fbpx

On this episode, I have an amazing conversation with Juan Huizar about his entrepreneurial journey.

He shares his struggles, how he overcame them, and the mindset that helped him to create wealth though real estate.

Watch the full video interview here

Transcript
Amin Ahmed:

Hello and welcome to the Be Well, Do Well podcast.

Amin Ahmed:

Today is a bonus episode where I'm excited to chat with a remarkable entrepreneur

Amin Ahmed:

that's going share his amazing story of struggle, success, and extremes.

Amin Ahmed:

At four years old with eight kids, Juan's mother and father left Mexico

Amin Ahmed:

to start a new life in America.

Amin Ahmed:

By nine, he was getting up at 5:00 AM and working in the garlic fields

Amin Ahmed:

with his brothers and sisters.

Amin Ahmed:

So as you can tell, hard work is not a stranger to Juan, and I'm so excited

Amin Ahmed:

to learn about the mindset that got him to where he is today as the president

Amin Ahmed:

of Sage Real Estate, the leading multi-family and commercial real estate

Amin Ahmed:

brokerage in Long Beach, California.

Amin Ahmed:

Welcome to the show, Juan.

Juan Huizar:

Thank you so much for having me.

Juan Huizar:

Amin, I'm excited to be here and um, yeah.

Juan Huizar:

Thank you for, for the intro.

Amin Ahmed:

Absolutely.

Amin Ahmed:

Now, before we get started, I have to ask, I've got one sister, one sibling,

Amin Ahmed:

and she's been a big influence in my life, but we don't always get along.

Amin Ahmed:

You've got seven siblings.

Amin Ahmed:

I'm curious what that looks like in the Huizar household.

Juan Huizar:

You know, it's the most interesting thing,

Juan Huizar:

how close we are till this day.

Juan Huizar:

We are like, we are on this massive text thread where all the siblings are on

Juan Huizar:

it, all my sisters, all my brothers, and it's like we're kids like, we're like

Juan Huizar:

high school kids texting left and right.

Juan Huizar:

And people are, you know, sending pictures of their kids, kids graduations,

Juan Huizar:

kids birthday parties, weddings that are coming up within the nieces and

Juan Huizar:

nephews because now there's a lot of us.

Juan Huizar:

Right.

Juan Huizar:

And, people are amazed that there's this much level of love and

Juan Huizar:

communication with all eight siblings.

Juan Huizar:

I guess I'm amazed by it too.

Juan Huizar:

And if anything, you know, sometimes people are like similar to you or you

Juan Huizar:

know, if you have one sibling or two siblings and maybe I think with, there's

Juan Huizar:

so many of us and we're all different.

Juan Huizar:

But I think because there's so many, if someone was gonna be left out,

Juan Huizar:

the, there's someone in that family that would kind of bring 'em along.

Juan Huizar:

And so it's amazing, you know, how close we are still.

Juan Huizar:

And this last weekend I got to see everybody.

Juan Huizar:

We had a nephew get married.

Juan Huizar:

And to get everyone to get everyone together is the best thing.

Juan Huizar:

It's, it's all I could ask for.

Amin Ahmed:

Hatch, match, and dispatch, I always say, right, Like when a baby's

Amin Ahmed:

born, when you get married and when unfortunately somebody passes away, Right?

Amin Ahmed:

The family comes together.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah, definitely.

Amin Ahmed:

Family's always a big thing for us, you know, as East Indians, I, I was

Amin Ahmed:

born in Africa where heritage is, East Indian family's a big thing, right?

Amin Ahmed:

Back in the day that you all live in a small village, all the kids running around

Amin Ahmed:

and you know, that was the way it was.

Amin Ahmed:

My parents always taught us that education is priority.

Amin Ahmed:

And I, and I know that your parents also taught that as well, so correct

Amin Ahmed:

me if I'm wrong, but all of the eight siblings all got college degrees.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

Correct.

Juan Huizar:

So probably my parents' biggest accomplishment in their life is to

Juan Huizar:

be able to get their kids out of Mexico where at that time the highest

Juan Huizar:

education that we could have gotten from the, from the, from the little

Juan Huizar:

town that we lived in was sixth grade.

Juan Huizar:

So my parents only have a sixth grade education.

Juan Huizar:

And because of that, they didn't want us to experience that.

Juan Huizar:

And that's the, that's the reason why they left Mexico.

Juan Huizar:

And so their biggest accomplishment was to bring us to the US, and I'm, I'm super

Juan Huizar:

thankful that, you know, I'm an American citizen and, and that all eight of us had

Juan Huizar:

the opportunity for college education and yeah, all, all eight of us have degrees.

Juan Huizar:

And that, I think that's my parents's biggest accomplishment.

Amin Ahmed:

That's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

That's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

Now, in the intro I mentioned about hard work not being a stranger to you.

Amin Ahmed:

Tell me a little bit about you being nine years old and getting up early in

Amin Ahmed:

the morning at 5:00 AM on a hot summer day going out to the garlic field.

Amin Ahmed:

When your friends from school are probably out riding their bicycles

Amin Ahmed:

or playing, what, what does that feel like when you're doing that?

Juan Huizar:

You know, when I was, when I was eight, Well, listen,

Juan Huizar:

when we came from Mexico, we came here for one goal was education.

Juan Huizar:

For, for us.

Juan Huizar:

Okay.

Juan Huizar:

And so my, my parents, you know, so my dad worked in the field.

Juan Huizar:

My mom worked at a little local Mexican restaurant.

Juan Huizar:

They didn't speak English.

Juan Huizar:

So this was like entry level minimum wage jobs that they were entering.

Juan Huizar:

And so the family needed to contribute.

Juan Huizar:

At that time, like the youngest was three years old and it went all the way up.

Juan Huizar:

And every two years I feel like we, there was another sibling that

Juan Huizar:

we had, so everyone had to work.

Juan Huizar:

By the time I would see them in the summers go to the fields, I

Juan Huizar:

had been asking since I was seven years old to asking my dad and mom

Juan Huizar:

to please send me, because I saw, yeah, it was hard work, but they were

Juan Huizar:

together and I loved my siblings.

Juan Huizar:

And so although they were waking up super early and coming back tired

Juan Huizar:

and fatigued and exhausted from working in the, in the, in the fields

Juan Huizar:

all day, I wanted part of that and.

Juan Huizar:

When I was nine, my dad finally let me go and I got to wake

Juan Huizar:

up early with everybody else.

Juan Huizar:

And this is in the Central Valley, so the Central Valley of

Juan Huizar:

California a hundred plus degrees.

Juan Huizar:

Every single day.

Juan Huizar:

And you know, back then they would clip the garlic by hand.

Juan Huizar:

And that's the work that we did.

Juan Huizar:

And so this, this starts in July.

Juan Huizar:

So from July, all the way through the end of August, you're working in the fields.

Juan Huizar:

That is when, that is, when the crop is being clipped.

Juan Huizar:

And so we were there at the, at the hottest peak in the summer, and that

Juan Huizar:

was what we were doing every single day.

Juan Huizar:

This was Monday through Saturday.

Amin Ahmed:

Wow.

Amin Ahmed:

Wow.

Amin Ahmed:

And that, I mean, that, that sounds like just from what you're saying,

Amin Ahmed:

the heat getting up early, right?

Amin Ahmed:

Being out there it sounds like hard work.

Juan Huizar:

So let me, let me tell you one of my biggest takeaways from

Juan Huizar:

working in the garlic field, when, when we're working in the fields back

Juan Huizar:

then after you clipped the head of the garlic and the bottom of the garlic,

Juan Huizar:

you know, it's kind of a garlic bulb.

Juan Huizar:

Right?

Juan Huizar:

So each one of those goes into a five gallon bucket.

Juan Huizar:

An empty five gallon bucket, something that paint would come in.

Juan Huizar:

Right.

Juan Huizar:

But now it's just been cleared out.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

So you do that until you fill it up, and once you fill it up,

Juan Huizar:

you've, you've earned a dollar.

Juan Huizar:

So they give you a card and they punch the card and.

Juan Huizar:

Now, I was nine years old, so like on my, my first week I was filling

Juan Huizar:

up per day, nine buckets a day.

Juan Huizar:

So I was, I was, I was making $9 a day and it wasn't that I was making is

Juan Huizar:

all of us worked together as a family.

Juan Huizar:

So whatever the family made that day all went back to help my mom and dad.

Juan Huizar:

I learned early on that the harder I work, the harder I get rewarded.

Juan Huizar:

And so my brother was a little bit older, so he was making more than nine.

Juan Huizar:

And then by the end of the summer, you know, I was starting to make more and

Juan Huizar:

more and in my head I was like, wait, the faster, the harder that I could

Juan Huizar:

clip this garlic, like the more money I could contribute towards a family.

Juan Huizar:

So taking that, taking that on, and, and applying that through, you

Juan Huizar:

know, elementary and we got middle school when you got high school.

Juan Huizar:

Well, now I'm in college, right?

Juan Huizar:

And so, In college, if you're an accounting student, where I was in school,

Juan Huizar:

every accounting student, like their dream job was to work for one of the big four.

Juan Huizar:

So this is Deloitte and Touche, KPMG, Earnston Younge

Juan Huizar:

and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Juan Huizar:

So these are still what they call the big four.

Juan Huizar:

They're the big four accounting firms in the world still to this day.

Juan Huizar:

So when you're an accounting student, they, they tell you,

Juan Huizar:

Hey, you have to have good grades.

Juan Huizar:

You need to be involved and have leadership roles.

Juan Huizar:

You need to interview well.

Juan Huizar:

And so all these things, you know, at the university that I went to,

Juan Huizar:

I didn't know how to interview.

Juan Huizar:

Amin, I didn't even know how to properly handshake.

Juan Huizar:

You know, tying a tie and all these things were things that I was not exposed to.

Juan Huizar:

Like, I didn't have a dad or an uncle or anyone that taught me these things.

Juan Huizar:

So now, so now I'm at the, at the university and I realize that the

Juan Huizar:

university has mock interviews where you could practice interviews.

Juan Huizar:

And so I took advantage of all the resources that they had, and I learned

Juan Huizar:

all these things that I didn't know.

Juan Huizar:

And so by the time, by the time, by the time the accounting companies came

Juan Huizar:

around, I made sure that my grades were, were the best they could be.

Juan Huizar:

You know, I graduated with honors.

Juan Huizar:

I made sure that I was involved at the club levels and that I

Juan Huizar:

would take leadership roles there.

Juan Huizar:

And so, you know, I was bilingual.

Juan Huizar:

That certainly helped.

Juan Huizar:

And by then I, I had practice just to get good mock interviews.

Juan Huizar:

I would, I would attend these clinics, these little courses they

Juan Huizar:

would have, and I would just go until I got better and got comfortable.

Juan Huizar:

And so I was fortunate enough that because I did everything that I was asked of me.

Juan Huizar:

And in my head, in back of my head was like, Hey, the harder you work,

Juan Huizar:

the harder you're gonna get rewarded.

Juan Huizar:

Because I'm bringing these kind of that same work ethic that I

Juan Huizar:

got early on working in the garlic fields that as a junior the first

Juan Huizar:

company to give me a job offer.

Juan Huizar:

This was like a year before I even graduated was Deloitte Touche.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah, so they gave me a job offer and what ends up happening in the accounting

Juan Huizar:

world is once a firm gives you an offer, the others all kind of follow, like, oh,

Juan Huizar:

like, hey, they were vetted by so and so.

Juan Huizar:

And so then, then came all the others.

Juan Huizar:

And so that was gonna be my path, is I, They said I ended up signing with Deloitte

Juan Huizar:

and Tush because they were the first ones I felt that were actively recruiting me.

Juan Huizar:

They were the ones who wanted me.

Juan Huizar:

The others kind of followed along after someone said yes to me.

Juan Huizar:

And so I'm like, you know, like I wanna be loyal to them.

Juan Huizar:

I feel like they saw the talent and maybe potential in me.

Juan Huizar:

And so I had signed on with Deloitte and I'm a junior in college and I

Juan Huizar:

have one more year to finish and I, and they say, Hey, just finish now.

Juan Huizar:

You know, the stress is off of, Like, what are you gonna do for a living?

Juan Huizar:

This is what you're gonna do.

Juan Huizar:

You're gonna do, you're gonna work in the world of audit, right?

Juan Huizar:

It's not a sexy world, but you're gonna work in the world of audit

Juan Huizar:

and within three to five years, you'll, you'll become a cpa.

Juan Huizar:

You'll work your way at management, you're gonna work a lot of hours.

Juan Huizar:

But you're gonna have a lot of connections and, and resources.

Juan Huizar:

And this is, you know, this is a way to to start off as a professional.

Juan Huizar:

So I was excited.

Juan Huizar:

You know, this, this was gonna be my, this was gonna be my career.

Amin Ahmed:

That's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

Now, before we get into what happened next, I want to touch a little

Amin Ahmed:

bit on the fact that we're both parents, we both have young kids.

Amin Ahmed:

So how do you instill that, that drive and hunger in your kids from a young age?

Amin Ahmed:

How old are your kids again?

Juan Huizar:

So I have two daughters a 12 year old Vivian, and then my

Juan Huizar:

my nine year old Solana, she's, so I got 12 and nine year old daughters,

Amin Ahmed:

What advice do you have for the parents listening here, for instilling

Amin Ahmed:

that need and that desire to want to do more and not just get distracted by all

Amin Ahmed:

the, the digital, the tech, the screens?

Juan Huizar:

I mean, I, That is a really tough question because, I did it out

Juan Huizar:

of fear and there was no safety net.

Juan Huizar:

Right?

Juan Huizar:

I did it out of fear and there's no safety net.

Juan Huizar:

Mm-hmm.

Juan Huizar:

well.

Juan Huizar:

Your kids and my kids have a safety net.

Juan Huizar:

They have us.

Juan Huizar:

Okay.

Juan Huizar:

So that, So that's the very tough part.

Juan Huizar:

And so, but as I think about it more, because I do get this question asked

Juan Huizar:

often, Well, Juan, how can you take what you have and now give your kids?

Juan Huizar:

Cuz what you have, you're like, you really want more and you want the best out of

Juan Huizar:

yourself and you're gonna push yourself.

Juan Huizar:

The only way that I could possibly teach that is just through being

Juan Huizar:

who I am, and they get to see it every day being who I am.

Juan Huizar:

And they get to see it every day.

Juan Huizar:

Now teaching the, you know, they're never gonna work in the garlic

Juan Huizar:

fields, but I, but I've done a little miniature documentary on my family.

Juan Huizar:

I took a camera crew up to the Central Valley where I'm from to capture what life

Juan Huizar:

was like, you know, the, the whole waking up early, we caught that all on video.

Juan Huizar:

I actually went back to the garlic fields and I got permission from one of

Juan Huizar:

the farmers to, to record what that is.

Juan Huizar:

And so it's some of those things.

Juan Huizar:

I interviewed my sisters, my brothers, and we talked about what life was like

Juan Huizar:

in Mexico, what it was like coming to the US and actually crossing the border

Juan Huizar:

and, and then what life was like here when we were having to work in the field.

Juan Huizar:

And so these are videos that now we have, these are videos that my daughters get to

Juan Huizar:

watch our nieces and nephews get to watch.

Juan Huizar:

And it's just a constant reminder of where we came from.

Juan Huizar:

Life is much, much different for you now, but we're not gonna forget why we're here.

Juan Huizar:

And still it's why are we here is education.

Juan Huizar:

And I, and that's still the goal with my daughters.

Juan Huizar:

It's educatation.

Juan Huizar:

It's still to them.

Juan Huizar:

Exact same thing.

Juan Huizar:

The, the exact same message my parents had for us, I want them to have as well.

Juan Huizar:

Our

Amin Ahmed:

parents when they moved here, you know, mine from

Amin Ahmed:

Africa and, and yours from Mexico.

Amin Ahmed:

It was, they were working a lot.

Amin Ahmed:

They were working hard, you know, they had little, and it's hard to

Amin Ahmed:

have a wellness routine, Right.

Amin Ahmed:

To, to find that balance, which is so elusive.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

So one of the, I guess, newest activities is that we picked, I picked up running, I

Juan Huizar:

you know, I think I had mentioned before that I had done 11 years of CrossFit

Juan Huizar:

where like, you know, I got physically fit and CrossFit's like a different type of

Juan Huizar:

quick fast workouts with heavy weights.

Juan Huizar:

And so that was great.

Juan Huizar:

And then I kind of picked up running.

Juan Huizar:

And so for the last three years I've done multiple, multiple trail

Juan Huizar:

runs, marathons, half marathons.

Juan Huizar:

And then most recently I got into a triathlon.

Juan Huizar:

And so I did my first half Ironman.

Juan Huizar:

And so I spent, yeah, I wake up really early and I spend a lot

Juan Huizar:

of time either riding the bike, swimming or running depending on

Juan Huizar:

what the schedule is for the day.

Amin Ahmed:

And so what does your morning routine look?

Juan Huizar:

So I wake up at five in the morning.

Juan Huizar:

I spend 10 to 15 minutes meditating.

Juan Huizar:

I spend 15 minutes writing.

Juan Huizar:

There's a terrific book.

Juan Huizar:

It's called the artist way morning pages, if you read that book, you'll

Juan Huizar:

see the importance of just writing.

Juan Huizar:

And so I write and a lot of ideas and creativity comes out and you

Juan Huizar:

don't even know where they come from.

Juan Huizar:

And, and it's this beautiful thing.

Juan Huizar:

So meditation, I write, I stretch.

Juan Huizar:

I'm a big believer in stretching.

Juan Huizar:

I stretch every single day because I know I'm gonna push my body and

Juan Huizar:

I don't want my body to break down.

Juan Huizar:

I don't want it to let up.

Juan Huizar:

And then after that is when I start my, my workout of the day, whatever that might.

Amin Ahmed:

That's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

Getting up early.

Amin Ahmed:

It definitely has benefits.

Amin Ahmed:

I get up pretty early and I, I know when I, I was never a early morning

Amin Ahmed:

person growing up, and then I started to become one and I saw those benefits

Amin Ahmed:

and I've also done the morning pages.

Amin Ahmed:

Is there something when you're doing the morning pages, like you have a

Amin Ahmed:

column on the side that's like, when I have this inspiration or something,

Amin Ahmed:

you know, the spark of genius, you just like jot it down on the side.

Amin Ahmed:

What's your process for that.

Juan Huizar:

So the, the, the way the book reads is you, you just start

Juan Huizar:

writing anything and if you have nothing to write, you write your name.

Juan Huizar:

Or if you have nothing to write, write the things you're grateful for.

Juan Huizar:

But this is not a journal, this is once you start writing ideas start coming up.

Juan Huizar:

And I'm not even like trying to like, Bring these ideas up.

Juan Huizar:

I just start writing and things come up, or feelings come

Juan Huizar:

up and it leads to results.

Juan Huizar:

Or it sparks this light, light bulb in my head of like, Aha.

Juan Huizar:

I could use that either towards something for the family,

Juan Huizar:

something personal, something financial, or even for my business.

Juan Huizar:

And I really, really enjoy it.

Juan Huizar:

Something I would've never done in the past.

Juan Huizar:

But you know, I gotta learn from the people that are doing it.

Juan Huizar:

Right.

Juan Huizar:

And a lot of people do do write in the morning.

Amin Ahmed:

Do you find that it helps you overcome like blockages

Amin Ahmed:

if there's something you're working on and you're stuck?

Amin Ahmed:

You may not be going into the morning pages with a looking for a

Amin Ahmed:

solution, but do you ever just like find the solution when you're, when

Amin Ahmed:

you're letting it flow through you?

Juan Huizar:

Sometimes you find solutions to problems you

Juan Huizar:

didn't know you had . Okay.

Juan Huizar:

That is the most amazing part.

Juan Huizar:

That is the most amazing part.

Juan Huizar:

And when you go back and you start reading, there's patterns to what

Juan Huizar:

you're writing and then you get to see like, , I address that concern.

Juan Huizar:

I address that issue.

Juan Huizar:

I actually did that.

Juan Huizar:

Then it feels so good.

Juan Huizar:

And if you didn't, you know what ends up happening is that all of us have all these

Juan Huizar:

ideas and stresses in our, in our head.

Juan Huizar:

You need to get 'em outta your head.

Juan Huizar:

This is the one way that I get them out of my head.

Amin Ahmed:

Do you mind sharing something that, like a problem

Amin Ahmed:

that came up or a challenge that you didn't even know you had?

Juan Huizar:

So typically they're like, work, Well, typically

Juan Huizar:

they're like marketing problems.

Juan Huizar:

Like, who am I gonna hire?

Juan Huizar:

Sometimes it's like, who am I gonna hire next?

Juan Huizar:

Interesting.

Juan Huizar:

You know, like, you know, for anyone who's an entrepreneur,

Juan Huizar:

they're like, We want more leads.

Juan Huizar:

And so, you know, a lot of us who are entrepreneurs, there's like

Juan Huizar:

a hundred different things that are going on through our heads.

Juan Huizar:

And, you know, we're, we're the rainmakers, we're the marketers,

Juan Huizar:

we're everything for our business.

Juan Huizar:

And so more recently I was like, okay, where, where are my pain points in my

Juan Huizar:

business and what are the things that I no longer want to be doing because I want my

Juan Huizar:

productivity to be at a hundred percent.

Juan Huizar:

I want to do the things that, that like my time is.

Juan Huizar:

Best use.

Juan Huizar:

Right?

Juan Huizar:

And so what came up, I made a list of the things I didn't want to

Juan Huizar:

do, and through that I was able to hire someone to handle that list.

Juan Huizar:

And that came directly, directly from morning pages,

Juan Huizar:

just writing in the morning.

Amin Ahmed:

That's pretty cool.

Amin Ahmed:

That's really cool.

Amin Ahmed:

Now I promise that we'd come back to what you do now, and

Amin Ahmed:

you could have been an account.

Amin Ahmed:

But you're not one now.

Amin Ahmed:

So what happened there when you had your offers?

Juan Huizar:

You know, it's interesting.

Juan Huizar:

I spent all my, you know, five years in college getting this job

Juan Huizar:

with this accounting firm, right?

Juan Huizar:

And then, so there I am with the, everyone wanted to be in my position,

Juan Huizar:

a junior going into the senior year knowing that you have a full-time job.

Juan Huizar:

Like that is what, this was in 2003.

Juan Huizar:

And so then I had a salary waiting for me.

Juan Huizar:

It was, it was great.

Juan Huizar:

Well, as a senior, I meet someone, and his name's Mark Malan.

Juan Huizar:

And Mark Malan was a real estate investor.

Juan Huizar:

He was a real estate broker, appraiser contractor.

Juan Huizar:

He was all these things surrounding real estate.

Juan Huizar:

I met him as a senior and he offered me a job and I needed a

Juan Huizar:

job during that time as a senior.

Juan Huizar:

And I started working alongside him.

Juan Huizar:

And as I was working with him, I saw him building wealth through real estate.

Juan Huizar:

And so I saw him buy commercial buildings, and he would always figure out, so

Juan Huizar:

he would buy like vacant commercial buildings, downsize them into smaller

Juan Huizar:

commercial spaces, improve the property, and then bring in new tenants, bring

Juan Huizar:

in good income, and then he would refinance and then build wealth.

Juan Huizar:

And he and I would see what he was doing.

Juan Huizar:

He did this with commercial buildings, he did it with apartment buildings where

Juan Huizar:

he was always looking to add value.

Juan Huizar:

Sometimes he would simply refinance it and like keep the property.

Juan Huizar:

Mm-hmm.

Juan Huizar:

and other times he would sell it and buy another larger property.

Juan Huizar:

And I saw this with hotels, self storages, commercial buildings, apartment

Juan Huizar:

buildings, houses, whatever he could do to build wealth, he was doing it.

Juan Huizar:

So my entire senior year was, You know, getting through the last of my accounting

Juan Huizar:

courses and working with Mark as his assistant, you know, I was just running

Juan Huizar:

around with whatever he needed of me.

Juan Huizar:

Well, as I got close to graduating, Mark got used to having me around.

Juan Huizar:

Okay?

Juan Huizar:

And so he said, Hey, I know you told me that you wanted to be a

Juan Huizar:

CPA and do this accounting thing.

Juan Huizar:

No pressure, but I would love to keep you.

Juan Huizar:

Like, what is it that they're gonna pay you?

Juan Huizar:

I'll match the salary, but more importantly, I will teach you how

Juan Huizar:

to build wealth through real estate.

Juan Huizar:

And at first I said, No way.

Juan Huizar:

Like, like I'm, I'm set.

Juan Huizar:

I'm gonna be a CPA.

Juan Huizar:

And everyone, I mean, for the most part, if you tell someone you're a

Juan Huizar:

CPA, and granted I was 22 years old, very, I was young and, and to think

Juan Huizar:

that I was gonna be a CPA and, and you know, that was gonna be well respected.

Juan Huizar:

My parents get to tell their, their friends, Hey, you know,

Juan Huizar:

Juan is gonna become a CPA.

Juan Huizar:

I thought that was gonna be my path.

Juan Huizar:

And so at first I told Mark, no.

Juan Huizar:

Hey, I'm just gonna stick on this plan.

Juan Huizar:

Back then, it was all about your resume and who you had on your resume and who

Juan Huizar:

you work with, and so I told him no.

Juan Huizar:

And then what I realized was the accounting recruiters that were recruiting

Juan Huizar:

me, I told them what I was doing during my senior year as a, as a senior and

Juan Huizar:

who I was working with while they wanted me to set up meetings to meet Mark.

Juan Huizar:

They, they were, the accounting recruiters were more interested

Juan Huizar:

in what I was doing with Mark than what they were doing in accounting.

Juan Huizar:

Hmm.

Juan Huizar:

And so then that kind of got my head scratching, right?

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

And I was like, Wait, why is it that they're more interested in learning how to

Juan Huizar:

building wealth through real estate when they're, you know, they're all CPAs now.

Juan Huizar:

Like, aren't they happy with that?

Juan Huizar:

And I thought, and well, kind of a small story.

Juan Huizar:

So Mark Mullan is the person who offered me the job.

Juan Huizar:

His mentors a guy named Jeff Chauncey.

Juan Huizar:

And so Jeff Chauncey, I got to meet every now and then.

Juan Huizar:

Well, the day that Jeff Chauncey was set to retire and he was gonna move to

Juan Huizar:

Florida, he, I ran into him at the bank.

Juan Huizar:

And so Jeff waited for me to be done with what I had to do, and.

Juan Huizar:

I'm in the middle of, of like my decision making, right?

Juan Huizar:

Like what am I gonna do?

Juan Huizar:

Which direction, you know, fork in the road.

Juan Huizar:

They're both good options.

Juan Huizar:

Where do I go?

Juan Huizar:

And so Jeff waited for me and he's like, Hey Juan, I'm about to catch my flight.

Juan Huizar:

I'm leaving.

Juan Huizar:

I just want to, you know, say it was good to meet you.

Juan Huizar:

He's like, If I could give you some advice, He's like, I know

Juan Huizar:

Mark asked you to stay on with him.

Juan Huizar:

And he said, If I was you, he says, I would go learn how to

Juan Huizar:

build welath in real estate.

Juan Huizar:

He said, because that is unlimited.

Juan Huizar:

He says, If you become a CPA, yes you'll have a good salary,

Juan Huizar:

but you're gonna be capped.

Juan Huizar:

You're gonna be capped in, in, in that profession.

Juan Huizar:

He said, But if you could learn the way that Mark is building wealth,

Juan Huizar:

there's no limit to what you could do.

Juan Huizar:

And kind of hearing it from someone who had already made it

Juan Huizar:

was retiring, you know, he had his yacht waiting for him in Florida.

Juan Huizar:

I was like, Well, And he said, Hey, what's the worst that could happen?

Juan Huizar:

You could always go back to accounting.

Juan Huizar:

You could always go back to accounting.

Juan Huizar:

So I, that day I pick up the phone, I called Deloitte and

Juan Huizar:

Touche and they were so upset.

Juan Huizar:

I called them and I said, I'm sorry, but I decided to go in a different

Juan Huizar:

direction and they were upset, you know, they were waiting for

Juan Huizar:

me to graduate and go that route.

Juan Huizar:

But, you know, as a, you know, by then I was 23.

Juan Huizar:

I, you know, I, I guess I took a leap of faith afterwards.

Juan Huizar:

Everyone, all my friends and all the kids in my accounting

Juan Huizar:

department thought I was an idiot.

Juan Huizar:

They're like, You blew your chance.

Juan Huizar:

You worked so hard for this, and you're just going to go do real estate.

Juan Huizar:

That makes no sense.

Juan Huizar:

And so through the years there was, there was times where I was

Juan Huizar:

like, I may have made a mistake.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

And you know, now it's, you know, over 20 years or something that I've have

Juan Huizar:

graduated since, been out of college.

Juan Huizar:

And now looking back, it was the best decision that I could have made.

Juan Huizar:

But early on it's hard to know that, you know, now looking back, I'm so glad that

Juan Huizar:

I, that I made the decision that I made.

Amin Ahmed:

You know, hindsight is always 2020, right?

Amin Ahmed:

You look back and you're like, I know I made the right decision now.

Amin Ahmed:

But when that doubt, crept in.

Amin Ahmed:

What did you do?

Amin Ahmed:

Did you, did you consider going back?

Amin Ahmed:

Did you, were you just like, I'm stubborn, I'm just gonna keep going

Amin Ahmed:

?

Amin Ahmed:

You know, and I don't, and I wouldn't even say that I'm stubborn.

Amin Ahmed:

I, I always know that a lot of people know more than me and I'm

Amin Ahmed:

open to learning from everybody.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

But You know, there was a lot of early success that I had

Amin Ahmed:

in real estate thanks to Mark.

Amin Ahmed:

You know, he showed me how to get started and how to invest and

Amin Ahmed:

how to you know, create wealth.

Amin Ahmed:

And so all these things started happening early on.

Amin Ahmed:

And so when things got tough I.

Amin Ahmed:

I always wondered what if, like, what if I would've become a cpa?

Amin Ahmed:

What if, if I would've joined this company that there was always that,

Amin Ahmed:

but at no point did I wanna go back and call them and say, Hey, I'm ready.

Amin Ahmed:

You know, I'm ready to come back.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

And certainly now it does.

Amin Ahmed:

Now it doesn't even cross my head at all.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah, that's a good thing.

Amin Ahmed:

One of the mantras that we have at home here is that everything

Amin Ahmed:

in life is a wonderful journey.

Amin Ahmed:

and we tell our kids it's wonder filled because you don't

Amin Ahmed:

know what's gonna happen next.

Amin Ahmed:

And it's a journey because it's not just the destination that you're going after.

Amin Ahmed:

Mm-hmm.

Amin Ahmed:

. And you know, when I hear your story about moving from Mexico, you

Amin Ahmed:

didn't know what was gonna happen.

Amin Ahmed:

Right.

Amin Ahmed:

Then you go to school, then you go to middle school and

Amin Ahmed:

high school and then college.

Amin Ahmed:

Right.

Amin Ahmed:

And even at the end of that journey where people think that college is, you know,

Amin Ahmed:

graduated from college as your end goal.

Amin Ahmed:

You still were ready to take that 90 degree turn.

Amin Ahmed:

I mean, it is crazy, but I'm, I'm happy that it worked out for you, right?

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

That's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

Now, are there any, any productivity hacks?

Amin Ahmed:

Like you, you're a very efficient person to get all of this stuff done.

Amin Ahmed:

You've got kids, you, you know, you're, you're busy in your business

Amin Ahmed:

and you take time to, to run crazy, crazy marathons and stuff.

Amin Ahmed:

Right.

Amin Ahmed:

Do you have some productivity hacks that you'd like to share with our audience?

Amin Ahmed:

For, for them to get stuff done?

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

And it's gonna be as simple as filling up your calendar

Juan Huizar:

with the things that are important.

Juan Huizar:

Nice.

Juan Huizar:

Filling up your calendar.

Juan Huizar:

So if you look at my calendar 5am to 7:30am, completely blocked off.

Juan Huizar:

Mm-hmm.

Juan Huizar:

5am to 7:30am, because that's gonna be my morning routine and my workout.

Juan Huizar:

This is every day.

Juan Huizar:

Yeah.

Juan Huizar:

And then, but then, you know, obviously then we schedule out

Juan Huizar:

the day, but then when I get home, six to eight, phone is off.

Juan Huizar:

Phone is off because I do not wanna walk into the house with being on the phone and

Juan Huizar:

then I have to wait to hug my daughters.

Juan Huizar:

No way.

Juan Huizar:

So it's off.

Juan Huizar:

I put it in my briefcase, I zip it up and I just leave it in my car.

Juan Huizar:

Now because I own my own business, I know things are gonna happen between that two

Juan Huizar:

hour window and after we put 'em to bed, then I'm gonna come grab it and there

Juan Huizar:

might be some work that I have to get to.

Juan Huizar:

Right.

Juan Huizar:

But there's a lot of scheduling and so I feel like, you know, when it comes

Juan Huizar:

to working out, cuz people do say, Well, how do you have time to work out?

Juan Huizar:

It's again, early morning is getting that stuff in, in the morning.

Juan Huizar:

Then I don't have to worry about.

Juan Huizar:

You know, I'm the kind of guy where like I have to work out every day.

Juan Huizar:

Like this is like seven days a week.

Juan Huizar:

There's really no recovery, even though they say that's good, right?

Juan Huizar:

It's, I'm just going hard.

Juan Huizar:

And so then I go hard in the morning and then I check that box and like

Juan Huizar:

my body doesn't need that anymore.

Juan Huizar:

Right?

Juan Huizar:

And now, you know, I could go hard at work and then, then I could go hard

Juan Huizar:

in being the best dad and husband that I could be once I get home.

Juan Huizar:

But.

Juan Huizar:

Everything has to go on the calendar.

Juan Huizar:

Every little thing has to go on the calendar.

Juan Huizar:

And that's probably, in terms of being productive, that has to be

Juan Huizar:

the number one thing, you know?

Juan Huizar:

But, you know, there's a lot of apps.

Juan Huizar:

I mean, I use, you know, Headspace, I use Headspace for for my meditation.

Juan Huizar:

You know, there's a, there's a certain app that I use for

Juan Huizar:

stretching, and so I let you know.

Juan Huizar:

I'm a consumer of these products because it makes my life easier and

Juan Huizar:

it takes the decision making off of my hands, and I'm like, Okay.

Juan Huizar:

I just follow the script that they have for that day.

Amin Ahmed:

Yeah.

Amin Ahmed:

I love that.

Amin Ahmed:

I love that because when you say take that decision out of your head, right?

Amin Ahmed:

Like I said, so many people yesterday I was talking to my son and I said,

Amin Ahmed:

When you have too many decisions to make, you go into decision.

Amin Ahmed:

In decision, and then you're stuck.

Amin Ahmed:

You can't make any decisions.

Amin Ahmed:

Right.

Amin Ahmed:

And do you, do you sometimes get stuck in there where you're like,

Amin Ahmed:

Or does that morning pages and meditation, does that help you not

Amin Ahmed:

get stuck in making a decision.

Juan Huizar:

Everyone's gonna get stuck.

Juan Huizar:

It's just how long do you get stuck and how frustrated does that make you?

Juan Huizar:

And, and you know, really what ends up happening is that

Juan Huizar:

frustration gets you more stuck.

Juan Huizar:

And there's really right.

Juan Huizar:

There's no productivity in being frustrated.

Juan Huizar:

And so I'm not gonna say that, you know, my morning routine clears everything.

Juan Huizar:

You know, you're still gonna get stuck.

Juan Huizar:

Mm-hmm.

Juan Huizar:

. And that's why like I have a wonderful team in my business and.

Juan Huizar:

Man, I love mastermind and brainstorming with people.

Juan Huizar:

I love it.

Juan Huizar:

I love it.

Juan Huizar:

I love it.

Juan Huizar:

With any issue that I have, I'm like, Can't have this idea or

Juan Huizar:

this thing's bothering me and I'll bring it up to my team.

Juan Huizar:

And just getting ideas on top of ideas and their ideas and leading off of that

Juan Huizar:

and building and building on ideas from a business perspective is my favorite thing.

Juan Huizar:

And typically, you know, to, to your point, I still get stuck,

Juan Huizar:

but I will talk about being stuck with other people, right?

Juan Huizar:

And through that through that collaboration is

Juan Huizar:

where solutions are found.

Amin Ahmed:

So we've learned quite a bit about you in terms of, you know,

Amin Ahmed:

your backstory, your, your morning routine, your wellness routine.

Amin Ahmed:

But is there any one thing that people would be genuinely

Amin Ahmed:

surprised to learn about you?

Juan Huizar:

Well, it's probably not a good thing, but lifelong severe stutterer.

Juan Huizar:

I am a lifelong severe stutterer.

Juan Huizar:

And, Amin, this is something that for the longest time in my life I wouldn't talk

Juan Huizar:

about because I didn't wanna face the fact that I had this speech impediment.

Juan Huizar:

And so I tried to hide it.

Juan Huizar:

I try, but I mean well into my adulthood.

Juan Huizar:

This is high school, college.

Juan Huizar:

And I realized, Amin that one of the reasons why I chose accounting.

Juan Huizar:

Subconsciously, I chose a profession where I didn't have to speak.

Juan Huizar:

I chose a profession that really you could do auditing and you're really not having,

Juan Huizar:

or this is what I thought, that you didn't have to speak with a lot of people.

Juan Huizar:

And so it wasn't till I was about 35 that I got a little bit of therapy and I joined

Juan Huizar:

Toastmasters and I faced my biggest fear.

Juan Huizar:

It's just regular communication.

Juan Huizar:

So I mean, when I say that I stuttered, I was afraid of picking up the phone

Juan Huizar:

and saying, Hi, can I speak with Amin?

Juan Huizar:

Like that would not come outta my mouth.

Juan Huizar:

There'd be like this.

Juan Huizar:

I would get jammed up with my words.

Juan Huizar:

They wouldn't flow out properly.

Juan Huizar:

I couldn't order at a restaurant like so for the longest time.

Juan Huizar:

Till this day, my wife will still order for me cuz she knew how much

Juan Huizar:

of a struggle it was for me to order.

Juan Huizar:

Wow.

Juan Huizar:

And so now that I said yes to your podcast, it's because through through

Juan Huizar:

Toastmasters and through like facing my fear, through facing my biggest fear,

Juan Huizar:

this is years and years and I've stuttered since I was a kid, since we left Mexico,

Juan Huizar:

I had this massive stuttering problem and at some point a couple years ago, I, I

Juan Huizar:

saw that Toastmasters was actually helping me for some, you know, it's, it's weird.

Juan Huizar:

My, my favorite saying is, working on a weakness reduces the fear of it.

Juan Huizar:

Working on a weakness reduces the fear of it.

Juan Huizar:

I was finally facing this fear and I was going into this group

Juan Huizar:

and I was on stage a small group.

Juan Huizar:

Right.

Juan Huizar:

Toastmasters is this group where we practice, had a public speak, right?

Juan Huizar:

I was there not to public speak, I was there just to speak.

Juan Huizar:

I was there just to talk.

Juan Huizar:

And so that started giving me confidence and I got better.

Juan Huizar:

And so now it's interesting, I tell people and they're like, No, like it was severe.

Juan Huizar:

This was not like, Oh, Juan's you know, when you're little,

Juan Huizar:

it's like, Oh, he's cute.

Juan Huizar:

He stutters, right?

Juan Huizar:

Mine was not cute.

Juan Huizar:

It was like this.

Juan Huizar:

Being, being in college, knowing the answer and not being, being fearful to

Juan Huizar:

raise your hand because you're gonna stumble through your words, was my entire

Juan Huizar:

most of my life I've been a stutterer.

Juan Huizar:

So now the only I bring this up only because it does feel good for me to talk

Juan Huizar:

about it and say, this is what I am.

Juan Huizar:

Because for the longest time I've tried to pretend like, Oh, no, no, no.

Juan Huizar:

I just, I said that wrong.

Juan Huizar:

I was trying to like hide it and now I'm like, Okay, this is who I am.

Juan Huizar:

I still have it.

Juan Huizar:

I'll never get rid of it a hundred percent.

Juan Huizar:

But now that it's gone away, I say yes to every speaking engagement where I'm

Juan Huizar:

asked, because I feel like for the first time ever, I could get my words out and

Juan Huizar:

I'm like just so thankful and blessed that I could, that I could do that.

Juan Huizar:

And I know that's simple for anyone who hears this says,

Juan Huizar:

Man, that's just speaking.

Juan Huizar:

But like, not everyone could do that.

Juan Huizar:

And, and that was my disability.

Juan Huizar:

And so, I don't know, that's not like a fun story, but it's just

Juan Huizar:

a story that I felt like sharing.

Amin Ahmed:

Oh, that's amazing.

Amin Ahmed:

One, thank you for sharing that.

Amin Ahmed:

Thank you for the vulnerability there.

Amin Ahmed:

You, you're blowing my mind right now because, you know, I thought, I thought

Amin Ahmed:

I, I could contain the extremes, but like, you know, 35 and now I know I

Amin Ahmed:

was doing some research on you before our call and you've got a YouTube

Amin Ahmed:

channel, dozens of videos there.

Amin Ahmed:

Can you talk a little bit about the business and the content that you

Amin Ahmed:

create on YouTube and what it is that you hope to do through that for your

Amin Ahmed:

for your clients and the audience.

Juan Huizar:

Got it.

Juan Huizar:

So what I've done is more from building trust.

Juan Huizar:

You know, like when you're in a business and you know this, is that we, we

Juan Huizar:

try to build trust book appointments and serve our clients, right?

Juan Huizar:

Those are the main three things that we're doing no matter what you're doing, right?

Juan Huizar:

But in order for me to really scale as a business I needed to show people what I'm

Juan Huizar:

about and so what I'm passionate about.

Juan Huizar:

And so, because I've, I learned early.

Juan Huizar:

You know after college how to build wealth through real estate.

Juan Huizar:

And so I, I've been fortunate enough where I own large portfolio of properties and

Juan Huizar:

Mark held up to his end of the bargain.

Juan Huizar:

Juan, I'm gonna teach you how to build wealth, how to, how to, how

Juan Huizar:

to become independent and wealthy.

Juan Huizar:

By owning real estate.

Juan Huizar:

So he did that.

Juan Huizar:

And so now what I do is through my YouTube channels, teach others exactly

Juan Huizar:

what he taught me and now I get to put my experience and my little twist to it and

Juan Huizar:

things that maybe I, I use or I learn.

Juan Huizar:

And so our YouTube channel is dedicated to teaching people how to build

Juan Huizar:

wealth through real estate ownership.

Juan Huizar:

Whether it's apartments, condos, houses, everything.

Juan Huizar:

A lot of people want this information.

Juan Huizar:

And so our YouTube channel has, is growing, it's growing quickly and we

Juan Huizar:

have a lot of subscribers coming into us.

Juan Huizar:

And, and that is really at first, when I got started with this, it was this

Juan Huizar:

was actually part of my therapy is having the camera on me having to speak.

Juan Huizar:

This was not something that I wanted to do, but.

Juan Huizar:

The feedback and the comments and the support and the people sending back

Juan Huizar:

comments saying, Hey, I just did this because of your video, or I would love to

Juan Huizar:

work with you and your team, or Can you refer me to someone in such and such place

Juan Huizar:

because I'm not in your area and now we're ready to do this, Or, We bought our first

Juan Huizar:

investment property because of you, or now we're on our third one because of you.

Juan Huizar:

It's those comments.

Juan Huizar:

I mean, that just keep me wanting to keep doing this.

Juan Huizar:

It's just, it feels good that people care this much about the one, you

Juan Huizar:

know, one of the things that I'm really passionate about and And I'm super, super

Juan Huizar:

happy with the success of the channel.

Amin Ahmed:

Oh, that's beautiful.

Amin Ahmed:

When you hear people telling you the success that they've had as a result of

Amin Ahmed:

something you've spent time, you know, overcoming your challenges with stuttering

Amin Ahmed:

and, and getting in front of the camera.

Amin Ahmed:

What's the name of the YouTube channel so that our audience can look it up?

Juan Huizar:

Yeah, so it's just youtube.com/sagerealestate.

Juan Huizar:

So Sage Real Estate is my company, and the sage is, you know, sometimes

Juan Huizar:

people ask, Why'd you choose that?

Juan Huizar:

Sage is another word for wisdom.

Juan Huizar:

Mm-hmm.

Juan Huizar:

. And I would like to think that like when we're advising our clients and our

Juan Huizar:

friends on, on the next investment step to make that it, that it's, it's backed

Juan Huizar:

with a lot of wisdom and sage advice from what we're telling people to do.

Amin Ahmed:

Well throughout our time together here, you've definitely shared

Amin Ahmed:

a lot of sage advice for us, and I just wanted to thank you so much for taking

Amin Ahmed:

the time, first of all, and coming on and talking about it sharing some

Amin Ahmed:

of your feelings and vulnerabilities.

Amin Ahmed:

And if our audience wanted to get ahold of you, where can, what's your website

Amin Ahmed:

or where can they get ahold of you?

Juan Huizar:

Yeah, so check out our YouTube channel, but my, my

Juan Huizar:

website is um, www.sageregroup.com.

Juan Huizar:

So that's sage re for real estate re group.com.

Juan Huizar:

So check it out if, if anyone has any questions or wants to

Juan Huizar:

run something by me, I, you.

Juan Huizar:

Tell, tell me that you heard me on Amin's podcast, and I would

Juan Huizar:

love that, Love to hear from you.

Amin Ahmed:

That's awesome.

Amin Ahmed:

Okay.

Amin Ahmed:

Once again, Juan, thank you so much.

Amin Ahmed:

I really appreciate your time and I'm really grateful that you were

Amin Ahmed:

able to spend some time with us.

Juan Huizar:

Amin, it was a lot of fun.

Juan Huizar:

Thank you for having me.