The Gold Coast Podcast
Hosted by Eric Winegard, this show dives deep into the stories behind South Florida’s most driven entrepreneurs, business owners, and community leaders.
Each episode uncovers the real challenges, lessons, and victories that define the Gold Coast business landscape. Whether you’re a startup founder, established CEO, or simply passionate about growth, you’ll gain valuable insights, strategies, and inspiration from those shaping the region’s economy and culture.
The Gold Coast Podcast
How To Recruit Top Talent In Today's Market | Emmanuel St. Germain
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What separates companies that grow from companies that stay stuck?
In this episode of the Gold Coast Podcast, Eric Winegard sits down with Emmanuel St. Germain, CEO and Owner of Choice Mortgage Group, for a powerful conversation about entrepreneurship, leadership, sales, company culture, recruiting, personal growth, and building a scalable business.
While Emmanuel built one of the fastest-growing mortgage companies in the industry, this conversation goes far beyond real estate and lending.
He shares the mindset shifts that helped Choice Mortgage Group grow more than 100% in a year, the leadership principles that drive his team, and why so many business owners get trapped working on the wrong things.
Inside this episode:
• Why most entrepreneurs focus on their weaknesses instead of their strengths
• The biggest mistake leaders make when scaling a company
• How to build a culture people actually want to be part of
• Why recruiting has become one of the most important skills in business
• The difference between confidence and ego
• How sports shape leadership and success
• Why authenticity is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage
• The power of systems, processes, and delegation
• Lessons from growing a company during uncertain times
• The mindset required to build something that lasts
The conversation also takes an unexpected turn into personal growth, overcoming adversity, fatherhood, relationships, self-worth, and the pursuit of legacy.
Whether you're a business owner, entrepreneur, sales professional, leader, or someone striving to become the best version of yourself, this episode is packed with practical wisdom and powerful perspective.
Guest:
Emmanuel St. Germain
CEO & Owner, Choice Mortgage Group
Learn More:
ChoiceMortgage.com
Hosted By:
Eric Winegard
Gold Coast Podcast
Subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and high performers who are building extraordinary lives and companies!
Thank you all for listening in on today's episode of The Gold Coast Podcast!
So I was going to show up and I have this purple cow outfit with this gigantic head and it's a full body of a purple cow. Have you ever read the book, The Purple Cow? I I you know I have not. It's in my audible list. So it's a super, I mean, I'll save you the book. The book is like the majority of it is uh it's a cool book, but the majority of it is really like the premise. I heard a different version he talks about in France, but imagine a like a guy that's living in Manhattan and he's never ever seen a cow before. And so he decides to go to Vermont, and so he's on this long drive. And part of the drive going to Vermont is to check out this cow and to see what's going on with the cow. And he just, you know, he goes, he steps outside and he smells the cow and he sees what's going on, and he's like, hey, this is a beautiful, majestic creature. And then all of a sudden he's seen too many cows, and so he gets back in his cow, his car, and as he's driving a little further along, he pulls up and there's a purple cow. And the purple cow was totally different. So he steps out and he looks at it again and he falls in love with the concept of the cow. Moral of the story is in a sea of white cows, be a purple cow, right? So do something to stand out, yeah, whatever it's gonna be. So yeah, I so like I literally have that. And so we did a presentation in front of like 500 real estate agents, and I had bought this gigantic like cardboard car box. I had one guy sitting like this, like he was driving the car, and we narrated the story. And I had like three white cows and like this big purple cow. And so I get all into it. Like, if you're gonna do a show, let's make it a production and and be memorable. And I think we were by far like the the most memorable presentation. So it was cool.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I I can uh I can take some listen, I I don't think I do everything perfect by any means, you know. Um, I think the one thing that I've tried to do well is just be as authentic as possible, not try to act like I'm someone that I'm I'm not. Yeah, and I feel like that kind of help is helping me cut through the noise, you know, um because I feel like we're in this crazy world because there's so many cows. And the cows are the cows aren't real. Like, like there's so many, there's so many people, like I'll give you an example, Chat GPT. Yep. Like, if you just write a caption on your Instagram, there's so many people that are just going to ChatGPT to do it that you know, when they post a photo or they post a video, the script and the caption were probably written by Chat GPT. And there's so much of that now that I believe social media as a whole is all white cows, or marketing as a whole is white cows. And one of the ways I'm trying to be a purple cow is maybe write something a little more authentic or have video content that's a little bit more authentic. So but I like that. I gotta think of other ways to be a purple cow. I agree.
SPEAKER_00But see, the sheer fact, so like the sheer fact that you have the ability on the spot to adjust your story and create your analogy to what I brought in, which you weren't prepared for because we didn't have this dialogue, we didn't discuss the purple cow whatsoever. That's what marketing and sales is about. Because at the end of the day, and this is where like I love the psychology of sales and I love the psychology of marketing, all of it, right? Because to your point, everybody is doing it one way, they're all being told to do it this way, and chat's gonna figure everything out for you. But you know what chat doesn't really do is that to me, they don't understand, or and and maybe I could be totally wrong, but when I want to reach across, when I want to get ultimately what I want, I start by thinking, what do you want first? And if I start with that process and I say, What's what's the benefit to my consumer, this vendor, again, it doesn't matter. It's whoever, whoever you're sitting across the table for, how can I help them? And if I'm solving a problem, um, if I'm creating, you know, like we talk about this in in our ownership meetings with recruiting, recruiting is a big piece for what I do. And every company goes out there and they go after Eric, let me solve a problem for you. I want to solve this problem. Well, if you were with us, because we're so much bigger, we you'd be able to solve these problems, and it's all a negative connotation. Whereas I rather we start with I want to talk about the opportunities that you can have by being part of what we're doing, right? By partnering with us. Yeah, and along that way, we're gonna solve all these other things as well. Yeah, but it's taking a positive approach rather than a negative approach.
SPEAKER_01You know, mark mark marketing and recruiting used to be totally different words, they're but they're blending together now. They weren't synonymous with one another, but they are today. You would you would be shocked. I'll give you an example. I have a for I signed up my first Fortune 500 company as a client, okay, which is bonkers. Thank you so much. Um under NDAs, can't say who, but they're huge. And and it's a sales-driven organization.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the first thing that they want us to do is not actually marketing to for more sales, they want it, they wanted us to create a recruiting package, right? So basically using search and social and retargeting to target hungry sales-driven professionals of a certain kind of prototype that they feel turns out to be the best um person, um you know, the best fit for their sales or sales-driven organization. So we're actually using digital marketing to help them do recruiting. And I have about three or four other companies that have asked me to do that as well. So this whole it's just an interesting place that we live in today. I um business-wise, I feel, I feel like recruiting has become, you know, kind of the make what makes or breaks a great organization. Do you do you agree?
SPEAKER_00I I do, but I I'll be honest. This is my statement of the day. Let's go. I suck at recruiting. And I do. I'm not very good at it. And it was a very is a new thing for me to have to learn. And I'm getting coached by some of the best people in the industry right now at it. And so it's interesting. Like I'm I'm a student of the game. I love to learn. I love to get better. Uh, you know, in in I so I own a mortgage company, that's what I do for a living. And in that process, doing a loan for you is is very, very easy for me. I've been doing this for a really long time. Um, my brain naturally is very analytical, so like I'm underwriting as we would have a normal conversation. So loans go really easy for me, but I'm only one type of loan officer. So I don't necessarily the way I think about doing a loan, the way that I think about being good at what I do, doesn't resonate with every other loan officer. Yeah, there's multiple different types of salespeople. I am not the best friend when it comes to a sale. I'm not trying to be on the phone with you for an hour as a like I think of myself, and I I give this analogy to everybody. I'm the chief surgeon of the hospital. It doesn't mean you're gonna have a bad bedside manner. It just means that I'm here to do a job. We're gonna do it really well. You're gonna feel the confidence coming from me, knowing that you're in great hands throughout the process. But that's one type. There are other people who are your best buddies, there are other people who are so relationship oriented, they they barely know what they're doing from the underwriting standpoint, and that's okay. You know, there's there's so many different ways to do it. And so what I found is that it didn't allow me to connect with loan officers very well because part of it is I'm so uh I'm so reactive to the client in terms of I control the client in terms of the conversation in order to to achieve what you want, right? I start with asking our questions, but in the recruiting phase, when I you and I are having a conversation be prior to it for a loan, I know what you want. If we're having a conversation with him, and he's talking about recruiting, like I have no clue what he wants, and I don't know if I'm the right fit. So it's just such a different process, and we are so dialed into how we do something on a loan, we weren't dialed in, and that's why we're getting coached. That's why we're we're we're learning how to do it, but it it's uh it's very interesting, it's not easy. Yeah, so I really commend people. If you're uh I don't know if you want me to swear or not swear, but if you're cuss up a storm if you're not. So so if you're not a bullshit artist, yeah, like anybody can sell anything when you're lying, or if you're you're you're making things sound more grand than they are. Um in recruiting, being real is it can be very difficult because it's you know, what's the difference between company A and company B? Like, how do you how do you how do you showcase culture? So for me, something I'm super proud about our company is our culture. That's not easy, but we do it on social media. Yep. I don't talk about having a 620 credit score because that's boring as heck. So instead, we show you all our fun stuff, like my dog being at the office while I was away in Arizona and like just also you know, all sorts of different fun things that you see on our social media.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I like your social. So I think so. Do you have like an entire production studio where you guys are?
SPEAKER_00No, so we had so it started with an intern, and um Leon came on board with us, and she was just she, you know, the funny part is she's not a business person at all, she's just a a a and I mean this in a in a positive way. She's naive, she's young, and the world hasn't told her no enough. So she's not she hasn't boxed herself in. So you almost have like this artist that has free reign because I'm not the constricting type of individual either. Like, I'm very much like I want the best out of whoever. So, you know, she'll do different things, and and some of it, you know, like we had one video that was it was a dumb video. We got 36 million on yeah, on Instagram. I think it was insane. Wow, and so it literally it's like uh it's it's timed up where it's me and another guy, he doesn't even work for a company anymore, but it's me and another guy, like work besties, and it says, like, I need you, and then there's another sign through a window that says I miss you, and they got that little song, I need you, I miss you. Like, so it's all timed out, and it's just little creative things like that. And I think for me, my social media approach, right or wrong. So, like, there's another guy that does a great job. Do you know Brandon Brotsky?
SPEAKER_01No, not off the top of my head, I don't.
SPEAKER_00So he's he does a big amount of social media, but his approach is direct consumer. What what um what industry? He is in my industry, sorry. So, yeah, he's he's in the mortgage industry, he's a good dude. He has I think he does more TikTok and and Instagram, but it's direct consumer trying to get people to call in.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00I think our strategy is a little bit less of that because I think you get so much more first-time home buyers when you're dealing with that segment, when you're trying to do direct consumer. Whereas I deal more with people like you and your wife, you're referred by so and so, and next thing you know, like that's it, you've done it before. So ours, mine is more. I want to be top of mine. I want it, I want you to think of us as like, all right, this isn't just some boring mortgage company. These guys are fun, they have a sense of humor, they have, you know, they seem to have, and then on top of it, if you want, if somebody wanted to come work with us, hey, this isn't some stiff CEO, this isn't going to work with some giant conglomerate. Like, all of the comments that everyone says on TikTok, on Instagram is like, this company looks fun. I would work here. You know, they're not in my industry, but so that's what we try to do.
SPEAKER_01How how important are how important are the relationships with the realtors in your business?
SPEAKER_00Very. Um, I think you know, your your realtors are there's so many of them, and there's so many different types of realtors, and you have the professional type, and then you have the weekend warrior who's, you know, um the downside, so an upside for realtors, a downside for everybody else is that where we're sitting, they can sell a $20 million home and make $600,000 in one transaction. And the the part of the problem I find is, you know, let's like so God bless them. I don't I don't want to sound like a hater because I'm happy for them. Yeah, I want everybody to make money and you're entitled to whatever you can sell. That being said, if you only do, like in my industry, if you only do one or two transactions, like we don't allow you to to be a senior loan officer. Like we call that a part-time. You have to give that loan to a more senior person because as the owner of the company, I don't want, I don't want someone that you met at a cocktail party who you had a really good relationship with, but they have no clue what they're doing. Just because they're licensed doesn't mean they know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And that from an owner's perspective can affect your client experience and whoever the realtor is going to be on both sides. Because part of our job is trying to get both both realtors to to like us and and do business with us later on. So I think from an agent perspective, getting them to um, I don't think it's that hard. They just want to be communicated to and they want you to like if you say you're gonna do something, just do it. Yeah, you know, like it's not rocket science. If you've been around like I have for long enough, like it's pretty simple for my my resume kind of speaks for itself. Yeah um it's more about timing, and I think it's like anything else. If I call John Smith, realtor over at Keller Williams, and you know, if they don't know who I am, great. Here's uh here's here's who you know who I do business with. I'm sure there are people, and we have access to information today. So when I started, you wouldn't, you you had no idea. Right. There was no information. I today can pull, you can give me any realtor's name, I can tell you every single transaction, yeah. I can tell you the addresses of the transaction, I can tell you both agents, I can tell you who they they did the loan with, like I know everything. Yeah, so all of a sudden, like if you were a realtor and you've done two transactions, like not to be mean, but like I don't have time to go to coffee with you with someone who's not doing any production.
SPEAKER_01Understood, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so it's not it's not to be mean, it's to say, hey, let me introduce you to someone on the team who's in the same place in their career, which is they're trying to grow, and you maybe you guys can grow together. And that that junior loan officer that you know that I was referring to that doesn't do as much, you guys are more of a good fit. So the consumer the next big thing I think is when consumers start to have access to this information, I think things will change.
SPEAKER_01Wow, interesting. Unpack that. When the consumers have access to this real estate data, it'll change behavior.
SPEAKER_00How why why shouldn't we have access to all of it? I'm having a knee surgery next month. I'd like to know how many full knee replacements this doctor has done in the last 12 months. Why shouldn't I have access to that information? Right? It would help you make a decision. And same thing. The next time you go speak to a loan officer, don't you or the next time you speak to a real estate agent, if you had access to the same information that I did, and you could see that this person has done five listings in the last year, but they've never worked with any buyers. Okay, it doesn't mean you're not going to work with them, but it would certainly change how I interview them. For sure. Right? Or if they've never, or or if they're you're getting a loan, right? We're doing a transaction right now with someone in Colorado that they they've they haven't done one loan all year. And so they don't know how to communicate, they don't understand how the timelines, they're not, they're not following up with their client in the same way. Right. So access to information will be more and more prevalent, especially as AI will find the information for that for those buyers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you make a good point with the uh knee surgery. Um you know it's interesting. So like I I I have a couple, speaking of knees, I my knees are kind of bad, they're arthritic. And every now and then they'll just start swelling up so much to the point to where uh I got a bunch of blood work done to see if I have maybe like gout or something crazy. It all came back negative. I don't have any of that. I just have old arthritic knees that when I get really active, they swell up. And I went to this doctor and he wants to perform, it's it's interesting because he wants to perform these stem cells on me, or excuse me.
SPEAKER_00Um stem cells, one of them. There's another one that's like a stem cell. Plate platelet replacement therapy, PRT, something like that, but yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and because I, you know, I I we I have I make a good living, I just want the best of the best. So because I have the access to information, you know, I'm finding all these uh UFC or all these institutes where UFC fighters use that are very credible in Mexico and Colombia, that you know, you can basically get a much much more high quality, high potent level of stem cells. So so just because I have access to that information, you're right. I am changing my my medical decision, no doubt about it.
SPEAKER_00Germany. Is that the place to go? So if you look up anything, especially cancer, especially like just in general, I don't know. Um, I don't know what their what their rules are and their you know and their laws are regarding like their version of FDA or whatever it is. Yeah, but yes, lots of people go there for for things that are more advanced that aren't isn't approved here yet. Yeah, I know that's a huge, huge place to do that. Obviously, like for cost reasons, it's way more efficient. You can for for cost reasons, South America. You we're gonna get more bang for our buck, and it's gonna cost us lots. Yeah, so you'll get something more potent, whatever you needed. But the knee for me was this ACL has been done twice. I don't have a meniscus, yeah, like it's torn now. Like I can't I can't live without the like I want to go. I like I'm an athlete too, and I get very competitive and I don't like the half-ass stuff. So I'm like, let's just get it over with.
SPEAKER_01And you've done it, you've gone to Germany?
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no. No, I'm having the surgery here. Oh I thought you were like, oh, I went to Germany and got some stem cells done. No, I've it's it's no, no, no, no. It's not, it's for me, like at this point, this knee is so shot, we're beyond any kind of stem cell. And I did try stem cell years ago. Yeah, but you know, now it's just like let's let's just get it over with. And people are like, oh, but what about the rehab? I'm like, if you've had three ACL reconstructions, trust me, I already know how to handle knee pain, and I know how to handle rehab, and I know how to handle all of it.
SPEAKER_01So do you mind if I ask how old you are?
SPEAKER_0047.
SPEAKER_0147. Okay, we're about the same age. I'll be 46 in June. I used to be a good basketball player, believe it or not.
SPEAKER_00Two of them happen. Really? From jumping. I was a very aggressive jumper. I'm a two-hand, two-footed, two-handed, like. What were you what sports were you playing? Oh, I played the first one, it was football in college, then I played uh basketball and basketball, oras when I did two and three. They're both torn now, but I don't know when when that happens.
SPEAKER_01Basketball's the worst. Like I used to I used to play football and basketball. Yeah, I never really got hurt in football. I got bruised, but I feel like because you're like, you know, you're ducking down and you're low center of gravity. I just personally never got hurt playing football, but basketball, you know, you're always jumping, you know, you're exposing fingers, you know, you'll bend your it's the worst.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, his finger was 90 degrees this way. Like I never fixed it. I'm like, yo, just pop it back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, same, same thing here. Ankles, knees. Like I've had so yeah, no, I think people think I don't think people realize if they don't play hoops, how how how vulnerable your body really is running and jumping and pickleball is my jam now.
SPEAKER_00And I I wish I had played when I was younger. Um, I mean, I wish it was available when I was younger, more, you know, at that age. But it's uh sports are a lot of fun. I do think team sports will, you know, from a leadership standpoint, I think it teaches you a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, just how to how to how to carry yourself, how to win, how to lose. People don't talk about it, but how to losing properly is very important skill in life.
SPEAKER_01No doubt.
SPEAKER_00You know, and changes how you are perceived. Yeah. And you know, there's there's some mantras say, like, who cares what anyone else thinks of you? Like, that's fine, but you know, if you are recruiting, if you are going to be a leader, then you should care a little bit because you're an attractor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what we put out there is what people want or are gonna want to be involved with or not be involved with.
SPEAKER_01So no, I agree. I uh I agree. I I'm a big uh big believer in you know, adversity, healthy adversity. Right. Um, obviously, you know, uh you don't want some tragic, you know, car accident to happen whether your loved ones. There's something crazy like that type of adversity. You don't want that to happen. You don't want Mike Vrabel and Diane Rossinian.
SPEAKER_00That's adversity. I don't want tonight's draft, right? I think the NFL draft. Oh, that's right. You're Patriots. I'm a Patriots fan.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Fucking guy. I know I'm a Bills fan. Um, here you guys are again, already better than us again. You didn't.
SPEAKER_00I feel bad for the Jets fan because, you know, now I know what it was like, these five years of not making the playoffs, and you know, good news we're back to the Super Bowls.
SPEAKER_01I think tell me if you agree with this. Like the Super Bowls are great. Don't get me wrong. Like, like me, because I'm actually a big San Antonio Spurs fan of basketball, too. So we had this like amazing run of championships, and that's great. Don't get me wrong. Losing sucks. I think just being in it, like the psychology of oh, it's game six and we're three and three, and we have a chance of making the playoffs. And and when you're in the playoffs and making the playoffs, and oh, there's a chance, like it makes the season exciting. Like whether you win or lose the Super Bowl, one team wins it a year, but just being in the mix, I'm not settling. It's just, you know, of course, I'd love the Bills to win a Super Bowl, of course. But just being in the mix makes it fun. Not being in the mix sucks.
SPEAKER_00Totally. I I mean, thank like Bostonians. We got so spoiled with Brady in 20 years, we went nine Super Bowls. 45% of the time that he was in Boston, we went to a Super Bowl. Like, and that's yes, we won six, but you know, just half the time you're there. In the other years, we got, I mean, we were so fortunate. We got we had four Red Sox, I think. We had two, two Celtics, one Bruins, something like that. So the entire city was just winning. So, like these kids that are, I guess if if you were born probably like 1990, let's say, like your entire life is like you're an asshole to all of your friends because you've never known anything other. Like, I at least grew up with the Yankees kicking our butt. I remember lose I remember being better than the Yankees and then losing to the Yankees in the playoffs every year. The the the Celtics, once Byrd went down, like they stunk for a while, and we had our run of bad luck, obviously, with Lenny Bias and things like that.
SPEAKER_01So but and the Patriots were garbage when I you know in the 90s, they well, I guess once they got bled, so they were pretty good. But in the early 90s, they were terrible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_00I will say that's the you know, it's funny. I so the other day I was at at Bounce in Del Rey, and so um, where you and I actually met, and they're so random that it is random, yeah. But uh there was a uh Red Sox game, so Yankee Red Sox, there's a Celtics game going on, and there's a Bruins game, right? Like this is like a Boston, you know, two of them are in the playoffs, one is just starting the season, but this is like a Boston dream. And I'm like, there's nobody there, like there's heart, there's this isn't like South Florida, no offense to all my friends who are from here, but like it's a crappy sports town. Like, unless Buffalo fans are great, there's not enough Bostonians here. Like, we just don't come out. If we were in Boston and there was the Yankees, the Celtics, and the Bruins, you wouldn't be able to find a seat in a bar.
SPEAKER_01The city would be electric. Electric. And you gotta go out. Mom, dad, yeah, everybody's you gotta go out and have a good time. I agree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. In 04, before the uh so the when the Red Sox like I moved here in January of 05. So that fall in 04, like was when we had the the crazy comeback against the Yankees. Yeah, yeah. I remember now, granted, in 04, I was what, 26? So like I remember literally all of my friends, we go out every single game, and you are arm in arm, and the entire bar is just jamming, and you're high fiving, and everybody's singing sweet Caroline, and like we're just having a great time. And I do like it's the one thing that's that's tough about South Florida is because we're from s from everywhere, yeah, that it's it's so much of a melting pot. You don't get to have that brotherhood with your you know, your your teams.
SPEAKER_01I I agree, you know, and I always you know, I always um what's the word I'm looking for? I don't want to say shit on Rochester, New York, but I always have my nose up in the air about living in South Florida now, just mostly because of the weather. But no, there is an element to to of course there's an element to community, brotherhood, and I I do miss some certain things. And I and I don't think any place like I was when I moved from upstate New York down to South Florida, I was considering a few places. I looked at Charlotte, North Carolina. It wasn't serious, but I looked at it. Obviously, I looked at South Florida. I considered Dallas, Texas because of how business centric it is. And obviously, I wanted to build this firm, and that was a big part of my decision making. I was looking at Scottsdale, Arizona. I like the desert. Yeah, but every single place has its pros, its cons. The only negative to South Florida is maybe that and uh no mountains. But other than that, traffic sucks, too. Traffic's terrible, yeah.
SPEAKER_00If we if we have to go to dinner in Miami tomorrow night, it's like ooh. Can we leave at three o'clock and hang out for two for three hours? Or or let's leave at nine o'clock and and you know have a late dinner.
SPEAKER_01Alexis and I don't I mean, we we go out and hang out in Miami, don't get me wrong, but we're kind of homebodies with Boca and Delray for sure.
SPEAKER_00Me too. Me too, by the way. I'm just talking about how how difficult it is. But I live downtown Delray, like I'm golf cart. Like, I'm like, can we get there via golf cart? Ooh, sorry, my truck's uh in the garage for the weekend. Are you married? No, no kids? No kids. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01I I'm having my first Alexis is five months. That's right. I saw that. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_00Excited?
SPEAKER_01Of course, I'm buzzing, dude.
SPEAKER_00It's gotta be amazing. When what's your due date?
SPEAKER_01August 19th. Okay. Having a baby girl. Okay. Sophia.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. I love that name.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Some little, you know, um, I I grew up with a single mom. Yep. You know, so there's a lot of a lot of good emotions. Like I'm I'm I grew up, I had a tough upbringing. And I've had all these weird emotions lately because I really fought through a lot of adversity. And and I'm I'm as mentally tough as they come today. But now that I'm having this daughter, I've really been reflecting on my childhood a lot and like why I why I am a certain way or why I'm not a certain way. And it's I've never reflected so much on my childhood. It's the wildest thing. And and it's not really good emotions or bad emotions, it's more just more like reflecting based on curiosity. Yeah. Right. And and uh, but it's interesting because she's just pre five, six months pregnant. I can't even imagine if I'm reflecting like this now, I can't even imagine what it's gonna be like when I have a physical thing that I gotta take care of.
SPEAKER_00So I think it'll be easier then. I think that the like the anticipation of something creates more anxiety than when it's thrust upon you, right? Like um you're waiting on stage to go talk, and like I don't know if you have anxiety or not, but like if you're waiting on stage to go talk, like for me, I want to put on such a good show. I want to be, I want things to go really well. So my brain will go, don't forget to say this, you know, like my brain will play things out, but the second somebody pushes me out there, I'm like, hey everybody, like you know, like so I think you'll I think you'll do great. And I come from a single mom as well. And and part of it, I you know, and part of what I've always wanted in children is to be the dad that I didn't necessarily have, sir, and to make sure that um I think if through your reflection and through your emotional maturity, you can determine and decide exactly what you want your outcomes to be, and then you know, you just work it backwards.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Um, let's let's talk business a little bit. I feel like like uh you're very impressive. Like, you know, just look at it looks like you've built up quite the successful companies, CEO and owner of Choice Mortgage. Do you mind if I ask how many how many employees you guys have, or how many people are I think we have 81, 82, something like that?
SPEAKER_00Are they mostly loan officers? No, no, no, no. So no, we're very operational heavy. Okay. Um part of our uh just like in marketing, part of what we do is I think that like one of my strengths is I'm a I'm a very I'm a big system and process person. And so typically a mortgage company is started by a couple sales guys, and then they figure out the ops part later. Whereas we did the opposite. So my business partner and I, who was my protege, um, and he and I just built things out. And I built it as a loan officer, and I would say, All right, you know, I'm really busy. How do I remember to get to to to call Eric? And and so we built out our CRM, and like, you know, for me, like I don't know how to build stuff. I'm I'm an architect, my brain thinks a certain way, but then somebody needs to actually do the hit the button. Conductor, there we go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like I don't know why I say architect. I like architect because I think my brain goes, you know. But you know how to you know how to build a lot of different things. I definitely conduct, yes. Yeah, yeah. And uh so we built out our operations and we built it out, and I think we had the advantage of COVID also because what happened during COVID was every company got too busy. And so we realized that what do you do when you have a massive amount of demand? How are you supposed to scale? And there's only so much, and you know, everything is gonna change now as AI um is starting. They're trying to do underwriting and trying to do a lot of things with AI to avoid human labor. But what we did is we really segmented and different job duties, and so that I could take anybody off the street and I could teach you how to do A through C, not worry about you getting A to J. Finding someone who knew how to do A to J was so difficult, and all the big boys, everybody would would pay a lot of money. So we learned to really compartmentalize and to really break things down on the jobs and and the tasks. And once you build out this this flow and this system, it was really easy to scale. And so now all we do is because our ops are so dialed in, that's what we recruit with. We go after, so like my business model, because it's also the opposite of what cross country and guaranteed rate and all these big boys do. Yeah, I go after the smaller broker owner. I go, you're an entrepreneur, I'm an entrepreneur, I understand how you think. I'm not coming in with this massive ego and a yacht and everything else. I'm not selling you on that. Yeah, let's talk about partnering together. Let me show you what we do. I'd love to learn about what you and again. I go back to opportunity. I'd love to see what you can do if you don't have to worry about all these other things over here, but you focus solely on growth. You focus solely on the things that you're already naturally good at. Yeah, it's cool to own your own company, but not if you can't grow it. Not if you can't achieve the things you want, not if it creates stress. So you go home, you're worried about bills, you or you have too much business, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think that's our approach. And I think because of that, we've had a lot of success. We did, we grew 25% in the first quarter, we grew over 100% last year. Um, so last year was fantastic, and we're trying to continue to ride that momentum. And again, my advantage is that most of the smaller entrepreneurs have no desire to go work for those big boys. Right. It's too much of a it's too much of an opposing business model. Whereas because we're 80 people, we're like, no, we're still family too, just like you. We think just like you do. We want the clients to get the best, etc.
SPEAKER_01So we um so we're I think 55 people and we have growing problems. Okay, big growing pains. Yep, but but it's all good. What kind of pains? Office. Um, I need I need a sales floor, I need, you know, some looking at other space right now, some in this building, some in other buildings. How much are you local versus virtual? Um 50-50. Okay. So I have salespeople in Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, uh, account managers that have been with me for a while. Yep. You know, we grew so much, you know, we we grew by over a hundred percent in a year, which is pretty uncommon. Digital, I don't mean this as an insult. Marketing agencies don't get to where we're at. Okay. They just don't. They they get to, you know, like I like a couple hundred thousand a month, and that's really about it. I mean, we you know, we're we're well north of eight figures, right? So so I think, and this is I'm the sales guy that started a company. Okay. Every time I hear that, this is the difference between me though. Every time I hear that, I I don't take insult to it because it happens a lot, right? You the sales guy starts a company, and I think the reason why a sales guy can start a company is because he knows, oh, I can I can make transactions happen. And I know I can make transactions happen. So I've kind of learned on the fly the past five years. But systems and processes are my weak point, but I'm but I'm aware of it. So I I'm hyper focused on it today, and it's really all I think about. Um, but I enjoy sales. That that's you know, I really do. Sales are not difficult for me. I I think sales is very simple. I think you just as long as you're honest, ethical, and you have the prospect's best interest at heart, that's sales. Yep. Don't push some crap onto somebody that they don't need. Or and and there's three ways to sell people. There's overselling them, they don't need all this crap. There's underselling them, dude. This isn't gonna you can undersell somebody to try to make a sale too, and it's not gonna deliver everything that they want. So it's about adequately, you know, saying, hey, this is really gonna get you the results that you want. But uh, but but um, but yeah, I could have a systems conversation with you all day long. But yeah, the growth problems are we've we've grown so much, and I have some wild partnerships and this Fortune 500 company now just throws a whole other wrinkle on this. But do I have your permission to make some unsolicited advice?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm soliciting. Fire away. So um I'm a very big believer that you should not run to what you aren't, right? Don't focus on systems and processes if that's not your strength. Okay. Bring someone in to delegate that, even if it's short term. Let someone else handle that, double down on what you're great at.
SPEAKER_01Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_00You you will you from a from a growing a company, because here's what happens we're running a certain way, we're running, running, running. All of a sudden, our fastest runner, which is you, has to stop to make sure that everyone is doing their job, has to do this, has to do that. We've lost that momentum in the relay. You are our horse. Get out there, run, run, run. Do what you're good at. What I'm good at is letting people do exactly that. So I stay in my lane. I know exactly what I'm good at.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and I did the exact same thing. I knew I wasn't going to connect as well with a lot of loan officers, a lot of branch managers. We just don't, we're not thinking the same way all the time. So we went out, we found our chief growth officer, who is a much soft, you know, I tell him this to his face, so it's not a knock on him, but I'm like, you have a softer personality than I do. I'm direct, right? And direct is direct works really well leading people, yeah, but it you don't connect as well when you're being direct. He being a softer, my this is my Brian, my partner, who's our chief growth officer. I'm like, you're exactly what I'm not. That's exactly why I want you to partner with you. And so I went in, and rather than me trying to convert myself or Jared, who's our COO, convert him because he's more like I am. One of us trying to change and and focusing on our on our weaknesses is just wouldn't work. I'm not saying you have to give any part of your company, but hire someone to do that stuff. My advice.
SPEAKER_01No, no, I I appreciate it. And um so I paid for some consulting and masterminds. Okay, and some high-level people that I really respect said something very similar. They said that Steve Jobs on Mondays would have his CEO meetings. And when you're running a company like that, it's probably 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Okay. Right? Fridays, he had his uh departmental recap meetings at probably you know 8 a.m. to let's say 6 p.m. But what does CEO Steve Jobs do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? No CEO stuff. They let him be the creative genius and mad genius that he was. So he he was down with the creative team, the tech team, you know, testing new ideas, um, you know, being a think tank, and and really just being a creative, a creative um contributor to the company because he organically wasn't necessarily a systems guy. He he had he understood that obviously to be a CEO, you have to have systems, yeah. But but in the middle, but that's what I'm trying to get to because what I'm good at is being the gravity to the company, the business development, the partnerships, the ads, we run a ton of ads, um, the podcasting, building the brand. Sure. Alexis and I have our own podcast too, called The Wine Guards. If I can just do that, I'm agreeing with you, we're gonna flourish. We're gonna we'll be nine figures in four or five years. Yep. If I can just do that. You're right. If I'm just focusing on stuff that I'm not good at, that's like that's like asking a center. You're helping me. That's like asking a center to be point guard. Sure. It does right, like you gotta you gotta let the point guard dribble the ball up.
SPEAKER_00Not I mean it's such a difference in mentality to do certain things like that. Like you are, I think it's so when you are younger, you're a little bit more moldable, and you may not know what all of your strengths are.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Uh you and I are in the are really, we're not even at the peaks of our CEO levels, right? If you think that you're you're supposed to, you know, we're in our 40s. Like to me, 60s is when you're really crushing it. 50s is when you make your wealth, you're supposed to just be getting along. And you know, to me, I look at it as the other way around. I've built my company, and in fact, the way that we structure our finances for for us owners, I'm building it so that I never have to sell it because the the the multiple, the way that it works is the multiple on a mortgage company is never enough relative to the cash flow. It's just the math doesn't math. Okay, okay. I am better off getting to a point where out of my ownership percentage and what my current salary is, the way that it works, I'm better off hiring a sub-CEO while I go play and go retire and do whatever it is. Well, okay, I would still make the majority of the money, and you still would have someone that would be now a CEO, just not an owner.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And so it you're better, you know, I would stay on a board and and it's built that way specifically. Our operating agreement is built that way so that if I wanted to retire in three years, and that's I I would never retire, I'd be so bored out of my mind. Yeah. I'm a workaholic, but if you, you know, if if you were really going to build it, and I think that for me, like that's one of the things when we built this company, you you shouldn't build anything without preparing to sell it. Doesn't mean you ever want to. You may want this company for Sophia, but you build it with a process in mind of hey, who's gonna buy it? What do they come in? What do they look at? Right? What are they breaking? So for me, I look at it because here's how what happens in mortgage companies. If you go buy my mortgage company, who knows how many of our branch managers stay? The only way you're getting them to stay is you have to give them money. You put them on a two-year contract. Now, what happens? Let's say if I go out and I create all these corporate partnerships. Okay. So corporate partnerships is essentially me reaching out to, I don't know, Home Depot, uh, not home office depot that we have here in Boca and saying, hey, you're 6,000 employees. I'm gonna give you the equivalent to employee pricing when a GM uh employee walks onto a GM dealership. They don't have to negotiate, they get great pricing. You might be able to go negotiate better pricing if you sit there for five hours, but they'll go right away and get great pricing, and they know that that's a perp for them of being a GM employee. I'll do the exact same thing. I'll give office depot, a break in our profit, which we would give back towards closing costs, however we do it. And it's simply a value add. Now, I, as CEO of the company and owner, you as a CEO, we can go create these massive deals like that. And then what happens is every Transaction that comes from Office Depot, I'm handing those out. Now I've created a stickiness. That relationship is not with one of these loan officers, it's with me. So now you come to buy my company, and all of a sudden I've got all of these corporate partnerships that are tied to corporate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's how now I'm elevating the value of my company. That's what I mean by I'm stuck, I'm always thinking of the end. I have no desire to be at the end, but I'm thinking about what is it that you're looking at when you're when same thing, when they come look at our finances, right? All right, well, we need I need to buy a building. You know, we have proper our our income taxes are get stupid.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then because we're in 23, 24 states, certain states tax a lot on the revenue which we don't have here. Sure. Sure. But like when I do loans in New Mexico, we have to pay New Mexico taxes.
SPEAKER_01Oh God.
SPEAKER_00So it doesn't work. It's not just like, hey, because HQ is here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But so every state you have, luckily we're not in New York, but I heard an interesting loophole today for taxes, and I'll tell you offline. But I love it. Basically, you got to become a church. Basically what it is. But and of all places, it's actually out of California. But I'll tell you about that offline. Um I mean it's impressive what you've done in a in a in a few short short years. I mean, you started in June of 2022.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So the company itself. So we worked for a company that had the shell. And so essentially there's a guy, Mike, who owned the company before, and I was the CO. So what my my business partner does now as CEO, like, was what I was doing. He does it at a whole different level. He's way better than I am at it. He's so much more meticulous. I would only go a certain way, then I'm on to the next project. And that's part of what being a visionary is like I'm too I get distracted by something really interesting. I don't necessarily see something all the way through, which is why someone else needs to do it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Going back to the conductor, like, all right, he's playing his instrument. Well, not let's go to the next one, you know. So we're we're we're moving our head around, but and uh so we had an opportunity to basically take over a company, and and that's kind of how what we did. And we, like I said, once we knew we had the shell, and and once we culture for us, um, I run my company using EOS. Do you know what that is? Yeah, yeah. So I love EOS. Yeah, so um EOS has been fantastic, it gets unbelievable buy-in for everybody at the top. So all of my top line managers, we had our meeting this morning at 8:30, and every single person that's in there is my underwriting manager, my CFO, the three of us owners, uh, our processing manager. Um, and you know, you you're literally able to they feel like they own the company just like we do, they care about it. And with my ownership percentage, I can make every dis decision I want. Yeah, right. I can't really be outvoted unless I do something crazy stupid. But outside of the anything basic, like my vote is is the one that really counts, but I don't run the company that way. I'm not uh I don't rule, I don't dictate, like you can't. If you want to get the most out of everybody, you've got to empower them. Yeah and you give away, you know, and I it's so the irony is Eric. I actually say this to my business partners. I will always give you all the credit, and I will always jump on the grenade, even to the other two owners. It's not me versus them, it's I'm trying to teach them that that's how leadership is. You need to go do that with everybody below you as well. Yeah, give the credit away, be humble, give it, give it, give it, take the blame. Yeah, take the blame, not the credit, take the blame. Yeah, no, it's leadership, and if you do that from the top, everybody goes down, and then now you don't have this finger pointing. And I think like operationally, that's what we did. We protect our ops people. So in mortgages, there's this culture of sales versus ops, and it isn't always good. Salespeople tend to always win because ownership sees the dollar bills from sales. So they say, so ops people always get put down, they're the ones who always have to have have it worse. We, because I'm both ops-minded and sales-minded, we said, Hey, here's how I'm going to have accountability checks, point A, point B. There's no way you can blame anybody in ops because I gave you the opportunities to go check things out over here and here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, an observation that I've seen with companies over the years, and and I'd be curious to hear your take on this. A huge mistake that I've seen companies make is because salespeople are the ones that are directly attached to revenue year after year, account after account, they end up being the ones that get promoted. And I'm not saying a salesperson can't be a good leader or can't be a good manager, can't eventually be a good CEO, but just because they're good at sales doesn't necessarily, it's not the equivalent of being a manager. So I've seen these companies, and I used to work for one, where the only way you could make a name in the company is if you're a top salesperson. And the CEO would, you know, uh give all the flowers to all the top salespeople, and those are the people that ascended in the company. So now inside of the the boardroom or whatever you want to call it, all the people making the decisions were just salespeople. Right. And you know, that that company did well, but it had a lot of a lot of chaos in inside of it too. So do you agree? Have you seen the same thing? Because I I I've seen this in in a dozens of companies. I think a few things are important.
SPEAKER_00They disproportionately promote salespeople. I think a few things are important. The problem with the sales, I mean, so the problem with any of it is at the very top, so again, it starts with ego. Um, do you allow someone to challenge your thought and your way of doing something? If you don't, right, okay, so now what the second that you you so there's a respect thing. It's how you say it and how you, you know, like don't don't call me an asshole, but at the same token, like, hey, I had this thought, I wanted to run it by you, if we did it this way. And for me, being receptive to ideas, in fact, what we do from a leadership standpoint is we reach out and say, you know, I will say to someone, say, hey, I want everyone's top five ideas on how to make the how to make your department better. And so you're you're trying to create it that way. But I think that from a sales perspective, when they bring up sales, yes, because it's also the the easiest way to measure what you've done for the company. Um, here's how much Eric brought in. Wow, he we've got to promote him next. And I think that my issue with salespeople being promoted solely or the majority of the time is that those are the ones that have the biggest egos. And having the biggest ego is the worst thing you can do to lead people. So confidence, yes, you gotta have confidence, but having an ego that you know everyone's everyone just like spites you when you as soon as you walk out of the room, like that's not a positive thing either. That's not good for culture, it's not good for longevity. I sit in meetings all the time in in conferences. I'll tell you what, owning a company does not mean you're the smartest guy or the best person for the job in the room whatsoever. Like, you know, we see a lot of I've I I know some amazing minds in the mortgage industry, and I know a bunch of people who don't deserve to be in those rooms at all.
SPEAKER_01You know, let me ask, do you think that do you think ego is a nice way to say insecure? Uh could be. Um is that really what's going on there? Like are is the is ego just a bowtie wrapped way of saying insecure?
SPEAKER_00Or com it's a good question, isn't it? So insecure, overcompensating, um nervous. Uh yeah, I suppose it could be for a lot of things. I think that ego can also be misunderstood. Okay. I think that there's a fine line between confidence and ego. So, you know, I'm not looking to tear anyone down. I'm more because having an ego is fine. What I'm looking at if you're going to have an ego is I want to see how you treat other people. More importantly, I want to see how what they think about you when you're not in the room. Then you'll know whether your ego is a problem or if they if it's admired, because we call it ego, right? So, like having played sports, I I'm confident. You're confident.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right. But if uh if we're basketball, if some hooper walks in who uh is famous and like, no, my ego goes down, you know, like absolutely not. Bow down, you are the man, like you, you know, defer. Defer, defer, exactly. Yeah. So I think it depends. And I think that what you know, like if you grab six CEOs and we all walk into a room and we all we all make the same money. Yeah, so there's no, there's no, you have nothing to really elevate yourself or differentiate yourself from from one to the next. Now, what does that room look like? I think now you get into introvert extrovert. Yeah, right. And so does it mean the introvert doesn't have as much of an ego just because they don't talk as much. No, maybe they just don't show it as much. I don't know. I don't I don't think it's all insecurity, but I think it, I think a lot of it is. I think that I would I know myself, and I'm I'm gonna take a gamble that if you lacked a father figure in your your childhood as I did, you have been proving people wrong your entire life, as I as I have, and that's a driving force. And that's why I tell people like you're not gonna outwork me. Yeah, you're gonna if you want to get to the office at five, fine, I'll get there at four. You know, like I've always been willing to outwork because that was the one thing I could control.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting. So you've obviously studied these things. What is it about not having a father that makes a young man want to prove people wrong?
SPEAKER_00So it's less studying, as in more just understanding myself and understanding just motivation. I think not having a well, so I think I don't know that it's not having a father by itself. I don't uh I think a single mom could do lots of different things. I think personally for me, uh mine was abandonment. I was abandoned a lot by men in my life. And the abandonment part of life forces you to look inwardly and you have to find validation. So for me, sports was it when I was younger. But what happens once we're out of sports? How am I supposed to validate myself? I hold myself at a certain esteem up here in my mind, but how do I get there if I can't show anyone? Then would come the ego, then would talk, you know, you talking about something, then would come spending too much money, driving an expensive car, whatever, whatever it is, right? And for me, what I found is that I was really good at work very young, I was very good at sales, and I was able to differentiate myself from my peers, and that was my internal validation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then I got to a point where it wasn't about proving anything to anyone else, and now I'm in my mind, I'm already, you know, like I want legacy. I want to think about, I don't want to be known as just one thing, I want to start giving and things like that.
SPEAKER_01So I I had a I think I had an awakening, not an awakening, but an epiphany. Um maybe a uh not a cultural shift, a paradigm shift. Okay, because man, you're when I was younger, it's all all I cared about was proving people wrong. Having to be the best athlete, you know, a very uh low surface one I had was uh you know, getting the most amount of girls as a young as a young man. That was like it was like how many can I conquer? Um then it was about being the best salesperson, then it was about advancing at this other company I used to work with, then I became a vice president, then it was competing with all of the other senior managers there to be you know next in line for CEO. And I I think I realized four or five years ago that I'm probably pretty adequate, right? And I stopped stopped reaching to prove people wrong. But you have to love yourself for sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, people don't people don't realize it as a man. Um, we don't talk about the love word very much, especially loving ourselves. It's not really part of of man talk when we're having a beer and watching sports or whatever. Um I love you.
SPEAKER_01Do you love you?
SPEAKER_00But it it's it I mean it it's true, like men don't really say love you very much to each other, you know. Maybe they do their dads, but even that I would say, depending on where you're from, doesn't happen as as much as you would as you would to mom. And I think that it's just uh you've you've gotta I don't think a lot of people love themselves in general. And you know, when you get to that point where you've you forgive yourself for wanting to be anything but yourself and you're happy with what those results are. Um, I think there's a you know tremendous potential for you to be whoever you want to be. Yeah, and and but more importantly, happy.
SPEAKER_01I got I got blessed with a wonderful woman. I was very lucky. Yep. I can only call it a blessing because you know she's she was younger than me when I met her. I was probably still is. Yeah, you well, no, it's just the age gap doesn't feel like the same age gap now. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was just deep.
SPEAKER_01No, no, you're okay, yeah. Right. Unless I have some crazy technology. But I was 39 and she was 23. Yep. She was a grown woman at 23. Now I hadn't had any kids, so her timeline actually matched mine, right? Like I was thinking about, oh, you know, potentially getting married in the next few years and having kids, and it made sense for a 23-year-old to go on that journey five or six years, versus to be honest, a 32-year-old, my my my timing didn't align. I would have had to rush that.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01I needed to move down to South Florida, build my business. And, you know, if I met a 35-year-old woman that already had two or three kids, I'm not saying I would have ignored her or not entertained uh the opportunity of falling in love with her and her children, but preferably, you know, Alexis worked out perfect. And it also turns out she's a very ambitious woman. It also turns out she's an alpha female that allows me to be the alpha in every room. And, you know, she's very supportive. She actually has made me more confident in myself than I've ever been. You know, I remember when I told her a few years ago, I said, you know, babe, like we're you know, we're making uh you know, like a few million bucks here, like it's really good. And she just looked at me like, Really? I was like, what? She's like, You think that's all you're worth? She's like, Eric, we see all these guys all the time. They're making this, this, and that. And it's not just about money. But she goes, You're better than every single one of them. And that was like a few years ago where I was like, wait a minute, am I actually capable of you know, superstardom and and real greatness and and building a big company that's you know employing great people so they can feed their families and you know, maybe create a wealth event for a lot of other people. Like, am I that great? I I don't think I thought I was until she entered my life. So so when I tell you the A, I I think God handcrafted this woman for me and and literally placed her in my life at the right time. She is one of the reasons I've grown to be spiritual the past year. I I got I I didn't get lucky, I I truly got blessed with her.
SPEAKER_00She's awesome, man.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You have to be open to it, by the way. You know, I the have you ever read the book, The Celestine Prophecy? No. It's it's essentially about um, you know, just timing and and it it's we walk by people every single day, and it's really about what are you open to? And I, you know, there's a there's an aura and there's a higher power, you know, concept to it. But leaving that out, just the general most of us like uh we live pretty closed-minded. And so some of the things that, as an example, I love to be outside the box, right? And the way that you think outside the box is do something different, don't follow your routine. So on your way home tonight, take a different way, don't go the same way. Open up your eyes to a different visual landscape. You right-handed, yeah, brush your teeth left-handed. Like do a few things differently, and you will wake up with a different perspective, right? You're challenging yourself. Like, we get so used to sit on a different side of the couch. I don't know, like drink tea instead of coffee.
SPEAKER_01Drive home in reverse tonight. He gave me this idea, and I'm sounding an officer. You're supposed to change the city. It's cool. You should listen to him of a certain guy. Listen to the podcast, he's got a great idea. That's funny. Yeah, it's it's I like it. Yeah. Uh, so where's this business going in the next few years? I mean, I know this the real estate market is it's it's in an interesting place. Um, you know, this is just my observation, right? I mean, obviously you had, you know, like I have properties like like there's no way I'm gonna sell my 3% property, you know, my $1.5 million property in Lighthouse Point, not gonna sell it to reinvest into something where I'm paying whatever, six, seven percent. It just doesn't make sense. Um, so it's never gonna come off the market.
SPEAKER_00I would challenge you on that. Okay, things always make sense. It's about what the what um it's like anything, right? You have to the the problem is the unknown, but if you were so the neighborhood behind you, okay.
SPEAKER_01What's it called by the way?
SPEAKER_00Royal Palm Yacht Yacht and Country Club, I think. Okay. So I remember I had an opportunity to buy one 1.5, maybe $2 million. These homes back were teardowns. Okay. And in this neighborhood? In this neighborhood. Wow. And that's sounds like a lot, right? Sounds like a tremendous amount. Except now the $5 million is the teardown. And these houses are selling for $10, $20, $30, $40 million. Like it's insane. Now, the the the $1.5, the $2 million houses weren't the ones that were on the water, obviously. But my point is that it's really hard to time anything. And you can't time the stock market, you can't time the real estate market, you can you can make some educated guesses, you can figure out where things are going. Um, you know, I look at so here here's interest rates in general. I look at it this way the economy is doing pretty well. Uh, I think that there's a lot of investments in AI. I think we are all trying to figure out how is that going to pan out with respect to labor, right? Am I so do I need 82 employees or can I get away with 70 employees with the same revenue? Like, you know, that's what's going to happen. So we all care about employees, but if there's an ability to reduce costs, which increase profit, like business people are going to do that. So I think there you're going to see those opportunities, but then who like does it work the way it's supposed to? So I think real estate where we are, um, you know, there's only so much water in Florida, so waterfront properties. Um, I think schools are going to play a big difference down here. Like we've got the the big migration from New York City. Oh, yeah. There's not enough a-paper schools for people who have money, right? So this is this is sounds like a really, really um what's the right word? Arrogance not the right word, but it's rich person problem. Okay. You're moving, you're moving, you're moving from New York. You may you have a company in New York, you're bringing your company from New York, there's nowhere to get your kid into private school. Like, that's a ser that's like a legitimate actual problem. Yeah, the way these private schools work, right? And I don't have kids, this is from this is from my friends who have kids in private school. Like, you have to get them into the the the Pinecrest, the St. Andrews, like wherever, like they have to start at first, second, third grade, whatever it is, so early on, because you won't ever be able to get them in in high school. So, like for you and I, did you go to public school and I did, yeah. So did I, and public schools up north were great, right? And so the thought process would be maybe you go one year, maybe you go your junior senior year or a year of PG. You would go to a private school, and we would have done that for greater exposure in sports.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00That would have been the reason we would have done it. You can't do that here. You can't get into Pinecrest for your junior and senior year in order to have greater connections. It's like a cult. Unless it a bad way. LeBron James kid or somebody. Yeah, I mean, unless listen, you write a crazy check, anybody's gonna let you in. That's how life works. You know, life's not fair. Um, so I think honestly, I do think I think schools are a problem. But in general, real estate is not going anywhere. Not for us, not where we are. Um, I don't know that I just wouldn't worry about the fact that you have a six percenter and buy something else. To me, the reason you buy it.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's an investment property though, too.
SPEAKER_00So well, but then I why would so for me I would never sell like I'm a believer in hold. Yeah, right? Hold your stocks, hold your real estate, unless you are telling me the profit that I'm making on on A will be doubled if by selling and going to investment B, there's a greater rate of return, then you know, then it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00But otherwise, I'm gonna make my money doing what I do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, you're uh listen, I where we live is uh is absurd. And you know, if you look at a map of Florida, I mean in the middle, it's a big swamp, you know, that there's just not a whole lot of there's just not any land. Right, you know. Um I was surprised. I drove on Lions Road the other day.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it looks like there were some farms out there, but it looked like there was a little bit of land out there. Am I crazy? Like out by Boyton and Del Rey. Looked like there was a little bit of land.
SPEAKER_00So they do. They have so they have a lot of um in general. Um so when how long did you when did you move down there? 2020. Okay, so you just been so I got here 15 years before you know five. Yep. And what I had always been told is out west was essentially, you know, like you had a family and you wanted a more affordable house, uh, and you wanted a little bit more land. East was obviously more prestigious, closer to the water, to the ocean, etc. Um, and what has happened since is just the amount of people, it's not an option to buy East or to build East, or I mean it is, but like at these astronomical prices. Yeah. So the the general population gets pushed west. So there are there, you know, like they're just expanding. These builders are coming in, Toll Brothers, GL, all of these builders, they're building up these, and now like living out west, load some of the lotuses and the GL, the bridges, and some of these communities, they're very expensive. I just don't have a design for me. Like, I could never do it. I'm not driving 30 minutes to go to the beach. Like, why live in Florida then? We we could I'd rather go to live in like I'd rather be somewhere else. If it's gonna take me 30, 45 minutes to get to the beach, it's not for me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm East Boca. Like I'm boo, like my my wife and I, we're we're so bougie. I mean, we have our office in East Boca. We live in East Boca. I basically just stay on Federal, Federal and Dixie, you know.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm East Del Ray. I live downtown East Del Ray. My office is East Boca, that's the same thing. Yeah, no, I if I could drive my my golf cart to the office, I would. Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
SPEAKER_01I have like a little moak. You know what the mokes are? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we cruise around. Those are fun. Yeah, no, this was fun, man. I um I I always knew I I you know, we actually met at Lulu's. Okay. And you had your beautiful dog. Okay. That was where, and then you just and I and I pet your dog, and your dog was so beautiful, I remember, and you're just such a nice guy. And then you just came over to bounce as well. Oh, I'm seeing you here. Yeah. And uh, it's just cool because like where we live, you know, we're wearing t-shirts and shorts and talking about dogs, and you just meet someone that's uh you know, a high-level thinker just randomly out in Delray one day. So it's cool. And I'm I'm glad we got a chance to do this, you know, because I've been following you on social and you know, you you guys are very impressive what you got going on.
SPEAKER_00Likewise, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Happy for all your success.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much. You too. You guys are crushing it.
SPEAKER_01Um, do me a favor, uh, take a look in that camera. Okay. And um, you know, give me a little 30-second elevator pitch about choice mortgage, whether someone is looking for a home or maybe someone's looking to come work for you. Okay. And if somebody's interested in learning more about choice mortgage, how uh where can they find you online?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So uh hi, how are you doing? Choice Mortgage Group is the name of the company. ChoiceMortgage.com is our website. Uh, we specialize in residential lending. Uh, I think one of our approaches is going to be uh we just take things a little bit differently in in terms of speed. And it's a customized approach and we use technology, just the right amount of technology to make sure that we are making your life easy, but we take a very human approach. Our culture is fantastic. If you're looking to work with or partner with some of the best people in the industry, we'd love to uh love to sit down or chat with you. And uh that's it.
SPEAKER_01Guys, thanks again for tuning in to the Gold Coast Podcast from West Palm down to Miami. Make sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you again.