of her house after you know, eleven o'clock a night, coming to my house. I'm gonna go, you know, break your teeth. So he lived down the street. This guy had a Hummer, you know, Lotus and Mercedes and all the fancy cars. And he also had this
daughter that looked like Christina Agilera. Right, So me having you know, the hormones I had, I'm like, I'm gonna pull that. And sure enough, you know, she was walking down the street with her her brother one time and you know, did what I do and just spit the game, and next thing you know, she was sneaking out.
Yep. And then daddy came for you.
Daddy came for me, and he basically went to my mother, my mother, and she he said that, yeah, I heard your son is sleeping with my daughter, and yeah, that's gonna be a problem, and like Italian mafioso kind of looking dude. And my mom called me right on my Nokia right that the phone, yeah exactly, and said, ty, I don't think you should come home. I'm like, come home? What do you mean? She says? Yeah, This guy says you're hooking up with his daughter, and yeah, he's pretty upset.
So my mom had to negotiate the terms. And I was going to go to work with this guy every single day so that he could pay attention to who I was and what I was doing with my life.
How old were you at the time.
I was I nineteen eighteen, eighteen nineteen, I don't even know, right around maybe I was eighteen, I don't know. I mean old enough to get my ass kicked by a grown ass man. Yeah, so especially listen, you definitely get your ass kicked when it comes to somebody's daughter. Because I have a daughter, so I know how it is to be a parent. You're never going to win.
Do you look back and now you go, I get it, Like I.
Like, listen, if you try to do anything with my daughter, you're getting your ass kicked. That's just the bottom line. Like it just it's going to happen. And I get it. My daughter is fourteen. I was gonna say thirteen fourteen.
So you're you're inching into like the troubled territory.
No, no, I mean she's she's a good kid. She she horseback rides, she does all the sports that that daddy's gonna be paying for us for the rest of his life front with But yeah, I mean, listen, every man should have a daughter right right off the bat. It's it makes a man a man. I believe that I have played barbies on the floor with my daughter. I painted nails, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm a great dad. You know. Maybe it stems from, you know, my past childhood of you know, of maybe
not having parents around like I probably should have. But I'm probably like over compensating, right, you know, I could probably been a nail technician that has nothing to do with my Asian side.
That's hilarious. That's hilarious. So so you end up working at this bank, do you and the daddy, the daddy, the mean daddy end up becoming buddies and like we did.
We ended up opening a company together.
Get the freak out.
Okay, this is the craziest, very crazy party.
Did you end up saying with his daughter, No.
He wanted me to marry her and there's no way I got.
Rid of her ass, Oh my goodness.
And then we started partying and hanging out with chicks and crazy. I mean the fact that I have these stories in my head. If you could even imagine the stories in my head of women in a convertible BMW with no tops on, driving on the road and we're in the front seat of the car. Just crazy stuff, like crazy crazy stuff. We're buddies, Yeah, we're buddies after that point. And I think I went to the graduation for his daughter, didn't do anything with her and called it.
Say peace. You know, it was one of those things. It's just it was weird, that's crazy. I got into money with these with his daddy, right, so you know, this was I think two thousand and six, right, and we ended up doing financially amazing. And let me tell you first, let me backtrack a little bit, right. You know, when I was that kid that was going to work with the father, I was this really shitty, punk ass kid. It was eighteen because now I remember eighteen because it
was just I just graduated at eighteen years old. Nobody wants to spend time in any kind of building, right, especially an office bullshit job. Right. So I learned the mortgage banking business inside and out by annoying people. And I say annoying, like you know, all right, Karen I'm gonna sit here and watch you underwrite stuff, right, And so I'm reading the book I'm underwriting because I have nothing to do. I'm bored. Right.
Oh, he didn't really like give you a job. He just needed you under supervision.
Oh supervision. There was no job. There was no payment, nothing like that. Let's get that strictly, you know, like clear, there was nothing. I was spending my own money to go to work with him, right, because it was either that or death. So it was like, which one you want?
This is hilarious.
So I went to work with this guy, and he was busy, macho dude, you're doing his thing, right, Italian guy, your big ass office, and me, I'm like a little small cubicle, like, hey, do whatever the hell you want, but you're standing here, you know. So I ended up meeting everybody in that company and sitting with them, became friends with them and learning their jobs. But so, like I'm talking about learning their jobs so well, I learned it, only to say that they're doing shit wrong. Oh my god,
that's like Dennis the Menace. Hey, Karen, you know do you know that this guideline says that you can't do this and She's like, I don't care what you what we're talking about, Ty, And then I was like, oh, let me go to Art. Hey, Art, guess what, You're probably gonna lose money from your investors if she doesn't correct this. I tattletaled and everybody in that company.
Now, I see how you guys ended up becoming partners, right, because you were like showing it. Well, indirectly you were showing him that you knew this stuff. But indirectly.
Yeah, not not yet, yeah, not a purpose. But there was this guy named Tony Ravella. He had a company called Fortune One. The guy was probably like six or seven years older than me. Right, hot shot Latin guy walks in and he's like, hey, you know, I'm looking for my checks. I was at the front, right, and I said checks and said or whatever, right, and so I will go to the back and say, Art. This guy Tony says, you know, he's looking for checks, and he's like, just give me these checks. He had him
on his desk. I look at the checks. I'm like twenty seven thousand dollars. This guy's not that much older than me, you know, Like hey, Tony, like how do you make this kind of money? He's like, I'm a lender, you know, for real stagents. I'm like a lender from real stagents. You know, Like okay, well how do I do that? You know, like I'm a broke skateboarder. Right, So he's like, yeah, why don't you come hang out
with me and I'll talk about it. I'm like, hey, Art Tony, you know your client, he's like the number one client, says I can go hang out with him. He says okay, so whatever, he didn't care, and so we ended up going to a Miyagi sushi on sunset and having like the craziest time of our life. Right. You know, here I am like asking a million questions. I'll never forget this, right, anybody that somebody doesn't want to have an annoying kid asking them what did you
do to make your money? Right? It's like the most annoying, especially you're young and you just really want to find out the secret. So I was doing that constantly and they're like, ty, this is this is not business time right now, this is just we're parting. We're having a good time. You know, you're the you're the young young kid that shouldn't be drinking, but you know, you're taking everybody' shots. Yeah, you know, because I was driving in like really nice cars.
I was driving h one hummers with these guys. So it's like I felt like I was part of the crew even though I was on probation pretty much. Yeah yeah, but you know, these guys saw that had interest in you know, they wanted to help me. So I did, like what every young kid that wants to make a million dollars, right, I started sitting with these guys and just watching them what they do, and I said, well, hey, let me see if I can go get a deal. And sure enough, I got my first deal. I made, like,
you know, it was like forty eight hundred bucks. But for a kid that.
Has a lot of money, yeah, you know, to making.
Forty eight hundred hours like okay, well cool, Like what am gonna do with money? Right? So I started buying stuff, you know, just random stuff, and it was like stuff that I didn't even need. Right, I'm like, well this is cool, but now I'm broke again, right, Because it's like when you're you feel like you're rich forty hundred dollars me and you were like, oh shit, we're broke, right, But when you're a kid and you have your parents, you know, that are taking care of everything, and you're
getting money. You're like, okay, well I don't want to go broke again, like how to get my next deal? Right? So I started learning, like learning how to like talk to people, and learning about sales books and educating myself, you know, with the rich dad, poor dad books right, the Robert Kiyosaki mentality, and just reading different kinds of sales books. I mean, I have a crazy book collection.
Anybody that wants to be on my level, you better be prepared to buy at least like a hundred books, right because of psychology, right, psychology one on one, and you have to understand how to read people so well, just by the way they look at you, their facial expressions. That's it. People want you to mirror them, and if you don't, they're not going to feel comfortable with you. It doesn't matter who you think you are or how rich you think you are. And I win to burn this thing up.
Cool, that's hilarious.
Yeah, But the bottom line is is education is key and it's a science. And I had that learned that science, especially if I wanted to be with the big players.
Right now, When you were in high school, were you a good student? How did you know to start looking into books? Was it because everyone around you had a book collection?
Like?
Where did that? Because even being young, I can't imagine you where that came from.
Listen, just because they have glasses on, don't get it twisted. I'm not that book smarter. I know how to manipulate, probably better than most. Right. So money is the first way of manipulating anybody. Right, So if you had a little bit of money, you know how to give your lunch money to the teacher and buy her stuff, right, whether it's a drink or whatever. Right, it's I learned about how to get extra credit. I learned how to suck up to my teacher, how to get good grades,
right without even doing all the work. It's kind it's kind of shitty, right. I don't really want my kids to hear this stuff and think that they can get away with you.
Definite.
Yeah, Well I'm the strictest. I'm the strictest part, but I'm very vers I.
Feel like all the dads are like the kids know, they get their love from the mom, and then they go to the dad for like, yeah, they just don't want to disappoint the dad or whatever.
This is the thing, like, I'm not happy with what I've done, especially in school. But I used to take baseball cards and you know, trade them to my friends that do my homework or you know whatever I would have from my birthday parties and give it away to
order to make deals. I was making deals in high school, you know, And and I was basically what I was doing is I was having students do my homework for me, right, you know, I was a B level student for a guy that really didn't do much work, right, I knew how to manipulate the system to basically just work for me. So it's it's unfortunate. But I will not say that I have the education of an A student, because I
really don't. I just knew how to hustle. I knew how to have people work for me at at a student level in order to get me the grades I need. I knew how to buy my teachers off.
I always heard this rumor that usually A students work for B and C students or something like that. A students.
That's all bullshit, because all those A students definitely were on my payroll and that's just the truth.
So yeah, so you work, that's what that goes that that.
No, you said A students A students work for B and C students work for Yeah, okay, so that's what you said. Yes, they definitely definitely work. Sorry, I was getting I was getting out real fierce right now. I was like, no work for me.
I was like, yeah, that's you just confirm.
You just confirm the theory. You know, by by you know, I'll say this by by twenty one, you know, which was two thousand, two thousand and seven, right, I was making like one hundred K a month, right, wow? Yeah, I want to say it was twenty wow. Right. I was having money going to my accounts that I thought that the IRS was playing with me and putting money into my accounts. I was thinking, like, where's this money
coming from. It's just getting to positive account. I had so many business affiliations with people that money would come in and there would be baked deposits in my account and it would be no trace of where this money came from. So I'm tripping out meanwhile trying to figure out where this money is coming from. And I was financially killing it, like killing this is.
After the forty eight hundred dollars adult keeper were the money.
We're moving. We're moving way past that now, yeah, because that was just one little stipid. Once I got that taste. Yeah, it's like an it's I don't want to say it's like a coke addiction, because who does that. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, but it's like that. It's like, you know, you get that one taste of something and you want to just keep on going. Yeah. Yeah, right, So that one experience that had forty eight hundred dollars, I turned
that to quickly money, right. I got one check that was like ninety eight hundred dollars or something, ninety eight hundred. Try eight ninety eight thousand dollars. Well, I'm talking about nineteen hundred. That's nothing, ninety eight thousand dollars, right, for one transaction, So you know I was really doing some big stuff.
Now after that first I hate to keep bringing up, but after that first forty eight hundred, you end up learning a value, but lesson about how you're spending. So the next bit of checks, are you just investing them more wisely versus spending like a crazy person.
No, no, no, no, I didn't. I did not learn about investing in nothing. I only learned about spending and living a lifestyle. That was it, right because there was no financial education for a cocky young kid that was driving a brand new S five hundred, right, and that was making more money than his teachers in college, right, right, Because obviously I got out of high school, went to college, and my first semester, I was like, why made me? Hear?
I'm using used books. They're trying to teach me e comm they trying to teach me business, and this does not make sense, right because I'm making that ridiculous money. You know, I was like one of the very few people do with that stuff. I was a hustler.
They got lucky, right, Okay, okay, and then now take you closer to love enlistings.
That's like way further out there.
And okay, so you and the dad, you guys, partner, is this when you're making a lot more money?
We we what we did was we were we were we were funding like loans and this is not before, this isn't this is before I got into actual real estate. And I'm gonna show you how I got into that. We were funding, Like by myself, I was doing fifty million a month just in fundings, right, so people's loans and using warehouse lines to fund their you know, their their the real estate. I wanted to do more retail,
which I was dealing with. The wholesale means that if you're a mortgage broker, you're coming to our company and we were funding your stuff, right. But I would make more money if I was the retail and I was making the wholesale right. It was like there was retail wholesale money, right, and then.
We're selling the loans wholesale money.
Wholesale money is like, for instance, if you buy this water right and you buy this for a dollar, right, a wholesale, but you're selling it in the supermarkets for a dollar fifty.
Yeah, but how's that? How do you have wholesale in real estate? Though?
With lending, well, I owned a piece of the mortgage company, right, so we made that money. I had a piece of the real estate company, or not really at the time, it wasn't my real estate company. It was me as an agent, so I was making my commissions on top of it. So I was making commissions and I was making a piece of the mortgage company, right, because I had interest in that company, okay, right, And you know it was like double dipping. I was making insane amount
of money. So each transaction to me could have been like twenty to thirty thousand every transaction. So that was what the retail and the wholesale would make me. But if it was just the wholesale make, you know, it could be it could be five thousand to ten thousand, depends, right, It depends on want have to split with my partner? Right?
And at what are your sisters, and I mean your siblings and your parents saying at the time when they're seeing you like extremely successful?
I think they were just confused on how much money. I mean, these were different times though money was coming in a lot easier. I mean, obviously this daying age is a lot harder, right, there's so many more regulations. And I was just young and cocky. So what are they going to say to me? I didn't care.
Did your siblings say, teach me how to fish?
I wouldn't say that. I think that they were living their life and I was living mine and in a
very fast lane. I was partying every night and drinking, and you hanging out with chicks and just doing the young kid things like the fact that I even did that stuff when I looked back at my life and traveling, like I travel all over the world, right, and I'm talking about about like a very lavish lifestyle, private islands, like going to Europe, spending fifty thousand up for a week, like it's just crazy shit, right, And it's it's it's
it's an experience that most people will never have. I look back as, oh, that's cool, but it was also stupid. I spent so much money, yeah, right, And I think that anybody that has ever made that kind of money they always wish that they would have saved a little bit. Right. I did not save. I just spent.
So what was where was that critical lesson where you I'm assuming because you're saying that it wasn't that was that it wasn't a great idea at the time. So where did it take a turn for probably not the best for you with all the spending.
There was a mortgage crash, right, which affected the real estate world, you know.
So that was like two thousand and eight.
Two thousands. It started at the two thousand and seven and ended up to or started it started two thousand and end of two thousand and seven and went to two thousand and eight. So I think I want to say November of two thousand and seven where the market started shifting. Right, And when you're making all that kind of money, it's like you have a couple of drinks, right, You're not thinking that you could get drunk. You're thinking that you can still drive. Right. So I didn't see
it coming. I was too new to it, right. It was like there was no lessons for me to learn. It was I'm going to learn this lesson. God's going to show me that I'm going to learn a lesson. I need to slow down. But my foresight it was not there, and that vision was not there of the
market crashing. When that market crashed, all my bills of whatever I was paying, I want to say, it was paying like twenty k a month at an early age, right in my twenties, right, I didn't prepare for so I had enough money to cover say a year's worth of you know, of salaries, cause I was paying employees that worked for me. I was paying for expenses. I was paying for offices, cars, six thousand dollars worth of payments a month, like some crazy stuff. And the problem
is is your ego is still in tact. So you're like, well, it's going to pass over, no big deal. I'm going to keep on paying for people's expenses. I mean by me having a decent heart and paying for the stuff and hoping that you know that things are going to get better. It didn't get better. It only got worse. Right, that's scary.
So then what happens?
I mean, so this one was cooked?
Man feed us.
Yeah, I'm not just making sure. I mean, we want a well done rain. We want a well Jesus one.
I'm ready. I want to eat. I want to try these sales too.
She wants us to try the shelves. So let me just say this, and I'm gonna I'm gonna serve this to you. Since I didn't prepare myself for a shitty economy, you know, I ended up going broke, like literally, and
it wasn't like I was goke like bankruptcy broke. Yeah, Like like when you have all these debtors and you can't pay for these things because your lifestyle is so expensive, right and the money's not coming in, you know, it takes a toll on you, like yes, there was some deals coming in, but you know it wasn't the same, right. So it's it's like, you know there's a winter coming, right, but you're not storing enough food. You know, you're just you're lazy. You want to go hang out with the nightclub.
So you're not taking enough food in, you're not harvesting, harvesting enough, and before you know it, here's the winter, and now midway through winter, you're starving, right, but your ego's in place, so you're not trying to go ask your friends and family because you're this macho farmer. You know, you're you have this ego. So the main thing in this story is is I had an ego and I had to learn a lesson from it, right that, you know, I needed to prepare myself. But you know it was
a first time. It was new, young, rich, successful.
So how long were you broke?
For? Oh? Years? Years? Years? It wasn't like I had just you know, I snapped right out of it. It was years, you know, to learn that lesson, and you know, almost lost everything. Got to keep my one of my cars,
got to keep one of the houses. But I still have the file bankruptcy and and and you know, terminate my lifestyle, right, didn't go on trips, you know, barely had enough money to survive every month, you know, just with modifications of loans and you know, saying you're going to pay back people, and.
You know, think I have kids or anything, thank God?
Right. See, No, I didn't have kids at that time because I was still really young. But you know, it was I can't even imagine if I did. Let's just say that, you know, And it scares me even to say that, because you know, now I'm like a saber, right, so I always have money. I actually live a very modest lifestyle. When I see people that act like they have all this and that, you know, it's it's ridiculous to me, you know. I I don't look down on them.
I just think that they don't know, right. It's like that in the Bible says, you know, forgive me Father, for they do not know, right. So it's like they don't know what could possibly happen. Right, So when people act a certain way, they just don't know what the possibilities are. And you know, I learned a value lesson to never act like I'm better than anybody else or have more money than anybody else. I mean, honestly, I have a crazy watch collection, right, and I don't even
wear watches. You know, I got beautiful rollu says Cardias and all that stuff. What kind of attention am I going to attract? Right, I'm gonna get somebody because they think I'm cool because I have, you know, fifty thousand dollars watch on. I didn't need you in at the beginning, when I had my Black American Express, I still didn't need you because you're only cool cool with me because I was spending money on you.
Yeah. Well, my my husband, he's reading a book called Like Money Psychology, and he was telling me this morning that there's a difference between rich and wealthy. And he was saying that rich people, you know, they they're trying to give off this image. But if you ever see someone driving a nice car there, when other people look
at you, they're thinking, wow, that's a nice car. They're not thinking, oh, he's cool because he's driving a nice car, or this person's cool because they have a nice watch. There's thaying and that's a nice watch.
That's you could you could you could say it like that. You know, first off, it doesn't really matter what anybody thinks. Right, that's what you think. If you want an expensive car, just do it for you. That's what I'm saying. When I was spending money on people, I was doing because I was so insecure that I felt like I needed to have a lifestyle and have friends and whatnot. But all these people were like bad actors. Right. They were
only there because I had the nicest stuff. Right, So at the end of the day, where were they when I had no money? Right? They were gone? So you got to do things for yourself, right, you know, these kind of moments and cooking and having a good time. You know, that's why, like when you're a young girl sitting on her with her family or they're at a table like in your having moments, that's way more precious than going to a master of steakhouse to impress your friends.
I agree with that, So you know, I became way more family warranted and more secure with myself. But it took a long period of time. It wasn't like something that was just it came to me. I had to really fight the demons of the insecurities of trying to impress people for something that I thought I was But I wasn't. I'm a wholesome dude, right, I'm cooking tacos And I went to there was this called like food for Less.
Right, I saw, I saw your bag.
Yeah, I mean it was definitely an interesting lifestyle. People like, you know, talking to me in there. They were trying to sell me stuff in there, and I don't know if they're trying to Yeah, I was like it was it was different. It was different. I mean, but I'm such a like a nice guy. I'll talk to everybody. And I saw the one lady break out, probably her boyfriend's class.
Yeah, I saw that.
Yeah, I mean she was going nuts. Do you want to try this stuff?
Like I don't want to try We're gonna you gotta serve both of us up.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm gonna do it a little differ. I'm gonna do this one.
Yeah, I'm gonna try one of your flower tortillas too. How do you end up inching into real estate? So obviously there's a period where oh you're doing it for real, for real.
You know, it's funny. My girl made this comment to my daughter. We were in bed, and she said, my daughter's you know, like that lifestyle fourteen, and you know, she had the Uber Eats, you know the door dash, and she comes in like a nine o'clock She just says, Dad, we need to get Chick fil A, right, and my girls like chick fil A, Like haven't you ever heard
of like chips and cheese? You know, my daughter's very specific of what she wants, right, And this is how you know we've spoiled our children when she's asking at nine o'clock for Chick fil A, very specific. So yesterday I went to the steakhouse fig of the chow, right, and so my daughter hits me up, Dad, I need McDonald's. Right. I'm like, because we go somewhere, you need to get something too. Like we have way more Trader Joe's in our house than most people, right, I'm talking about we
have refrigerators. And because we go out, you need to go out to my son. He's a little hustler. He sells stuff on eBay, He goes buys whatever. Hell, I can't say shit to him, right, he just does. He is the ultimate hustle. Starts a hustle name. So he bought me these glasses. You know, he's like he's fifteen, thinks he's going to get a Tesla for his sixteenth birthday.
I don't know. I don't know about that one. I mean, I want to spoil him, But at the same token, I feel like I'm doing a disjustice if I don't get him a shitty car. Yeah yeah, you know, like I feel like I need to humble them.
But he sounds like he sounds like a hustler.
He's the biggest hustler. He hustles me. But he's a great driver. And I think I have to punk him a little bit because he's just you know, his mom is white, and I'm like that, you know, third world country, you know, got here to the United States. I feel like I got to, like, you know, kind of beat him up a little bit, give him a little bit of that, because this American lifestyle is like it's fake. A lot of it's fake. I don't think there's any kind of like grass roots that really gets you to
understand culture. I think the people that in this country, the ones that that have culture are the Latins, the Asians, the blacks, right because not talking shit about whites right at all, because my mom's white, but white people tend to replace their time at the tape with activities, business TVs other bullshit, right, But you're not doing that in Asian culture. You're not doing that a black Try doing that with a black culture and say, hey, mom, I'm
gonna go watch TV. I'm gonna watch the Simpsons. See what ye see what mom's gonna say? Right, Latin try, I dare you see what that's gonna work work out for you? But a white person is again, my mom's white, Okay, but you can take your food up to your bedroom and eat alone like first class, right, Like is it that true?
I don't know enough white people to.
Know, but well I'm just saying like that, that looks good.
You you hooked me up. I like it with the cheese melted.
No, no, we're gonna get you to this.
So when does real estate come into play?
Well, you know when real estate came to play because I wanted to get more mortgage brokers to come work for me.
Right, this is after you're broke, After you go broke, you get into estate.
No, this was before okay, okay, so this is how I started segreating into it. So the story is kind of like choppy, but it's it's there. Right, that's a little bit of add from me. So in my mortgage days, I was meeting all these real estate agents right to work with our company to you know, get their clients. The real estate agents have clients obviously they have mortgages, and you know, trying to get them on board with our retail center, right because I had wholesale and I had retail.
Do you have to turn off those stoves?
Yeah, yeah, that's it. One's offer here. Yeah, don't burn yourself. No, No, it's good, it's good. It's good. We got insurance. So this is what happened, right, The retail mortgage loan officers were not getting enough from their real estate agents. So I had a partner that you know, God rests in peace for him, and only he died. But he he said, ty, why don't I do all the mortgages and you go out there and become a real estate agent and but
not really sell properties. Go to every real estate firm, meet all the real estate agents and have them send me business, take them, take them out to wine and dine them and show them a lifestyle because you're still getting half of my money, and go be the secret agent.
Okay.
And that's that's what I was. I went to the col world bankers, the remaxes, you know, the executive real estate companies, and I went and did all the meetings and you know, the tour, the tours of the buildings and general managers, and I would go take them out for lunches and say, hey, I got this really great. You know, loan officer Nolan Nelson is amazing. You should really use them. You should just call them here, just call them. And then hey, hey, Nolan, take this take
this girl out. You know, she likes horses and stuff, whatever she likes going out and dancing. Take her. So we would schmooz people, and I wouldn't even do business. I would just schmooze people for a living, right because I was still making it crazy money. I still have my Mercedes and all this crazy lifestyle. And before you know it, I'm starting to get business. I'm like real estate, Okay, cool, now you're getting Now I'm really double dipping here. So
now I'm really double dipping. And I got my first deal and I'm selling this guy a property. Francis Verrillo, what was his name? And Julio Julio, I can't Julio. I'm not sure his name was. But I sold two of the properties or painters, and you know, they used our mortage company, and I just didn't realize, like how easy this was. I'm like, real estate, this is dune. This is like show property. Rite a contract. You know, even in my first contract ever even wrote I put
the wrong address. I'm like, God, I sold the house next door. Thank God the APN number was right on that contract because the address was wrong.
That's hilarious.
I'm like, I sold the property next door and they signed off on it. This is crazy. Might ensued, right, I was freaking So my real estate experience has not been easy. The fact that I'm even good at it, you know, boggles me. But I'm actually not even good. I'm actually a guru probably at this point because I've already went through the trials and tribulations of you know, the chaos. But you know, I always had multiple incomes from that real estate from when I got into real estate,
to the mortgage side to the wholesale side. You know, I've done fairly well. That's why I could always go from one or the other, or or or dibbled out in both this day and age. I don't do anything with mortgages other than you know, as long as they give a good customer service, I'm cool with it. I stick in one and one genre, which is just the real estate and luxury and you know my clientele. Mmm good, m hm. You don't really like onions.
Though, No, but you know what, I've just been into one. I'm so glad. I put very little onions. Let us do? Did you put lettus?
No? But I'm hungry, so I eat everything. I'm not really much of a complaint.
Avocado avocado right here?
Yeah, yeah, you got to hook it up, bro Well, I mean listen, I was grabbing the the onions. I was grabbing the hot, the hot halapenos.
You can never go wrong being broke and eating tacos. This is amazing. And you know what, the hot sauce does.
Help.
Should put more hot sauce and mustards.
Right, that's that broke trick right there, when you got avocado.
On the tacola bomb. I don't even think I do that ever in real life.
Really, they're so bomb. You you that sugar and lemon?
Yeah, yeah, you know what, I have a sugar You know how people like alcohol and drugs. My advice is sugar like there's a TwixT in my car right now? Really like, please you just don't go down there and eat it?
We do like paper oxylity, who gets up? Boom?
Where does Loving Listings come in to play?
Hmm?
Love just Taco is so good everyone, I'm gonna eat the whole thing. Well, you're hungry too, Oh, I'm hungry all right, go on.
Love en Listings right mm hmm. I worked with so many rappers people in the entertainment industry that I decided to grab myself home. I'm just filmed bits and pieces of it and after a while looking at the foot and I'm like, this looks like it could be a show, said Cribs. You know, no one was doing what I was doing.
Before all the other real estate shows start piling in.
I mean there was Cribs, but yeah, I mean I was definitely pioneering it before the selling sound says. But the problem is they didn't show like the million doi listening was out there, but it didn't show the diversity that the Jamaicans, right, the Blacks, the Latins that had
money too, that were buying all these properties. They showed the millionarire listenings that were showing you saw the white people, and you saw that they had a specific you know, client sele that were wealthy, but you never saw the culture people have money. So you know, what does that say to our kids that blacks don't have money, Asians don't have money? What is that? I mean, there's crazy rich Asians that came way further, you know, later in the process. But I saw there was a need for it.
So I started filming stuff and I used rappers that I was friends with as a gateway because they were buying and renting houses for extraordinarily high price, right because they were underprivileged, underserved, and when they wanted it, they wanted it. They wanted it because no one ever gave them the opportunity to have it. So for me, I was that guy that said, hey, why don't we, you know, get them a better deal as opposed to because this
is a culture of rappers. I want it. I'm gonna spend that money and don't even negotiate price.
I've I've noticed that they don't negotiate at all.
Huh, they don't. They just want it right because it's they just it's it's something they want. So I always came out.
Most of these rappers act like street You would think they would think to negotiate.
No, because it's a flex. But how much that flex? How many shows do you have to do? You know for that flex? So you know I always treated everybody fairly and said let's do this price. Let's do it that price, right, you know, Rockstar. I did his house right. I door knocked on that. He said time, I want to be in this area, very very predominant. Are he lives in Chatsworth.
I know because he's friends with one of my friends.
Yeah, so I door knocked on that house and I negotiated it and we got him the house.
You door knocked it.
I door knocked it because he said time I want to be in the area. So and you'll tell you like, I'm that guy like I'll look out for people. If you want it, I'll figure it out.
That is actually everyone that I know that knows you, handful of people, literally handful, they've all said the same thing about you. And I met you within five seconds and I felt it. So I was like, oh okay, because we met and then you were like, hey, this is you know, equality is a big thing for me.
You know, my dad's Asian, My mom's wife. And because I look a certain way, I have certain benefits, but when I'm with my dad, he doesn't have the same benefits. So it's always really important to see that people get treated correctly and honestly, because at the end of the day, regardless of their skin color and the money that they have in their bank account, they deserve to be respected
and be treated fairly. And that's the problem society. So I carved out a lane, you know, for something that I believe would be a hit, you know, which was love and Listenings.
And how hard was it to sell the show?
It wasn't wasn't that hard. It was more about who did I know to get me to the place that I needed to go right And just like the cameraman that's here now, I said, you always have to have one good person that wants to see you win, and to utilize that person, to keep on doing good to that person, to utilize that to go to the next place is that you need to go. It's playing chess.
Yeah.
So because I studied so much psychology, I understand you know what one person can do. If say calling you know ten people and you know the head of Netflix, I might have a conversation with you saying, well, what would you think about this product? Could you take it to Ted Surranders? Right? And you know, can you find out I would ask you the questions to see if you would do it, you know, but it's very important
to understand, you know, the value of each person. Everybody has value, and I think that a lot of people don't utilize it like the way they should. I'm just a master at it.
Yeah. Well, I like too that you said that find find some of that wants to see you win. And then I feel like that's when it comes to like all my mentors, a lot of my relationships, you know, I feel like I've been very blessed and fortunate to have like a group that wants to see you win, but just an amazing group of people I've been. I don't know, God just keeps a blessing me.
We have to ask a lot of questions too, you know, for yourself, like where do you do a show? Right? But where's this show going to be honest? Is gonna be like a major network, the Food Network? And who knows the executive from the Food Network? Right, Like I know that Samuel Jackson's daughter ran the Food Network.
I didn't know that and I know that fact.
Yeah, so you know, and you have to know, like, okay, so who knows. I know Stevie Wonders good friends with Samuel Jackson. I know I know Stevie Ander's wife. So you have to like put these things into the atmosphere. How you're going to actually accomplish that goal. Most people do not do that, right. People forget goals, right. We have schedules, but we don't have goals right. So it's important to really put your goals together and accomplish it. So going back to the show stuff, I did all
the leg work right. I cast the show, I shot part of it, had a very amazing partner that was blessed to come help me and actually produce the stuff. He was actually one of the first creators of the Zeus Network, which was called the Black Box, Sean Matthews.
And oh he's one of the founding creators of that was.
For l PM Media, which was Lemmy's company. I mean, Lemmy has done amazing with you know, with Zeus Network. When no one believed in him. He believed in himself. Whether I like him or not, you have to give him credit. For what he's done, you know, and he's living his best life. He manifested that he created it and he's staying with it. So going back to the show that I was doing, it's something that I had
a vision and I believed more than anybody. Anything that you want to do in life, you have to believe it as if you already achieved it. From achievement, you go reverse, Now that I already have it, how do you go back? What did all the steps that you had to do to get to that achievement? And then once you get to the last step, which is where you're at now, now you can move forward. Now you have a business plan and that's my secrets, right. And I have a show that I just shot for NBC Universal.
It hasn't in greenlit yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be because it's such a great concept and we feel really good about it. But you know, these are just small things. It's like, it's not necessarily do I think that that that they're the best ideas. It's just that I believe in it more than most.
Okay, yeah, well yeah, well what can we be looking forward to coming from you? I know, it doesn't seem like you want to open up too much about this new show that's going to be greenlit. It's another real estate shows, another real estate show. So you're still doing real estate. You're still doing television production.
You know, I don't really tell people I do so much producing. You know, I have made quite a bit of impact and made money.
Mm hmm.
It's a hobby to me. Okay, not my career.
But your career is just strictly real estate.
Strictly real estate. So anything that's tied to real estate, whether it's TV or building houses, just I'm a real estate professional.
Yeah. I like going on your stories and seeing the houses and all that. If you guys want to keep up with tie, go ahead tell them how to do it.
Instagram socials, no, just really just Instagram. I mean I have a Twitter, barely use it, but three ten agent, three one O agent.
That's me, three old agent.
I don't got very many pictures. I got seven. But you know I don't post any of the celebrities i'm with. Just you know, I would say this right in closing to this. You know, everybody is a celebrity right in their own head, but really make sure you put the foundation for yourself make sure that you're being purposeful in your life, and if you have a dream, make sure that you head towards that dream and do it with the right intentions. That's it, That's what a real celebrity is.
I love that you heard it here first on Eating Wall Broke. Now we're gonna finish eating these this these tackles. Thanks for tuning on.
Peace out ya peace.
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