Rising Strong: The Power of Self-Discipline and Authentic Living with Allie Vasquez

[0:00] welcome back to the rei agent i’m here with ali vazquez ali thanks so much for joining us hi nice to see you you are not too far away from me i’m coming out of maryland you said frederick maryland frederick maryland yes let’s go east coast represent um well like before we get into your story too much let’s give give me a bird’s eye view of who you are and what you do in the real estate space sure well my name is ali as we said um i am i primarily so i started off helping um spanish speakers and um that’s kind of where my business started growing and um now i help everyone kind of in the central maryland area um if you’re familiar with maryland eastern shore is not really feasible for me but pretty much everywhere else that’s where i am um i am kind i i’m primarily a listing agent now but i started off 100 as a buyer’s agent and just kind of made my way over i had a team i fired everybody i’ve been up i’ve been down i’ve been thrown all around and um right now i truly do feel the best that i’ve ever felt in the 10 years that i’ve been in real estate i love it um we as you can see on the screen if you’re watching this you

[1:21] know a holistic approach to life through real estate is definitely a theme of ours uh it’s too bad my wife the licensed therapist isn’t able to join us today but uh yeah tell us a little bit about you know how you you said you’re feeling the best you ever you ever have been so let me tell us more about that yeah so i am in you know real estate coaching and my coach is wonderful but you know i think a lot of times us as agents we go to these events right these conferences we listen to podcasts and we hear these powerful morning routines and people are getting up at four o’clock in the morning and going to the gym and i think that we need to take up of course like physical movement makes us feel better mental health makes us feel better but we need to take a big step back and see is that accessible for everybody in that exact same way right so as i said when i first started real estate i had one child i had a husband um and now i have no husbands thank goodness and two children and you know i have been through a lot and i try to force myself into that mold of wake up you know meditation this that i have

[2:28] never once in my life been able to meditate and i actually now see that as a strength my brain never turns off right but in the morning now i read and i have read how the eye motion from left to right is you know it mimics kind of the things that you do in emdr it mimics a lot of like therapeutic practices uh i also walk um which again that just that right to left movement and then sometimes i walk a lot of times i try and walk with friends to just kind of like have a download for the day and honestly those things have helped me a lot more than wake up before and how how is a single mom supposed to wake up go to the gym get the kids ready do all that’s not possible cps would be here in a minute you know i mean so i do what i can do and it makes me feel better than trying to fit in this mold that everybody else does and um that’s something that i really think is i think everybody needs to make little incremental steps where they are and that is so much more helpful than trying to i’m gonna wake up tomorrow morning and everything’s gonna be different that’s just not possible and then you get double down on yourself because you can’t follow that model

[3:40] 100 so i know i’ve heard erica talk about this in the past um and like another example she would give um would be like let’s say you are uh simply you’re just not you’re not functioning well right now it could be you’re depressed it could be that you just have so much because you know kids they take up a lot real estate takes up a lot you have to be honest with where you’re at and and make expectations right like you’re talking about so so one of the examples she gives like you know if you if you walk into the kitchen every time you see this pile of dishes um that you haven’t gotten to yet and it makes you feel like a failure and it makes you feel bad about yourself like you know maybe at this stage of life you need to switch to paper plates and plastic wear right throw them away move on and then i had a conversation i had a conversation with my business coach yesterday where i said if i do like we’ve been my family and i we’ve been in town out of town in town out of town and i said i should you know i had it like a six hour prospecting block scheduled today and i said if i look in a corner and see a pile of

[4:40] clothes one more day i’m gonna scream and she said then take the day off and figure out the pile of clothes in the corner and those are the kind of tweaks that we really like you know of course now there are lots of people out there who make excuses um i you know talking to a lot of agents in my office i’m like oh is that the lie that you tell yourself like that’s cool you know a lot of reasons why we can’t do this we can’t do that um that’s kind of a different thing that i also would love to talk about because we tell ourselves a lot of really really interesting lies but um but you know sometimes you do say hey you know what if i’m i’m also the ceo of my house and we got to get this under control well and it’s it’s not that i think that a lot of people would be like i can’t do that that’s so wasteful like i need you know i need it’s not good for the environment there’s all these things that like you know reasons why you might be like i just can’t do that um but you got to tell yourself like this is just a season and what i need right now and this isn’t like who i am forever and you know there might be a time where i bring back real dishes as an example we have an awesome

[5:42] laundry service uh you know oh my gosh love a laundry service yes i i um you know knowing how it is with kids and stuff you know that’s that’s an idea i have had for like gifts like to give to uh clients that have had a baby recently is like here’s are we the same person oh my gosh i do the same thing you know what’s the most valuable when some or if you are on facebook and you see someone died you know like a family member close to them died i send services i don’t sit like you know flowers all that stuff i’m sure it’s nice but i’m like hey these people are going to come and pick up a load of laundry you know pick up loads this week and you don’t have to think about it that’s the kind of thing that when you’re tuned into other people it really really helps yeah and and it can be for yourself too and you know now that we’re talking about i’m like you know what that’d be a great gift to my wife sometime too like when i know i have like next summer when i’m slammed and we have a million things and i’m not around as much as i want to be um you know that could be a really good gift too just like a hey like let’s not let’s not be uh we don’t have to be heroes we don’t have to be

[6:45] superheroes we’re not uh perfect and we can’t do everything so you get medals for sales you don’t get medals for being the best you know laundry folder get out of here no way no way yeah no that’s awesome well i mean so what what do you what do you have to say about the the lies we tell ourselves like what’s well okay so again 10 10 years of this and i have undergone so many changes like you know just i can’t even tell you where i began to where i am now you know um i have done i’ve been in therapy i’ve been out of therapy i’ve been in coaching i’ve been this i’ve been that but to me i always say that like being an entrepreneur is holding up the world’s largest mirror and it you have to look in all the dirty grimy little corners that you thought you could hide things and if you don’t then just know that those things are not going to get resolved and it’s gonna it’s going to reflect in your work you know there i was a high school teacher there was a lot of times where i could you know i i it didn’t require the looking inside myself as much as it did of course like you know when you want to

[7:56] make things accessible to a child you’re like okay let me think of a new idea but this is the like it’s all the attention is on the kid now it’s all on me and i have to figure out what my major malfunction is so that i can do my best and you know i um one of the things that did not work for me is going into the office i barely ever go into the office because there’s a lot of people there doing a lot of things that aren’t work there’s a lot of people there who haven’t gotten down to you know that are telling themselves lies you know like oh well it’s just so busy and after this and after that and um you know we’re in the dc area the government shut down and it’s like okay but when the bill collector comes are they gonna listen right and like when you are at home by yourself with your own thoughts are you gonna listen like you know it’s it’s it’s all kind of linked and and um i when i come into the office people say to me oh can i pick your brain and i have sad to say listen if you pick my brain all day long there’ll be nothing left for me so respectfully i’m gonna say hi i’m gonna pick up my mail i’m gonna sign the things that i need to sign i’m gonna get out of

[9:09] there because that doesn’t work for me it doesn’t yeah yeah i mean i think one thing that comes to mind uh on this topic is you know kind of having total ownership um and that concept and i think if you’re not honest with yourself if you’re not kind of taking responsibility for things it is easy to make excuses and the thought of uh that often scares the crap out of people because they’re like do i have to admit that i failed or whatever is holding them back or whatever is the fear that prevents them from doing this but in reality it really just enables you to take control um enables you to have um i mean it’s kind of like uh in some ways it’s kind of like when you first get into the self um employed the investor the the you know the realtor the business owner whatever space it seems scarier but in reality you kind of have more control of your your outcomes then if you’re um if you don’t succeed that’s really just based on what you’ve done if you do succeed it’s based on what you’ve done and so if you can get past that fear and start accepting and taking ownership of the outcomes that happen um you’re going to start making choices that help you succeed very much so yes um

[10:21] when i quit teaching i got i this is at the time i thought it was fate now looking back on it was probably stupidity but i got my so i got my license in january and i’m still full-time teaching i got my first listing in march and i got my first offer well the offer that ended up selling that house on that listing on the last day of school and i said i am either going to sink or swim and this is this is me throwing away my life jacket and i’m gonna swim i emailed and i said i quit i’m done i’m not coming back next year and thankfully thankfully my only small life vest was that i had summer pay so i was like okay for the next two months that’s my little life vest but that’s it and i have to make it here and thus began you know the craziest 10 years of my life ali before we get into that story i’m curious if you think that is the right way do you think that burning the fleet uh having no you know no other option but to go forward through the difficult swamp and battle yes yes yes and so like i i i you know again going into the office and you know of course let’s just say i wouldn’t know a healthy

[11:35] relationship if it were like you know right here in front of me but you know hearing people say like oh well you know my husband’s doing my husband’s doing fine in his business so i don’t have to work as hard i’m like oh wouldn’t wouldn’t that be nice but i work like my life depends on it every single day and of course like you know obviously my my track record speaks to that but then when they ask me how do you how do you do what you do and i’m like well very simply i have no other choice right uh i don’t i don’t have a fallback plan and at first that felt very scared that i mean that that scared me a lot but now i’m like first of all we don’t need anybody and second of all like you know it it is it’s it’s freeing in its own way yeah i think i think it’s also dependent on on who you are and you should you know first really understand yourself and what motivates you and um if you are incapable of like if you’re just not going to have the energy for like two careers for example for a time being if you have kids you have all this other stuff other responsibilities you just may not be able to do

[12:43] it all totally um i think that there are some people that can uh be really focused um on where they want to be um and get and get there without jumping ship all the way but that might be more of the that that may not be the you know the normal that might be it yeah i think that that is the minority and not the majority i think that you know all those things you know i mean we all know teaching doesn’t make a lot of money right um it just doesn’t and i was i was the sole breadwinner in my family with one baby and i you know i said i need the amount of work that i put in to equal dollar signs on the way out right but still i was scared because oh i mean little stinking pension than i had right which now i can make my pension i mean i could make that in like a year if you just like said hey ali go make go make a retirement i’m like yeah okay i’ll be back in a year but you know those were the things that held me back and looking back they were so small they were of course they were valid then but you need to cut the safety net the safety net at least mentally if you can do it i don’t think a lot of people can mentally cut themselves for that safety net that’s why i i quit

[13:56] that was me cutting my safety net yeah and i burned the bridge too it wasn’t just like a nice i quit email it was burning all the way to the ground you literally yes i said uh when i die i would like for the school system to be my pallbearer so they could let me down one last time i mean i made sure that i was never going back there and you know it worked out and you know it mean i love children i would do that if i could you know in a heartbeat but it wasn’t going to work for me and this works for me and the great thing about real estate that i tell people is that i’m you know maybe i’m not an agent forever but this field is just so nuanced and there are so many different careers that you could pick from that i could be i could work here forever yeah and i think once you kind of get into this space and get comfortable with it probably you have to first um of being you know more or less your own business being you know uh owning a business uh as well i mean if you if you do make it bigger than yourself etc um it just it’s really really hard to think about going back to working in an industry or working for it’s it’s i just can’t and again that might be personality

[15:11] dependent i mean that that just right i would i don’t know what i would do sooner than do that but um well let’s let’s get into like what what that looked like then for you so you had the summer you had a closing like the last day of school or whatever and then you had a summer pay um so you had those paychecks um what what did you do how did that time go to were you able to drum up more business um i so the funny thing was is that i don’t know if anybody else has had this experience but my family and friends didn’t want to talk to me because they’re like you’re new you don’t know anything so i just went to the places that i normally went to and refused to stop talking about real estate right so i went to other schools and i went to their like parent nights and i would ask to set up a table and i would talk to parents coming in um the the the the story that i always tell is that um someone came up to me and they asked me about buying a house this is also in spanish they asked me about buying a house i said let me come to your house you know where you rent and i will you know talk to you and so i drive out there and i was in a trailer park and i was like oh okay

[16:23] all right and there’s not a lot of trailer parks in our area so i was like first of all i didn’t even know this was here second of all oh my goodness i’m here i sit down and she says can you wait a second and she runs next door grabs a neighbor and it’s like she’s thinking about it too and then you know we’re sitting talking she’s like hold on i talked to somebody down the street that all of a sudden i had a seminar going on in this trailer and it was that’s really those little things are how i got started i signed up for every latino festival in our area and i said you know you’ve been told it’s not possible it’s hard in other countries it’s a lot easier than you think here maryland has great down payment assistance programs i just went in there and i would say my you know my average price point my first three years was was sub 200 yeah i did the things that nobody else wanted to do and and i and you know what the best part is that those people that i helped now they’re buying 500 600 000 houses and it’s it’s you know obviously they’re hard work but we got them in on the ground floor and now they’ve been able to cash out and do so much more with their money so

[17:30] did you find that when you when you helped a latino family that you then got uh in with like yeah all their cousins and like not just that seminar but like 100 right now i’m working with a family where i mean all of a sudden this person’s calling me and i’m like who are you and they’re like oh i’m i’m daisy’s cousin and then somebody else calls me and i’m like um hi you know there’s no like confidentiality we’re all just you know and but it’s great you know it’s it’s great because you know when i work with other families that are not necessarily you know that’s not their culture they’ll be like well don’t tell my dad that i called you today and i’m like okay and now now i’ve just learned not to say anything i act like every day is a blank slate i’m like all right whatever you say but it it’s it’s it was that community and it was community and like i am not i am not hispanic i learned spanish in school i you know really immersed myself in the culture and then when it was time to do real estate i remember i sat there i took my real estate license exam and then i spent the time that my listing was on the market um i made my own little glossary of like because i don’t know what

[18:45] the word mortgage is in spanish right you know i’m teaching my kids out of them and i you know i don’t use the word mortgage in spanish so i go through all of those i made my little glossary and when and i that’s how i got started i mean i was reteaching myself a lot of things so did you did you like have that understanding that that would be a niche for you like right away um yes yes um so i was hired by a on a team that was that that was a very short-lived situation but the team leader heard me speaking in spanish on the phone and said wow i need an agent who speaks spanish so then i joined um and then you know everything wasn’t all it cracked up to be and so then i i think i spent man i think i only spent two or three months on that team after i closed my first deal and then i jumped again and i said that’s it you’re going to be a solo agent and all i had were maybe five leads that he gave me you know and and and for all of you who ever quit a brokerage before i started walking down i like i said i quit that’s it i’m sick of you i’m walking down the steps and my phone’s blowing up and that’s my crm him taking all my leads out he’s calling my family he’s calling my

[19:57] friends and i was like hey hey hey hey chill out so i but the only you know he obviously had all those people’s contact information it was my job to make sure that they came to me and not to him right and so that’s kind of how we went so i went from i think i closed six transactions that first year you know even though i didn’t even work full-time that first year then 12 then 24 and i close around 40 deals a year right now nice now you said 11 years ago is that is that so the 10 years so 20 uh 2015 ish yeah we were yeah we have a similar timeline and funny funny enough i also came from a high school um i i was a behavior specialist um and uh yeah but i started in 2014 got my license so nice funny funny coincidence but um yeah no i think that’s i needed a behavior specialist in my classroom where were you i was quitting as well um no i it was that was a rewarding job um for sure to see to see some improvements in children um but yeah no i think i think having that kind of niche and understanding where you can go with it is such a great thing to to get started with and like you said like you know yes you’re this other person may have had your contacts um but you know let’s be

[21:14] real here pretty much every one of your contacts knows like five different agents um at least right so you need to do more than just know the person um so uh providing value for them which you were doing with the seminars etc um and and yeah it can be hard uh at the beginning uh if if people yeah to to build their trust like they you know hey you just started this like why would i want to entrust the biggest financial decision of my life with you who just started and i’ve seen um or i’ve heard people kind of want to like avoid that and kind of tiptoe around it um but i think like yeah if you’re another idea would be to like kind of just share your journey on social media and especially if you have some really good people behind you and be like look i’m going to be completely honest with you um i don’t know everything but i am very very committed and this is what i want to do and i’m going to find out any questions you have and i’m going to be relentless and i’m going to spend more time and energy on you than you would get with somebody who’s working with 60 different people or whatever so social media is a big part of my journey um i mean i i am known for video marketing

[22:22] and the funny thing was i was in the hospital having my second child and i was like you know what i’m done with this phone i’m done with these apps i’m just gonna delete it all and very shortly after that i went to my first like real estate conference that talked about the importance of video marketing and now i see that as it it’s my nurture campaign you know i’m not you know a drip campaign on email only lasts a certain amount of time but i find that that attracts people like you know obviously they’re going to be people that see me and they’re like who is this lady like what is she doing she is not my cup of tea and thank you that’s a nice little filter we don’t have to exchange words right you know as when people think you know you’re calling people and you’re learning more about them and you’re like wow we’re not a good fit no now when people call me they’re like oh my gosh i need to work with you i came into a restaurant in frederick the other day and this woman goes i follow you on instagram hold on i need a realtor she like threw all of her stuff down and ran across the restaurant and my friend was like you’re joking right she was like you told me these things

[23:27] happen but i didn’t believe it and i was like it happens all the time you know that is a really great way to um you know there’s there’s obviously social media that like gains leads right like you know to comment this for a guide on this that’s never really worked for me maybe one day it will but right now it’s my nurture campaign it is how i make sure that number one you’re not a secret agent right that there’s not i don’t think if anybody said i didn’t know ally was a real estate agent they must have been living in a hole right but also you know it just providing the information for people and you know having them feel out if i’m the right fit for them you know that’s that’s very valuable yeah i think you’re right i think like you know we we all try to be somewhat of a chameleon um in sales like you hear that as a goal an aspiration but at the same time there’s definitely people that are just not good fits for each other and going to be for you is always going to be for you and you can’t you can’t get something that wasn’t yours in the first place right so the client who fires you because abc xyz when you know that they’re just crazy or they’re out of their mind or their expectations

[24:36] are really unrealistic thank you thank you for cutting this off here and not making me spend more of my time money mental energy on figuring you out thank you and i will see you later on the next astral plane please get away from me on this earth it’s true i mean i think learning to fire people even if they don’t fire you um is a incredibly hard lesson to learn and i don’t think uh it’s it’s i mean i’ll be honest i haven’t done it in a long time um it i haven’t had as many big problems in a long time either but like there there have been times where i should have let somebody go um and i just i’ve already spent this much time showing them property or whatever and it’s just it’s not worth it at the end of the day no no um yeah so um you also started a team at one point at one point i started a team yes then i fired everybody yeah what what’s what should people in hindsight would you have ever done it again or would you do differently i know that i know that that one day i will probably have to um it’s just hard finding people once you kind of get to that level where you’ve looked inside

[25:51] yourself and you’ve worked out not all of your issues but you know the issues that stop you it’s really hard to then bring on somebody and have them be like well i’m scared i’m scared please like get out of here like it’s very it’s it’s difficult to find people who are on your level and and i fell into that trap because i was a teacher i was like oh i can teach anybody anything and i can i can teach them the skills but if they don’t have the um i don’t because okay so i don’t want to say motivation because everyone’s motivated right like everyone’s motivated but not everyone is disciplined the discipline is what gets you to the next level not everyone is you know is able to make those changes you know put in the work consistently to better themselves and to better their business and so that’s kind of where i faltered and i said i would rather just not deal with any of these people so although i mean i kind of do have a team i have employees that work for me but i’m just a solo agent because i can’t jump back into that sphere right now yeah well i think it’s interesting i think in real estate uh i mean i remember when i first was interviewing brokerages

[27:06] it was it was kind of like oh i can interview you know like oh and then like you realize okay well they don’t really care oh i got recruited today i remember somebody on my team said well you know this agent this brokerage called me today and i was like yeah because you did one thing or because they saw that you joined with me and you know they want to get a piece of that and they were like well they want me and i was like they want what you could become you could also flop and they’re still making money off of you you know i mean they don’t they don’t actually care and so you know one day one day i’ll get there but well i was just gonna say that that i think uh you know that’s that’s the approach a lot of people take a lot of brokers would take a lot of teams might take it’s just you know quantity like let’s just like if there’s somebody here that wants to do it let’s give them a shot sure why not we might have systems in place to kind of get them to be trained etc it doesn’t really take that much of our resources to do that we’re not paying them a salary right but i think i think especially if a

[28:06] smaller team should approach it more like hey we are investing in this person it’s not a it’s not a paycheck necessarily like you know a monthly salary but it it is a lot of time and energy and uh we want to you know make sure that you know the old saying like hire hire slow fire fast um why does that not apply to real estate uh agents in a team or in a brokerage another another saying that i uh think really applies to to teams as well is teach a man wait give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day teach a man to fish and i will sit there in an interview with new agents and say hey i you know i’m trying to teach you how to fish and to and they’re like i want zillow leads see you later bye and i’m like okay well then guess what again thank you for not making me go down a rabbit hole thank you for ending our time together i wish you the best of luck yeah yeah no i think it’s uh it’s definitely it’s a very flashy profession i mean i don’t know for me it’s not flashy but some people can make it very flashy it doesn’t require a lot of money to get in it doesn’t require a lot of education to get in and

[29:18] so it is very very attractive but when you get in it it is not attractive at all and people get turned off real quick yeah it’s hard it doesn’t come easy and i think it’s almost harder if you were to have started like in the boom like so we both started in a slower time and the market was very similar if not worse to what we are right now yeah well it was uh i mean around here it was definitely a uh buyer’s market i mean listings were uh you know taking but you were looking at what was your plan for you know making sure you got the to sign the listing back up after it expired in six months like that there was a lot more of that happening than um than there is now at least here um so but i’m thankful for because i mean i feel like it made me start uh with the discipline and the work that’s needed to maintain contacts that needed to do all those things and if i were to have started in 2021 um it would have felt just like i just have to go outside and wave my hand up and then i’ll get a deal right so yeah i’m thankful for that at least i agree and i think that there are you know um i mean right now let’s see is it almost november yes it’s almost november so there’s a lot of our dues are

[30:39] coming due right our real estate dues so it’s about that time for people and i think this year we’re going to see a lot of people be like you know what i’m going to go on referral because this 800 is not it and and i get that i totally get that but um you know it’s it’s it is such a rewarding profession especially if you like if you’re the most competitive person on the planet like me oh i love it like it just scratches an itch that i didn’t even you know i didn’t even know i had like i it’s it’s a wonderful profession but my goodness it is not cut out for everybody it is not yeah definitely um i’m curious if you have uh some golden nuggets for our listeners i do okay the one that gets me kicked out of my office most frequently is up your phone pick up your phone i will say i’m going to the office i’ll say to a friend i’m going to the office to prospect and they’ll be like oh um should we pick one of the private rooms so that you can talk on the phone or or should we should we pick one of like the conference rooms and i was like what is prospecting if you’re not picking up the phone and they’re like

[31:53] don’t don’t talk to me about the calling stuff ali that is the crux of our job my job is to call people my job is to get rejected my job is to then pick up the phone again and call someone else because all you need to do is hit them at that exact right moment and crack them and then they’re yours and so i just it makes me insane when people say i don’t call people they don’t even call their sphere of influence they just say no that’s not me okay then making money is not you taking your business to another level is not you and i’m going to be calling your aunt and she and i’m going to be the person that she talks to when she’s ready and then you’re going to be you know out of luck because i mean it is so fundamental and then you know i have people again in the office when i go to the office hey ali should i buy this lead service all the things that you need to do are free if you find yourself and we talked about this a little bit before i did find myself in a very dire financial situation at one point i almost had to file for bankruptcy and what did i do i said i should really get back on that phone and i dialed and now i’m back on top so you know it really if if the free

[33:03] things are the things that you need to do to get the business i interviewed a guy once who was talking about uh the layup um approach he was a former basketball player and he he just like you need to identify in your business uh what is that easy shot what is that thing you can do consistently that you know it like you you’re not going to shoot a half court shot and and you know make those big big plays all the time like you need to come back to like just what’s your layup and that sounds like that’s an easy one for you like you you can you know some people might be door knocking or whatever you know there’s different things that people might do but it does usually involve like something simple but maybe not something that enjoyable right but it’s always free it’s always free it’s just making a connection with someone that’s what we are here to do and and you know you can’t bet you you have to just go the goal is to meet as many people and talk as much as you can and for some of us that’s very easy you could you could go take a break go to the bathroom and i would i’d keep going right

[34:06] like but but for some people that’s very difficult and so you need to find something that is easy to you and for me it’s always picking up the phone yeah that’s great i love it um what about a favorite book could be fundamental that you think everybody should read or maybe just one that you’re currently really enjoying first of all before we talk about a book we need to talk about everybody needs to be reading more fiction that is my that is one of my i don’t know if it’s a golden nugget i don’t know if it’s a holistic i don’t know what but everybody needs to be reading more fiction because i think when you get stuck i mean of course like i i read so many self-help books i read so many business books but nobody wants to be curious nobody wants to have fun anymore like there’s a lot of this business that is not fun and that is very like nose to the grindstone read some fiction it really does you know help you to problem solve think of things creatively and also realize how people create relationships and how complicated things can be and how you know you’re talking to somebody on the phone and and you know you might have had the worst day but you know they had the best day or vice versa

[35:17] like i think that fiction is really underrated and i think more people need to read it just to broaden your perspectives in general it doesn’t always have to be oh my gosh i read this book and it changed my life and you need to read it no but i think that you need to be well-rounded and read a lot of fiction so that you can escape number one and number two that you know it it takes what we’re learning and it kind of just like softens the edges that’s my yeah well and it’s a good point you make and one of the things that i’ve found um is that when i have um when i only have like options that are serious and dense reads and you know you know business self-help whatever books that they they’re just arduous they’re they’re just harder to pick up and they’re it’s it’s not an automatic i might just stop reading um it’s a lot easier easier to scroll tiktok or or instagram than to read so uh that’s another really good reason to have something that you enjoy um so that the the art of reading that the practice of reading the the going to have building that habit that you’re going to your kindle you’re

[36:27] going to whatever to start reading um is is kind of your go-to instead of you know the the tiktok or whatever and so if that means you’re reading something that’s not building your business further that’s still a net positive so that’s yeah it’s a great point even if it’s a simple thing i showed up to a listing appointment one time with like tears in my eyes because i was listening to an audio book on the way there and my my client was already outside and i was like oh i’m sorry i was like are you a reader and she was like oh my gosh yes and i said oh my gosh i read this book on the way here she said oh my i can’t believe you were reading that on the way here i said i know i didn’t know that it was going to end that way and just things like that making connections realizing that you know you’re you’re in somebody’s house and you see that book on the shelf and you’re like hey did you read that oh my gosh wasn’t that great it doesn’t always have to be what is a grant cardone 10x everything my goodness take a take a rest chill out enjoy yourself life isn’t all about that life isn’t all about that but the book that i like the most and um i liked it because it’s a mix of

[37:31] definitely like you know self-help business more self-help um but it also is historical is called discipline is destiny have you ever heard of that oh my gosh okay so it goes through his it goes through a lot of historical figures the queen of england um different uh lou gehrig it goes through all different kinds of of historical figures that we all know and it talks about their setbacks and it talks about what things they had working against them it talks about all these things and how every single day they woke up and did things that they didn’t want to do and they they made commitments that that again like when i said we’re all motivated but we’re not all disciplined right they um they did things that was unexpected for them but it contributed to the overall massive success of whatever they were going for you know quit the queen of england before before i can’t remember what her name the most recent one who just died yeah i’m not good with it with that but she um people were like she would wake up and have a certain amount of hands that she would have to shake every single day and nobody else had done that before she was very much into i’m meeting with the people

[38:45] and i’m going to talk to them and i’m going to make that connection with them and people like you know you don’t have to do that and she said no i don’t but i’m going to and so those little things that we do every single day you know i feel like a lot of us um again with the real estate conferences it’s a lot of i call it the struggle olympics like everybody wants to get up there and get a gold medal for their trauma their struggle and it’s like yes you know we all go through something but the little teeny tiny things that you can do every day you don’t have to you know uh go off the deep end you know do do three hours of therapy a week be in the gym all that you don’t just make little adjustments every single day like this morning i woke up and i said man i have the busiest day ever should i cancel that podcast and i said what what what what is that gonna do what is that gonna do i’m gonna feel crappy about it later and i’m just now look at me i’m right here i’m having a great time drinking a diet coke i’m hanging out with you it’s fine but again just making those little things habit and then all of a sudden you you become a very disciplined

[39:52] person yeah there’s actually like a part of the brain that uh gets strengthened every time you do um something that you don’t want to do specifically and um it’s it’s interesting because i i heard that from uh you know so the king of going too far and and we we don’t necessarily want to to follow this person but it was a interview between david goggins who was the king of going way too far um and um dr andrew huberman and he was explaining this like dr andrew huberman was explaining the part of the brain and all that kind of stuff and uh yeah i don’t want to be david goggins no david goggins is a deadbeat dad sorry but like i want it and honestly i sat in i sat at a real estate conference and david goggins was up at the front and i was like wow i wish i could be more like him and then you know i said you know what actually i’m not sure i do i just want to be better every single day in the life that i have and you know i just want to i just want to do the best that i know that i can do for myself it doesn’t look the same for you like it does for me but you have to find something and do

[41:02] it well and do it consistently because as much as i you know i as much as i don’t i don’t like the focus to be on the money when you have when you work consistently you will make money and then when you have money your brain will be at a certain rest you you know you can put to to bed those crazy lizard brain thoughts and you can do things and you can you know further explore things that are enjoyable to you but you have to start off and just be consistent to make that money come in that’s what you have to do yeah and and where i was going with that too is that that it is something you can develop like so every time you do something that you don’t want to do that strengthens that part of the brain every time you give in to not doing the thing that you don’t want to do um that weakens that part of the brain and so it is something you can do you don’t have to become whatever the bodybuilder david goggins is of that part of the brain right but know that you do have the control you can make yourself you know go on the podcast when you don’t want to or go to that social networking event thing that that sounds like a really big yeah there’s all sorts of things that

[42:14] people don’t want to do that are good and and so i’m i’m well known at my brokerage back when there were not very many of us where um i sat down with my crm and i when you would come into the conference room and i would have and david goggins would not like this i would have lined up a bunch of different candies right i would have like fun size twizzler fun size snickers fun size this fun size that and every five calls i made i would have a piece of candy right i mean it’s it’s kids it’s learning it’s 101 i’m going to reward myself for doing the things that i don’t want to do and eventually i will like it and that’s how you know you eventually make those connections and just do those things and so i think that a lot of people try to make it this big thing you know i i it just makes me laugh hearing people say like oh well i have to make this perfect and then then i’ll get to making my calls and it’s again that’s a lie we tell ourselves right that’s awesome great um i’m actually if it means that i have to you know i’m going well you don’t know where i live but i’m about 45 minutes out uh away from

[43:22] baltimore right i’m going on a showing to baltimore and sometimes i’ll do my calls in the car because it makes it feel more uh casual right sometimes sitting there in front of the and you’re like oh man and i gotta i gotta say the perfect thing and you’re like hey i was just thinking of you blah blah blah it comes off a lot easier so you know again doing things that work for you it doesn’t have to be hello i’ve copied this script from the internet and it told me that you were no like even if you’re just like hey how are you what’s going on how are your grandkids where are you living now oh great you know just something like that it doesn’t have to always be and and continuing to foster those connections are what are going to get you out to a wider audience totally yeah no it’s really well said um finally is there do you have social media still i mean you mentioned earlier like um you re-deleted them where can people find you if they want to follow you for and the re where i post my goodness uh all the time so you can find me on facebook uh ali vasquez realtor you see how to spell my name right there ali vasquez maryland realtor um on

[44:32] instagram at ali dot vasquez dot realtor uh tiktok at the real ali v and youtube i am under walkersville living because that’s the town that i live in and that’s the kind of things that i like to promote the town and um yeah i’m also the president of my kids pta because why not add on a couple more things but you know when we first started my name was pta queen here i had to change it real quick awesome well ali thanks so much it’s been a lot of fun talking to you yes nice to talk to you too thanks for listening to the rei agent if you enjoyed this episode hit subscribe to catch new shows every week visit rei agent.com for more content until next time keep building the life you want all content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy it is intended for entertainment purposes only you