Episode 3: When The System Fails You

In this episode, Anthony & Mara return from a podcast hiatus to share the story of why and how Anthony left teaching & how he entered the real estate game full time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hello, and welcome back to the Mirando Homes Podcast. I'm Anthony.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

And I'm Mara.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

And it has been a while since you heard from us, and that is because business has been booming.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

We are Philadelphia area realtors. We recently changed brokerages from Long and Foster to Howard Hanna. And yes, we've been very busy.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

We even moved ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

We did move, yes. We're now in Delco.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Back to my roots. Uh yeah, so something had to go for a little while, and unfortunately it was the podcast. But we are back.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

We are.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Like we never left.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Like we never left. So what are we going to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Well, so there are a lot of things that we could talk about in regards to real estate. The spring market has been super busy. We've been super busy, and we are very thankful for that. Um, but to come back after a hiatus, I think our last episode was literally in front of a Christmas tree.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

It was.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Um, I actually thought that today we would get into the celebration of Anthony's first full year in full-time real estate and actually talk about how he made the change of careers, what he was doing, what's he doing now, and obviously see if he regrets it. So um, this is gonna be like somewhat of all eyes on me. Yeah, somewhat of an interview. So if you're ready, we'll give our listeners, wherever they are, a little bit of information about why you left teaching, what you've been doing in order to prepare, leaving teaching, what you've been doing since you left, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

You ready?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Okay. Why don't you tell our listeners how long were you a teacher for and what was your favorite subject you taught?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah. Uh so in my six-year stay in the public education system, I taught every grade from kindergarten to 12th.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

And except eighth grade.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Except eighth grade grade. Which is my favorite grade to teach. Yeah, which is Mar's favorite grade to teach. That's yeah. So I taught um, you know, I was I was an elementary grades teacher. I taught every single subject, special ed to gifted. Um I then made a transition into high school business and middle school computer science. My concentration was in math, and I wound up never like specifically teaching that, which was kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

But I thought you taught seven years.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Uh maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

It's all a blur.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Well, my first my first year in education pandemic. Yeah, we like I taught half the year in person, fifth grade, and then we went to uh virtual. Yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

And your favorite was business out of all these grades.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Uh, what was your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I do.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I think there's a lot of gonna be a lot of people that are sad to hear this.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

I know, I know. And it's it's a shame because it's not it's not a shame. I loved teaching business and I loved teaching high school. But I I realized, I went back recently, and I realized I adored teaching elementary school.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

You're a special person for that.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Never me.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Never me. Um, okay, well, did you always want to be a teacher, or were you in the back of your mind like, I know I'm gonna do something else?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Uh I don't know. It depends on who you ask. But if you ask me, I would say that I would say that there was always some sort of uh nagging voice in the back of my head that knew that I was gonna be a teacher. My mom probably has a book somewhere that says in first grade I wanted to be a gym teacher. So the the evidence is there to say yes, I've always wanted to be a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

A gym teacher, that would make sense.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

You did take your business classes to the gym a lot.

unknown 4:18

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Only at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

I'm only saying that we have to question your meth.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Okay, well, I'm only saying that because my students would be like, Well, Mr. Moreno. All right. Next question. All right. So you there's a book somewhere that says you were always going to be a teacher, but I what else were you interested in?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah, I mean, I've always had the entrepreneurial spirit. Like, I just it's it's not for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

I don't but real estate?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah, I mean, in a way I get to be my own boss here. Uh I love that there's no floor underneath of me, that I have to build it brick by brick.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, that is very, you know, that's the entrepreneur mindset, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

If I don't work, I don't eat. And that's like and your kids. My children do not eat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

It's a good thing I work too. Just kidding. No, it is. Um, okay. So I'm sure there are people that just tuned into this episode for this question. Um, it's a little bit like, you know, I don't know. It's a little bit touchy of a subject, I guess. Um, but it is, but just ask it. Okay. So what is the real story? Why did you leave teaching? Um what happened?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Um, yeah, I mean, in the back of my mind, I I always kind of envisioned a day that I would leave and I would go to work for myself. Um, but if you asked me if it would have been when I had a one-year-old and a one-month-old at home, the answer would have been no. I would have never expected to leave at the time that I left. But uh, you know, in the position that I was in, I was doing really amazing things in terms of the fire that it lit inside of me.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, like your class, project management, you set it up as if it were a business. Yeah, with all the functioning parts from the ground up. Right. And uh and you guys were organ organizing, excuse me, certain events. Like, what were your three main events that you guys did?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Oh, yeah, like, all right, so I mean, before I talk about that, like that class that I wrote would not have been anything if it weren't for the the kids that the young adults that I got to work with inside of those who actually brought my dream to life. And so before I cover like what we did, it's a honest, since sincere, and authentic shout out to every single one of those young minds that helped me. Because without them, it wouldn't have happened.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, but I think you're also being modest. You designed the class intentionally, like it was a business, yeah, and you guys organized nonprofit events to benefit who.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah, so we at Thanksgiving we put meals on the table, the tables of families who didn't have the money to feed themselves.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Was that helping hands? I forget what was it called?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Depended on the year. Right, right. Holiday help was the real families that were at the school that I was teaching. Right. Um and the cool thing was it was like a double blind system. No, like nobody never knew who they were. Yeah, the counselors handled it.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

It was completely like and the whole school collection stuff, I remember.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we did that, and then we had um we actually like raised money with like a school-wide event for uh our like MDS class because we have a we had a unified bocce team, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

So we like were raising money for them to send to the Special Olympics to be able to like, you know, be involved with and for people who don't know, basically bacce has become a high school sport for um students with learning needs or physical needs that can participate in a school sport, and their buddies from Best Buddies can participate with them. So they were gonna go to Special Olympics and your event from your class raised money for them to be able to do so.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

And then the spring event was Yeah, the spring event was just, you know, it was like a school-wide event, again, that was like meant to raise morale inside the walls, but also meant to bring uh like shed light onto uh you know a community within our own community that often can be overlooked by high schoolers. Um veterans. Yeah, veterans. So we organized a dodgeball tournament, and this, like, we I mean, we had like five years of doing this or four years of doing this, something like that. That it was very, very successful. And watching watching teenagers learn how to interact with World War II veterans, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Or Vietnam veterans, or even like recent or recent veterans.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Very Iraq, like their friends' parents, right? Like learning how to interact with or whatever, yeah, right. It was the one of the most humbling things I think I did as a teacher because it if you're not around it, if you don't understand it, if you're not raised with it, it's just something that you don't know how to handle. Right. And so the discomfort of the whole situation created something that flourished into like a beautiful output.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So, like not only teaching them how to organize themselves in business, but teaching them how to interact, how to walk with people from other ways of life. Right, for sure. And so obviously I know the story and I can tell it people in my own words, but so that it's in your words. Yeah, what do these events and this particular year of school have to do with you leaving?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

So in the school where I was, my uncle was the principal. And I mean, you know, it had nothing to do with me getting hired or, you know, our interactions at school even were very limited. But it matters in this year because the district decided that it was time to I'll let him tell his own side of the story, but essentially there were accusations slung at him that were unfounded. They were incorrect, totally off-based. And to this, yeah, I mean, to this day, completely unfounded. But when he left under his own terms, under his own terms, under his own will, I never would have thought, but the the targets were turned on me. I mean, it it it completely dumbfounded me because at every turn for six months of my last year, I was being questioned and you know, I mean, like I saw.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Well, they were like questioning the funds.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

They were questioning the funds, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Making it seem like it nothing was.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, but you would know more than anybody that I didn't make a personal dollar out of that. No, I I literally sunk two thousand dollars of our money.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yeah, we had to pay that credit card bill that they gave it back to us.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Yeah. And anybody that knew you or knew me as teachers or even knew your uncle, I think, knew that.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Um I bleed for my students, I bleed for my school and the community that I serve because that's what I signed up to do. Because that's what teachers do.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

And and what? It's all good until somebody decides it's not.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

And then you're completely expendable.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Yeah. So why then real estate?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I mean, you know, I was sitting at at school every day watching you set this thing on fire.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Well, I tried to.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I had a baby with Cragmine. Yeah, but I mean, I think anybody that could sustain any sort of business with a one-year-old and one month postpartum, I mean, that's like one of the most admirable things that I think I could say I've seen in my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

But you were unhappy because they were making you unhappy.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I was I was more than unhappy. I was so not okay in that position. Yeah, because you know why I had to show up every single day with all this going on and still pretend that everything was okay and still like organize these things and bring light to the school when inside I like everything had been ripped from me.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Well, like people don't talk about enough that like your part of your job as a teacher is to like put on a show and make everything okay or seem okay for the kids, or be that it's almost like you're a consistent character in their life and you can't change how you act, or it's like that was not okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, and and it was so difficult to do that because my character was crafted with authenticity.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Was that I told the kids what what was.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

In my everyday life, I wanted them to see what the world would be for them when they got there. Right. To this day, I like any one of those kids could call me and I would drop for them because I genuinely love the relationships that I built. I love what we did together, but I get to spend I get to spend the better part of every day with my children.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, well that's a huge turning point.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

While everybody is working out at an office and selling their time.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

We're stuck in a school behind cinder block.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Or stuck in a school behind cinder blocks with no service and no windows.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah. I get to be out here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

I get to be out in the world.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

So you don't regret the leap.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

I don't regret the leap. Okay. I would take the leap a hundred times over.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Alright, so that being said, I know you like being out in the world and being with our kids every day.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Uh mind you, I have sold my weekends.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

My nights and weekends are done.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Done.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

But you also get to work with your lovely wife.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

I do get to work with your life.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

And that's how we met. We met at work. So that's kind of nice. Um, what has been your besides hanging with the kids instead of being trapped in a building or getting to be out in the real world or be with me or whatever, what has been your favorite part of the last year in full-time real estate?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

The level of discomfort that I had to reconcile with. Because it was so different. I mean, there's a lot, there right, there are a lot of applicable skills that teaching has taught me. But the level of brand new that everything was it is scary. It was scary and it was challenging. But I mean, I had trained for this throughout the end of my teaching career, which I didn't realize was the end. Yeah, right. And um, but it's just that that scare factor of like, wow, I have no idea how this actually works. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Like or like going from like being the person at work that knows all the technology and has to teach others to being like, what is zip forms or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

All those different things that we have to use as realtors. They're like, no, don't check that box. You're like, okay, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Well, these are like legal proceedings too. Right. That's fair. Yeah. So do you have any advice for not specifically teachers looking to leave? That would be a whole other podcast. Right. But do you have any advice for someone who is, I don't know, like five-ish years into a career and maybe thinks they might be on the wrong path. Yeah. And would like not necessarily transition to real estate, but would like to transition to a new job. Do you have any advice for them?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

There's an instinct that is very difficult to acknowledge sometimes because of all the noise that we surround ourselves with.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Like a gut feeling.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Call it gut, call it heart, call it intuition, call it ancient knowledge, call it a divine intervention. You call it whatever you need to call it. But it is so, so important to strip back all of the noise that is around you so that you can understand what that what that feeling is really telling you to do. And you have to sprint towards it. With no regard for what's next to you or behind you. You have to just sprint towards it.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

I mean, I think that sounds crazy to some people, and I think some people think that we are crazy because Yeah, of course. We have such little children, and like you have to though. Yeah, you do. You have to be a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

I left a career with a full salary, full benefits of every kind, including retirement and medical for a career that doesn't pay me unless I close a deal. It does not give me a retirement, it does not give me medical benefits. I threw all of that out with two small children.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah, you are crazy.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

You have to be. The investment in myself was one of the best things, was one of the best things.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Well, it's counting on yourself instead of counting on a system.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

When the system doesn't need you anymore, it will not be hard to see that.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

And that is something that I experienced firsthand and it made it so much easier for me. So I'm lucky in that way.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

That's true. Well, I think I really enjoyed hearing it from your perspective just straight out because we've talked about it a million hours in a million different contexts.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, dude, you see me at some really low moments in the last couple of like and some really like amazing ones.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Like last week we took our kids to the beach on a Tuesday because it was nice and we moved our clients around so we could be able to do it. Yeah. And you looked at me and you said it was one of the best days of my life. Yeah. And so to see that turnaround in just a year is pretty amazing. Um, of course, this podcast is not just one way, it's interactive. So if you have any questions about anything that was mentioned here today, um, Anthony or myself would be happy to interact with you via social media or even our direct phone numbers. Um that's where we're gonna cut it for now. Our next episode will be a little bit more real estate based, but I thought that it definitely deserved this time and it's a huge transition. So it deserves you deserve a lot of props, and I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

I appreciate that. And I'm I I couldn't thank you enough for supporting me through it and saying, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, of course. All right, guys, thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.