Chapter III: “Strengthening your Voice” with Maricela Soberanes

00:00:00
On this episode, I sat down with Maricela Soberanes. I took French for seven years, never took Spanish. So about the best I can do. But this was a really, really fun episode. And I mean, talk about.

00:00:20
So she's an author of multiple books, and one of the books fits perfectly with our podcast. That's actually how I found her. And we go into that a little bit in the beginning of the episode. But Maricella is from Mexico. She was born there into poverty and came to the US at the age of 23 with $100 in her pocket and no english speaking capabilities and no friends, no network.

00:00:53
So I make the joke that I had trouble switching middle schools in 6th grade. And compared to what she did, you get the point. So now she is a millionaire and is crushing it. In real estate. She and her husband have invested in passively and actively.

00:01:15
They have about 2500 rental doors, so they've moved into multifamily self storage and even mobile home parks. And I mean, really, their massive growth has occurred in the last two years when most of the world was shut down due to the pandemic. So in the face of scarcity and adversity, she is absolutely living in From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. And she talks about several reasons why and her approach to things, about being intentional, taking action, being grateful, and expanding your network and joining mastermind groups. And it's very inspirational, this episode, and I know you're going to love it.

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Thanks. Inspiring stories of real people overcoming incredible odds to live life to the fullest. We are all guaranteed to face hardships. How will we handle the adversity? Join us to be moved by everyday people who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth.

00:02:21
Be inspired as these relatable heroes get vulnerable. And former counterintelligence investigator Jamie Bateman puts his interviewing skills to the test. Restore your faith in humanity as you experience true Cinderella stories of average people turning surreal struggle and deep despair into booming businesses and financial fortune. Take ownership of the life you are destined to live and turn your adversity into From Adversity to Abundance Podcast.

00:02:52
Welcome everybody, to another episode of the from adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman, and I'm very excited. Today we have a special guest, Maricela Soberanes. That's my best attempt, at least, my best first attempt. Maricella, how are you doing today?

00:03:13
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. And you did just right. Perfect. And your company name, just so we get it out there, you want to say your company name for us?

00:03:24
It's Oplex. That's our brand. Perfect. So, before we get into kind of your current context of who you are today, I didn't tell you this before we hit record, but I actually came across your name from, I think I was Googling authors with something related to my podcast name. So I think I googled adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast books, and the name of your book came up from scarcity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast.

00:04:01
And so then I started digging a little bit deeper and I was like, she would make a fantastic guest. And then also, another thing is, I know you were in the military. I was as well. And so I said, I definitely need to get her on the show. So.

00:04:16
Didn't tell you that before we hit record, but that's how I found you and tracked you down. And I appreciate you spending your time with us, because I know it is valuable if you could tell our listeners what you're up to today and give us a little context of your real estate business and everything else you have going on right now. Yes, thank you for sharing that. That's incredible. Just little things that just can sometimes happen in life and you don't even realize that.

00:04:47
So thanks for sharing. How you link with Austin, with me currently what we do is my husband and I, we are into apartment syndications. So we purchase large apartment complexes and we find partners and find investors. And altogether, the goal is to make the projections, reach projections, and then sell the apartment. In the meantime, we also better communities and impact larger than what we were doing before, which was small, multifamily houses, duplicates.

00:05:25
We also do mobile home parks and self storages. So diversification on that aspect. But majority of focus is apartment syndications. Okay, so could you put a little bit more context to it as far as some numbers, or. You don't have to get too detailed if you don't want to, but as far as how many deals have you done or what does your business look like today?

00:05:51
Yes, of course. So we have passively. We're still investing passively, and every deal we invest and that we offer to our investors, we invest passively with them. But we are now transitioned to active. So there's a role that we play as an active member.

00:06:07
So possibly we are invested in 1250 apartments in five different states and actively, we have about 1200 apartments, and that's a total of four deals where we have primary partners, and that's in three states. So a total of 500 apartments across five different states. So the three states are part of the five states. Yes. Got it.

00:06:43
That's a lot. Wow. Yeah. You're definitely busy.

00:06:51
How long have you been doing that for? So we started with single families in 2006, and we transitioned to apartments 19 months ago. Got it. Okay. And then you've more recently diversified a little bit into self storage and mobile home parks, right?

00:07:10
You said, yes, we added those as part of the. We call it the generational wealth type of assets that we are not usually a partnership, and we are holding those assets for generations to come. Yeah. So quick, before we dive into your backstory. So on the active side, you're more of the GP.

00:07:35
Is that how. Okay. And then you bring on limited partners, and you're the general partner, playing the active role of putting the deals together, managing the assets, adding value, adding to the NOI, which adds to the investment value, the actual value of the asset, and then you can exit for a profit, hopefully for you and your limited partners. Is that fair to say? That is fair.

00:08:05
I didn't know how deep I couldn't go. Yeah, no, that's okay. Some of our listeners can talk circles around me as far as a multifamily, it's not my wheelhouse, but I'm generally aware of how that works.

00:08:25
I'm more in the single family space where the value of the asset is really based more on the comps and what the neighbors sold their house for. It's more difficult for me to add value to that asset than it is, well, at least directly influenced the value of the asset itself than it is in the larger commercial or multifamily space. Yeah, that's a really good point. Because when we look at apartments, it's actually, we buy businesses. We buy the business.

00:09:00
We better, like you said, the NOI, which is all the income, minus all the expenses. And that's your problem. We acquire them. We're looking to develop a business plan so that we can improve the NOI, which is going to then decide or impact the value. So we do things like we go in there and we change 200 toilets and showers.

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Some people might ask, why do you do that? Right? Because with every flush, we're going to save water. And it also gives us the opportunity to go in every single apartment, not only to change the toilet, because when you are there, the residents will say, hey, by the way, this is also bothering me. And they see the impact right away, what we can do.

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And all of that is planned. And all of that also results in happy residents that stay longer because we wanted to also decrease the water usage.

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The way they live there, they're more comfortable. They feel like, you did pay attention. The new owner changed this or did this for us along the way, we impact communities. So when you start a single families, which we were, we had 35 doors, we could only help 35 families. It's more limited impact, right?

00:10:26
Yeah, no, that's great. Unfortunately, in the media today, and we get such the divide between landlords and tenants, I'm not saying it doesn't exist anywhere, but it's refreshing to hear from someone who actually wants to make a positive impact and make some money along the way and help leave a positive influence in your wake and also make money for your investors. And, I mean, that should be the goal in my opinion. Why can't it be a win win? So that's, that's really good.

00:11:10
I'm glad to hear. And I don't think we mentioned, but you're in the Austin, Texas area, is that right? Yeah, we're based in Austin and we invest in Austin, Houston and Dallas. And then outside of Texas, is it. Mostly what other states are you in if you don't?

00:11:28
So mostly the states. The way we pick is that they are small business friendly. That's mainly the taxes are not too crazy, the regulations are not too out of California and New York.

00:11:49
So you're more in the south and Florida, Georgia. I'm just guessing. Yeah. Right. Got it.

00:12:00
Okay. All right. Now that makes a lot of sense. You definitely have been in the real estate investment game for quite some, and I think moving, diversifying at this point makes a good bit of sense as well. So that's really good.

00:12:16
So more to the human side of things, from scarcity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. And I see you do have another book as well. Real estate investing made simple, but from scarcity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast, that's your new book, the more recent book. Can you tell us kind of what led to that? And you can pick it up where you'd like to from your own, whether it's childhood or wherever you'd like to.

00:12:43
But we want to walk through kind of your backstory and discuss some of the adversity, the personal adversity or business related challenges that you've been through. And hopefully you can be an inspiration for the listeners. So, yeah, tell us more about the book and your background. Yeah, so the book actually is my background. That's actually the stories that I grew up in Mexico.

00:13:15
I was born and raised there. And at age five, my mom moved us as a family to the city. It was a small little town, very little town, and my grandma stayed there, the rest of the family stayed there. And so along the years, every summer, my mom will bring us back to visit grandma. But we grew up very poor.

00:13:47
Or traveling as a family back to my grandma was a sacrifice that we all have to make and be conscious about saving and just optimizing our resources to be able to afford to go back. And it wasn't a luxury trip by any means, but that was the way that we grew up. But I wrote the book to share those memories with the generations that will be here. And my grandma passed. My mom passed.

00:14:18
And you know what's coming for me, right? That's what's coming for. I want to write her legacy and share those stories, but I also wanted to make it. The lessons that I learned are lessons that I continue to apply and I have during my entire life, to get to where I am. Visualization, affirmations, From Adversity to Abundance Podcast, thinking larger.

00:14:48
That's why I wrote this book.

00:14:55
And I end up saying this on a lot of episodes. The point is not to bring back terrible memories or to make anyone cry, although that actually did just happen last week on an episode, and certainly not therapy or anything like that. But if you could. Could you dive into a little more specifics as far as the adversity you've faced and poverty? Right there is a big one, obviously, but either be more specific about the poverty, or were there other types of challenges that you faced growing up?

00:15:34
Yeah, mostly not having enough just to sustain as a family. My mom, it was eight of us.

00:15:47
She actually went in a small little town. She was the midwife for the community. And when we moved to the city, there's hospital. So she immediately lost not only friends, her community, but also the ability to make money or transactions that will help her take care of the family. She actually didn't know how to read or write because that was just in that area.

00:16:15
So you can only imagine how difficult it was for her to overcome.

00:16:22
But she always makes sure that she provided in the house. There was the love, there was the family, the community.

00:16:31
That's why she made the effort to bring us back to where we could see that, have or not that she can see that it was a community that helped each other. So I can tell you, other than what I saw outside of the house, people had other things. And that's how I knew that, okay, we just don't have that. But it wasn't like a mystery. It wasn't like a comparison of when I wrote the book.

00:17:04
I was trying to write in a way that it didn't sound like you said, a soap story. Because I can talk about sadness, but in reality, it really was From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. Now, I can tell you, when I moved to the states at age 23 and I arrived here, I didn't speak the language. I didn't speak any English. I didn't know anyone, and I had $100 pocket.

00:17:32
That's a lot of challenges right there. That's a lot. I didn't have my community anymore. I didn't have my, like, I think that is even a bigger obstacle. But just the fact that I woke up the next day and I was in America, my eyes were like, I.

00:17:53
Can'T believe I was talking the other day about how I switched schools in the middle of 6th grade and how that was challenging compared to what you went through at 23. I don't think switching middle schools is all that challenging. But what led up to before you were 23, or what was the context to you coming to America?

00:18:26
My first degree was business degree in Mexico, and I was practicing, and the company that we did a lot of business with was from the states. So every time I get to answer the phone, it was in English. So I was doing my job well in Spanish. And then every time I have a call from the States, I'm like, just a.

00:18:57
And there was a couple of people. One was the owner and another executive that was fluent at English, and that's where the calls went to. And I'm like, well, I would like to help them. I would like to speak, but I can't even. You felt like you weren't doing your job as well as you could have.

00:19:17
And so that was really the impetus. So it was all about learning the language. Yes. I want to go and see what it feels like just to be in a place where you can't understand and learn. So I put myself through school, and my first classes were the English as a second language and then going, okay.

00:19:43
So you said you put yourself through school. What did that look like? Were you working at the same time? I guess, yes. I have to be able to provide, because, again, I have to pay for school, pay for all my expenses.

00:20:04
While I was going to school, I actually went to nursing school, and I kept going. I went to anesthesia school. I graduated. After that, I entered the military. I think that was another phase.

00:20:17
That was a little. Yeah, yeah. So what led you to the military? How did that transition.

00:20:28
Have? I have finished my doctorate. Then I just feel like I have so much that America has given me so many opportunities at that point. I had a couple of investments. I just felt like I was living the dream.

00:20:49
It was a time for me to give back and join military. I was in school and a recruiting person, they came and they said, well, we really need anesthesia providers in the military. And I was like, okay, well, go.

00:21:09
Okay. On some level, I can relate to that. I ended up joining later than most people do. I was 27, 28, going through basic training and then in the army, and then I went through federal officer candidate school. And at that point, when you get to OCS, the average age is a little bit older because you have people who were enlisted for a while that are becoming officers.

00:21:37
But in basic training, I was definitely on the older side. And so at the time, it might have seemed as far as why did I join? Might have seemed like it came out of nowhere because we actually had just gotten married, and then I joined the military. So it looks like I ran off from, got scared and joined the military. But a big reason why I did this is the point I'm getting to, is that it was to do something that I thought was honorable and just to try to serve and give back.

00:22:09
And it may sound like I'm gloating, but that really was it. I mean, it was not to pay off student loans or take some big bonus or something like that. It was to do something with purpose and to serve and to give. Certainly the military ended up benefiting me as well. But, yeah, it sounds like in some ways it was similar for you, where you felt like the country had given you so much and you wanted to give back.

00:22:43
So then you were in the Navy, is that right? Yeah, I was in the Navy.

00:22:53
I came in as a lieutenant, and they gave me like a year something credit, so I quickly promoted to lieutenant commander. I did eight years and then separated, but I had a blast. That's awesome. And how long were you in the Navy for? You said eight years.

00:23:12
Okay, got it. We'll have to edit that part. So then, and then what did you do after the Navy? So I got out last year, August. We've been doing the apartment syndications and building.

00:23:29
Wow, that's awesome. When do you sleep?

00:23:37
What was that? I'm sorry, that cut out for a bit. I'm not writing a book. Oh, yeah, then writing a book as well. Jeez.

00:23:46
Writing the book, that's when I sleep. Oh, got you, got it. So why real estate?

00:23:57
We'll talk about that, and then we can go back to the kind of the lessons that you started to touch on, lessons you've learned from the adversity and how you've applied those. But what got you into real estate? So there I was doing paying my bills. And after finishing a long shift at the hospital, and I got home and I realized that, wow, the neighbor is paying mortgage, they pay my mortgage. That was a nice feeling to have.

00:24:31
But then I was single then, and I was like, well, someday I won't be able to go to work, age or anything could happen. I mean, I was making good hospital and I was working really long hours, but I realized that if I don't go to work, I wasn't going to be making any money. I needed to be present to make that money, right? And I realized that someday I might not, for whatever reason, be able to. And I saw the possibility of having the cash flow from investments, like putting the money to work.

00:25:04
And then the money was making more money. So I figured if I do more of this, then I can.

00:25:12
And so that really was how I got started thinking about it. And growing up in Mexico, the duplex theme wasn't a thing. We don't have duplex. We either have a house that is occupied by generations. First floor is first kids, but there's really no that kind of investment.

00:25:35
So I was lucky that my agent offered me because I told him, I'm not looking for something big. I want a house for me, something, just me and something else that I can have a roommate and use the concept of a duplex. So having that mentality, I thought, well, if I buy more duplexes, then I can then reduce my hours or not have to go to work looking into it. And when I deployed, I actually spent a lot of time learning on how does the real estate can actually build your wealth and you can scale it. And so that's when I learned about syndications and how you can do now.

00:26:21
Where did you deploy? I was in Jibri, Africa. Okay, gotcha. I wasn't expecting that.

00:26:31
I mean, and people say, how'd you have time to do that when you were deployed, and I was deployed to Iraq. And even though you're busy a lot, you still have downtime, and you don't have 24/7 you're not busy with work. So what are you going to do with that downtime? And I actually started a second degree because it was like, all right, I don't know why not. And that was before remote learning was so popular.

00:27:02
But 2006, you said, is when you got started, right? In real estate. Yes.

00:27:10
The Internet was obviously around, but I don't think bigger pockets was a thing. And you didn't have all these books and all these resources. So that's impressive because it wasn't until much later that we really went full on because there's podcasts and things staring you in the face with how to learn and how to grow your network. So sounds like you did it more locally through your agent and then started to scale from there. Is that fair to say?

00:27:44
Yes. When I came back, I have saved a lot of money from my income was non taxable. And like you said, when you're deployed, they provide all your meals, everything. There's nowhere you can spend the money and all of that. When I came back, I was looking for more duplexes and then Fourplex came along and I was like, wait.

00:28:07
My goal was to buy one home a year, one house a year. And then I was like, wow, I can buy four, right? Yeah. So maybe slowly. But your mind started to expand as far as what was possible, and then it just grew from there.

00:28:28
When did you get into kind of the bigger multifamily investing? Yeah. So along the way, I met my husband and he has the same mindset of growing and growing your net worth and putting your money to work. So we got along really well and he was still active. He did 26 and a half years and he retired in October 2020.

00:28:56
Congrats to him. Thank you. Yes, thank you. So that's when actually we transitioned to start selling our multifamily and going into apartment syndications. We started passive as passive investors, so we can learn, and we also pay for mentorship.

00:29:13
We pay for different masterminds and invested thousands of dollars to learn from the best that they were doing. And we still are investing in ourselves and in the business. But that's what allow us to go transition from $35 to 2500. That's incredible growth. And I'll be honest, I have gotten stingy with the mastermind stuff.

00:29:40
I just joined a mastermind, so I finally pulled the trigger. But I think a lot of people get hung up on that and you can definitely waste money there if you're not careful with what groups you're getting into or who you're being associated with. But I mean, that's definitely been a theme already in the show, is just don't be afraid to invest in yourself, really is what it is. You're plugging yourself into a network of people who have been doing this, where you're just absorbing knowledge and you're just learning and growing, and now you're exposed to all these other investors.

00:30:22
I think that makes a lot of sense. Obviously it works, or else you wouldn't continue to spend money in that fashion. Right. The return on investment. So most people is going to say, okay, well, I'm going to pay, I don't know, $25,000 on this mastermind.

00:30:39
And that's just one of. But then what do I get out of it? What you get out of it, what you put amount. But not everybody does the same work. So it's the work that you do that is going to give you return on investments.

00:30:55
We go to, we meet so many people, and then we meet them again next year. The next year. And some of them are action.

00:31:07
If you are paying for these investments, make sure that you're taking advantage of it in a way that you are getting your money back and whatever that looks for you or your audience. Right? I'm speaking to your audience. No, you're right. If you're putting your hard earned money into mastermind or a course or a seminar, make sure that you're getting your money out.

00:31:33
But that's going to be not only from the event, and it's going to be a continuous work in reaching out to those connections that you met briefly, see how you can add value to them. And that usually comes back around. And both of you, both sides end up gaining something. So for us has been the source of a lot of partnerships, a lot of investors, a lot of just businesses that we create. The other thing is when it is a self selecting process, right?

00:32:09
Because you just said it earlier, not everybody pulls the trigger. So the people that are already invested in there, let's just say a seminar or a mastermind self selecting, they're already saying, hey, I'm this serious. I am going to invest this amount of money. So they are doing part of the work for you already. So the rest of it is yourself.

00:32:34
Right. So we are very intentional on not only on being there. If we something, we're going to be sitting at the front row asking questions, connecting with everybody and anyone that we can. That's where the sweet spot is. That's really good.

00:32:52
And so you said late 2020, when you really got started in the large multifamily, right. The syndications and what you're doing now, is that right? October? Yeah, 2020.

00:33:07
I think a lot of people would have been scared at that point with the pandemic and all that.

00:33:17
At that point in October 2020, approximately how many doors did you have passively or actively.

00:33:28
Before May, which is when we learned about the COVID thing. Right. Actually, in my industry, I lost my contract, which I was going to a different hospital to work. Like I mentioned, my job, my primary job is anesthesia. So I do go to different hospitals.

00:33:45
So my job canceled the contract and we saw how the severity of all this wave of the COVID was hitting. And at that point we have 31 rental units. Okay? And we sit down and did the numbers. How are we going to pay the mortgages?

00:34:09
Are we able to pay? Because the banks were given forgiveness on the loans and we were grateful that we didn't have to use any of that. With ten units being paying, they actually cover all the expenses. So at which .1 of the wholesalers that we got a lot of properties from came around and said, hey, I have this fourplex that's very distressed and we're going to sell it for this much. I went and saw it and it was very distressed.

00:34:45
It was full of trash, full of lease, and it was going to be do it all completely. Decided to buy it. And since nothing was happening, my husband was retiring in October. I didn't know if I was going to go back to work. And we ended up doing all that renovation by ourselves.

00:35:08
We did up the place, we bought it for 65, I think it was, and we put about $120,000 in, did all the insulation. We did everything. It was from the starts up, and we ended up selling it because somebody came and offered us some healthy price. And we were mudding. We were literally mudding and cleaning.

00:35:32
And we were listening to the seminar, that syndication seminar. And that's when we realized, you know what, we need to be more intentional. So the second day of the seminar, we got a hotel, we stayed there. We were in front of the TV being intentional. And that day is when we actually joined that mentorship program.

00:35:54
It was probably about two days after that, I guess that was $35 and about, I don't know, that same week we invested possibly with a person, actually, that I've been in contact for a podcast, and we invested passively there. So that was about, I don't know, it was probably about 200 units or so. And then we just continued to do the same thing, trusting that eventually, even though that wasn't giving us the cash flow now. And remember, you said it's a covered year, so we were not going to be getting the money from the residents, but we still trusted that this was a good decision and a better decision to scale and to let go of the smaller units. And so by the end of the year, we sold one of the units, we put all the money back into the syndications, and we did that nine times.

00:36:48
So in nine months, we went from no apartments in our portfolio to 1500. I think us. That's incredible. Wow. And this is really at the start of COVID as far as maybe it started before that, but in March, April 2020, until now, you've grown from 30 to 35 rental units somewhere in there to, what did you say, 2500 passive and active doors.

00:37:24
That's amazing. And you keep putting the profits and your own physical energy and sweat equity into the business, it sounds like. So you've just grown exponentially. That's fantastic. So before we get to kind of a rapid fire set of questions that I didn't prep you for, what would you say as far as looking back at the adversity that you have faced?

00:37:52
And of course you will continue to face adversity. We don't act like all of your adversity or your scarcity is 100% gone, and now you only live in From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. We don't pretend like that's an overnight thing, but what would you say? You're definitely living in financial From Adversity to Abundance Podcast, certainly relative to where you were. So what would you say are some of the lessons you've learned as far as kind of moving toward From Adversity to Abundance Podcast?

00:38:27
I'll say that the first one is to be grateful and appreciative for what we have. Because just when we think that the worst is happening, there's always something worse. So we grateful for not having the other worst. Right. And choosing intentionally focus on what we have.

00:38:50
Like being able to dream big, to have a dream, at least you have the clarity to have a dream, and that sometimes is the only thing that you have, and that's the only thing that you have to propel yourself. So definitely being grateful for what we have. The other thing is that I would say what differentiates the person that stays in the scarcity from the person to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast is the person that takes the action. You have to be intentional what actions we take. And that together with setting your goals, you're lining up the map and you're pretty much giving your brain a path that it needs to be followed.

00:39:34
So being grateful, being intentional and taking action and having your goals, those are very good. Yeah, because you hear this debate, and I actually heard a little bit of this yesterday on a short podcast. As far as you have kind of the think and grow rich crowd who, if you're taking that extreme, on the extreme, it's, oh, I just have to think, I don't have to do anything, I just have to dream and that it'll all magically happen. No, you do need to roll up your sleeves and not be afraid to do the full rehab yourself. But if you don't actually dream and plan and think and you only take action, then you're going to be getting yourself nowhere.

00:40:20
You're headed in the wrong direction. So like you said, you need to be intentional about it and you need both. So that's really good.

00:40:32
I don't have much to add there. Be intentional, dream big, take action and be grateful was the first one you said. All right, a few more rapid fire questions here. What do people misunderstand about you? Because of my accent.

00:40:55
They misunderstand what I'm saying.

00:41:01
I think. I think that probably that I'm all the time go getter and there's no, that's not true. Because sometimes I allow myself to say, you know, I'm going to take it easy today. And I do have those times where just have fun and live life. So I think that.

00:41:20
Ask me, when do you sleep? Well, I do sleep. Right. Got you. Yes.

00:41:26
That's good. Looking back, what would you say is one of your regrets or failures? However you want to frame that. But something that you would change or do differently.

00:41:44
After the fight. Right. We always say, well, maybe I should have done that. I should have done that. And sometimes it's harder to, like, put it in words, especially when you're asked in front of the strangers.

00:41:53
Sure. But I think that definitely spending more time with family and that's always going to be like, man, I should have. I should book the trip. Especially my family being in Mexico now I'm married and my side of the family here, which makes it always.

00:42:17
There were years that I didn't have a means to go. Like, I have no money. If I stopped working, I couldn't afford. Right. So definitely more time with family.

00:42:29
Yeah, that's good. If you could go back and give your 18 year old self advice, what would it be?

00:42:40
I would say, gosh, I would say just not to worry too much about what other people's labels that they stamped on you. Comes we hear something and we kind of take that to heart. We believe it and then we bidding it ourselves. So I would say definitely have your voices be stronger than others in a way that impact you instead of listening to those messages. Good.

00:43:14
If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would it be? Wow. Mother Teresa. Okay.

00:43:28
I almost don't have to ask why, but why would it be her?

00:43:34
I think every word that she spoke is powerful. And even if it's like two, three minutes that I get to just absorb her, I just see her as given person, as a very wise person.

00:43:58
So, yeah, just to kind of be there. And I feel like with her words, she just hugs you. And.

00:44:07
Yeah, we'd all be just better off if we spent five minutes with her. I agree.

00:44:16
How about in your business, what's a challenge that you're facing today? So we grew a little too fast, and it's not a bad thing. It's a challenging thing because when you're in a growing phase, you really are just in survival phase. Right. So we started hiring now people who are hiring our team, but we still have to continue going.

00:44:42
So it's been challenging to train or delegate when you are still trying to learn it. So we have hired amazing team, but it still is taking us time to develop. But we'd rather do it now than hopefully we'll grow faster instead of, we see very often in that syndication world that there's this very successful people. They've been doing it for 1020 years and they're just now hiring one assistant. They still ask very early.

00:45:19
And even though it's an investment in the business, the goal is to continue to grow and not have this stagger hitting the ceiling every so often or every so many years. Yeah. Is it virtual assistants or how have you been hiring? We actually have the state. We have a physical person and we have a couple of virtual assistants.

00:45:45
The goal is to have at least another person in the state. Yeah, got it. And how do you and your husband divide up roles? He's more of the numbers person. He's the underwriter.

00:46:00
He does a lot of the market analysis. I do a lot of the chitchatting. Relations, investors and a lot of admin. We kind of naturally follow what feels good and it's more in the business. Yeah, got you.

00:46:19
Yeah, I've experienced that myself. As far as, well, I've worked with my spouse in real estate as well. But even with other business partners, kind of just naturally gravitate to certain things, even if it's not super well defined up front and either it works or it doesn't, but got you. So what is one piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting out in real estate? Find mentorship and find the mentorship from the people.

00:46:58
So find the person that is doing it on the daily basis, like in the market that we are. If we are not buying an apartment, we are among people that are doing that every single day because the process of buying it might take you three to five months. And if you take your post off the market, the market is changing so quickly. So find mentorship and be in a community that are doing what you want to do. Got it.

00:47:25
That's good. All right. What's a movie that you would recommend?

00:47:31
Do you ever watch any movies? No. Right.

00:47:36
Or how about if you want to switch it to a book other than your own? Okay. Yeah. So I really like the millionaire next door. Yeah.

00:47:48
I'm trying to think because there's millionaire real estate invest. Oh, millionaire next door. Got it. That's the one where school teachers might be a millionaire and you don't know it. Right.

00:47:59
Yeah. And it takes you to the process of why and how they got into being a millionaire by the habits that they have and how they live their life. It's not that you have to be flashy and leave it all there because you have some money. And if you put it in perspective, really being a millionaire these days, like you buy a house, people has a house. That is not dollars just because market went up.

00:48:27
Right. And that book actually was written to be a millionaire. That was impressive. Yeah, I agree.

00:48:40
Okay. As we start to wrap up here, what's one question that you wish I'd asked that I haven't asked one topic you'd like to address that we didn't touch on. We kind of visited.

00:48:57
I've been thorough.

00:49:00
Okay, got it. Okay. Do you listen to any podcasts? Do you ever listen to any other podcasts that you could recommend? Yes.

00:49:18
Real estate investment. I visit the different topics. I like that because they kind of wrap up the topics for you and then if I like a specific person and then I go and follow. But I kind of bounce back and forth in different podcasts, right? Yeah, I do the same thing.

00:49:39
Okay. That's awesome. I think this has been really good. Obviously your story and your book, they fit perfectly with the theme of my show and from scarcity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast. And it's one of those things where it's just I think our listeners are going to benefit greatly by hearing your story.

00:50:04
You didn't know English at 23 and you moved to the US and now you're an author and you have 2500 doors, rental properties or rental units, passively and actively. And the last three years, two years you've just blown up. So you and your husband, it's incredible growth and just the mindset, the From Adversity to Abundance Podcast mindset, being grateful, being intentional, taking action. And also I don't want to forget that you repeatedly talked about kind of serving others and making your tenants serving your tenants and making things a win win and improving communities along the way. So it's not like it's a cutthroat mentality, where it's all about you and your husband making as much cash as possible.

00:51:02
It's also serving others. So do you have anything to add to those kind of final thoughts? I actually do want to add that when you mentioned giving back, we have a mission to do medical missions. I've been doing medical missions to different countries, but I've never done one to Mexico. And one of the things that when I went and saw my grandma for the last time, she was in so much pain and she stopped living life because she was in so much pain from her arthritis.

00:51:32
And I was able to inject local anesthetic in her knees. And immediately, like three minutes later, she's like, wow, it doesn't hurt anymore. And she asked me in the middle of her just kind of getting out of her own pain, and she asked me if I could do the same thing for her friends and her community, because she community for 104 years. So that was her only worry. If I can help them with what I have, and I promise her that I will.

00:52:04
And part of actually the book, I wrote it for waking up that theme and all the profits from that book and other materials that we share. The second book are to be dedicated to bring Perry commissions. Our first one is scheduled to be June 2025. We are trying to do it earlier than that, if possible. But that is like what I told you, set your goals.

00:52:26
That's our goal. That's June to 2025 and hopefully before. But all of this, what we do with the passive income and I guess the goal is to be able to give back and hopefully more than one mission. We'll do several. And we are going to open it to do a community wellness outreaches.

00:52:47
So we'll be like, help build houses, improve the community. That's really good. That's great. I actually skipped over, how do you like to serve others? Because we are partially because we running a little short on time, but it's also because I felt like you'd already shown that.

00:53:06
But I'm really glad you threw that in there because that's a lot. You clearly are giving back and serving. That's impressive. So you said June 2025 is the goal. Got you.

00:53:25
That's for to Mexico. Yes. Got it. Awesome. Okay.

00:53:32
Where can our listeners find you online. I know you're out there, but what websites or social media channels would you like to highlight? Instagram. I am there. My name will pop.

00:53:47
But my, I guess whatever name.

00:53:53
The immigrant millionaire. But you can just google my name and same thing for Facebook and.

00:54:03
Do you want to spell your name for the listeners who are only listening and. Not watching this, it's Maricela and the last name is S o B as in Bravo. E r a n as in Nancy es. Fantastic. And your business is upplex up plex.

00:54:30
Great. This has been very good. Marisalo, I really appreciate you joining. Mean, we've covered a lot from the human angle and all the poverty and adversity that you've faced, and now the growth you are continuing to experience from a financial and social standpoint. And just like I said, your story really fits very well with my show.

00:54:57
So I know our listeners are going to get a lot of value from this. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for having me. Absolutely. And to our listeners out there, please do give us a five star rating and review.

00:55:09
My website is labradorlending.com. You can check out what we have going on with different offerings that we have for passive investors and we do have resources for active mortgage note investors if you want to learn more about that. So please check that out as well. Thanks everyone. Take care.

00:55:31
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the from Adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe, and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts that helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.