3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 116 - Sidehustles Into W-2 Exit with Systems That Scale with Carlos Rovira

September 16, 2022 Season 2 Episode 116
3 Degrees of Freedom
Ep 116 - Sidehustles Into W-2 Exit with Systems That Scale with Carlos Rovira
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode on Elevate Your Equity podcast, I'm chatting with Carlos Rovira, a professional, accredited investor that has been purchasing and managing income producing property since 2009. On the show, we talked about:

• How he utilized his Tech experience to leverage success in real estate investing.
• His focus on setting up processes and systems to be the best of what he is now.


More about Carlos. Carlos is experienced in purchasing, syndicating and managing both commercial and residential properties throughout S. Florida, the Midwest, and the Caribbean. Carlos spent 10 years as an engineer working in the Tech Industry. He prides himself in being able to apply the same principles from the tech world into the real estate industry, by creating systems and processes that unlock opportunities and cash-flows, maximizing returns.

Thanks a bunch Carlos Rovira for coming on the show!

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5 Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!


If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Introduction:

Welcome to the Elevate Your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals, leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial.

Derek Clifford:

And today we are honored to have Mr. Carlos Rovira on the call with us. Carlos, how are you today, man?

Carlos Rovira:

What's up, Derek? Doing Awesome. Happy to be here.

Derek Clifford:

Excited. Awesome. Very cool. We Glad to have you on board. And thanks for making some time for us today. And for those of you who do not know who Carlos is, he's a professional, accredited investor that's been purchasing and managing income producing property since 2009. He has experienced purchasing syndicating and managing both commercial and residential properties throughout South Florida, the Midwest and also in the Caribbean. And Carlos spent 10 years as an engineer working in the tech industry. And he prides himself in being able to apply the same principles from the tech world into the real estate industry, which is something that we're going to explore a lot of, and I'm fascinated by. And he creates systems and processes that unlock opportunities and cash flows, which maximize returns for himself, and for more importantly, the investors as well. So Carlos, let's go ahead and jump right in. Man. Can you tell us a little bit about how you started investing in real estate from the beginning? You've been doing it for a while. So I'm curious to hear your angle on this man.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, started off buying real estate in 2009. I used to work in the tech industry, I worked at Yahoo software engineer, and quickly realized that being an employee was not going to cut it, you know, layoffs and layoffs and layoffs. And it was 2008, which was the financial crisis that was just a very volatile time to be an employee kind of opened up my eyes, let's call it divine intervention, I think it was God telling me hey, go elsewhere. And I started reading a lot I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, all the all the classics of entrepreneurship. And that sort of led me down this, this little bit of a rabbit hole of learning and understanding this other side of life, which is to be an entrepreneur and sort of make your own destiny versus relying on a company to pay you for the rest of your life, bought a duplex in 2009. That was our first investment property with a house hack. It was before house hacking term was coined. We lived on one side rented out the other that helped us obviously save money. So people were paying a mortgage, the guy next door was paying our mortgage, that sort of led to a snowball of buying more and more and more duplexes. The longer you hold real estate, the better. So you know, the markets turned obviously, we were buying in 2009 1011 12, when the real estate was still pretty cheap. And very quickly, the world changed. And you know, the equity we built up in those properties grew and grew and grew, that allowed us to purchase more properties. The portfolio just kind of grew. This is all in Miami, Florida. That's where I live. And you know, born and raised here, and the market here just kind of got really expensive, so I had to start looking elsewhere. And then up in Kansas City, Missouri, or sort of buying single family homes, and sort of rolling a lot of the equity from the Miami portfolio into Kansas City because it was so much cheaper to buy over there than it was in Miami. And you know, 1012 years later, I fired three or four different property managers had to start my own property management company to service the units that has led to a pretty nice portfolio of third party property management for other investors, and been syndicating some deals with a partner that I found at Kansas City. We bought some larger stuff, which we can get into as well, if you're interested. And yeah, you know, we're just chugging along, we're still in the game. We're trying to grow trying to survive trying to fight for our cash flow, sort of what I feel like I do every day. That's where we're at today.

Derek Clifford:

That's really cool. Let me ask you to Carlos, though, when you got started back in 2008, you said that it was kind of this divine intervention, where you had layoffs or you saw layoffs happening all around you and you you went into this space or started learning about it back then. Was there any spark that initiated you learn about real estate investing? Like what about real estate investing was the vehicle you chose, or that inspired you to even look at it in the first place and lead you down this path?

Carlos Rovira:

It's hard to remember it was 12 years ago, or 13 years ago, the exact moment where I had the the enlightenment, it was a big layoff at Yahoo, like six months into me working there. I mean, I graduated from college in 2008. And the Monday after graduation, I went straight to work, thinking I was set. And six months later, half the office gets fired. And I get left behind, obviously, because I'm probably you know, the lowest paid employee brand new out of college. And that was scary. I mean, you start seeing people pack up and leave, like all a lot of people all in one day, pack up and leave and say goodbye. And you realize how not secure that paycheck is. I had a high school economics teacher who recommended and he was adamant about us reading the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I never read it in high school. You know, it wasn't the right time. I just I was, you know, very immature and very, you know, not ready. Somehow I picked up that book after those layoffs and I read it and then I read the next Rich Dad book and the third one and the fourth one and the fifth one. And you know, that guy has like 20 books at this point. And that led me down this path of discovering that you can actually purchase property and make money without having to work, right people will pay you rent to live in these properties. And it's a matter of just building up this portfolio and growing it as quickly as possible to create just incredible wealth and incredible freedom that you wouldn't otherwise have if you were just an employee sitting in a cubicle for your entire life. So you open up your eyes, and you realize, wow, there's this whole other world out there. And my entire life, I've been taught the opposite, which is to just study, get a good degree and get a good job and rely on someone else to provide for you. And that's not reality, right? I mean, we've seen it. And we've gone through multiple, strange economic cycles since then, I mean, we had COVID, where everybody got fired. And within a week, people, everyone in the service industry lost their jobs. There's no such thing as a secure job. I mean, there's no such thing. Really, the only way to gain wealth and to gain freedom is to do something for yourself. Invest in yourself, invest in yourself. Exactly.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, absolutely. The brand of you, right, because, you know, this economy that we're getting into a lot of people get nervous about their full time work. To a lot of those folks, I tell them that if you're nervous about the external world, then work on your internal world, because the one constant, right is if you can have the skills to add value to multiple people, then you'll always have a job. So it's the brand of you not the relationship between you and your current employer. Think about yourself as an independent contractor as soon as you can, and start to add value so that you can charge a higher rate to whoever it is it's employing you at the time. And I think that that's a really good takeaway for a lot of w two listeners out there who are trying to reduce their risk right in working full time jobs. And I think you learned that really early on.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, and you touched upon something which is key, it's the internal mindset, because it's pretty scary to have a job a W two job and think you're gonna get fired, or have the fear that you're gonna get fired any minute. But being entrepreneurs pretty damn scary, too. There are days where I'm just terrified, and I become desperate. And I'll take any job, any client and I may go down this path of like, taking on work and too much work that I shouldn't be taking on that isn't really, you know, good for my business. Because out of that fear, right, the fear mentality. So if you can sort of like get into this mindset where you can really get into like a flow state where you can zone in on what is important and just run with it. It's incredible what you can accomplish in the business world, once you get your mindset, right, because you can easily fall into the fear mentality in the business world as well, that you might, you might definitely go back and get a job.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, you know, one thing that you also told us in your story, which was super fascinating to me, and I was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this. This is happening. When I got my job. I happen to graduate I think about a year before you did. And I entered the workplace in 2007. I was fortunate enough to be working in oil, I was trained as a chemical engineer, just like our good friend Andrew Cushman was, and I ended up working for oil in Texas for many years. And the the market wasn't bad or wasn't awesome for oil during the downturn. I mean, everything kind of fell off a cliff at that point, I found a mentor in the company that had been working there for a year, that pretty much protected me from the downturn. And I kept my job throughout 2008. Looking back now, knowing that both you and I are about the same age, because you may have graduated a little bit later than me maybe a year later or so. And seeing all the incredible things that you've accomplished, compared to what I did, because I stayed in the WTO world and the lightbulb didn't go off for me, Carlos, like I kept my job throughout 2008. It wasn't until 2012 or 2013 came along that I just got fed up with doing the same thing over and over again, and not being rewarded for thinking in a novel way, right or adding value in a different way. And that disgust led me to eventually find real estate. And what I think is really awesome is that you took action right away, like you realize that this is that something was going on. And I just want to point out the fact that where you are right now is a reflection of all that preparation many years ago, and how different our lives have turned out because I spent another 10 years or so working in the WTO world. And while you also worked in the WTO world for a little bit after that. You started making plans right then and there. I didn't do that until 10 years later after you.

Carlos Rovira:

I mean, I think the important thing is that the light bulb did go off. Doesn't matter when it does as long as it does. Yeah, I agree. I worked at Yahoo for nine years don't think that I was that I quit the year after. Oh, yeah, I mean, I didn't leave till 2016 But throughout from 2009 to 16. I was heavy, heavy, heavy investing, so that I could get out of that job. I probably stayed a little longer than I been I should have, again that fee fear of letting go of that paycheck was prevalent. Had I left earlier, I probably would have achieved a lot more. But Hindsight is 2020. And we shouldn't be. We shouldn't be dwelling on on what we haven't done. But I mean, it's, it's crazy. It's crazy. I think more people are sort of coming to that realization nowadays you have like this great resignation now that you see all over the news. Yeah, people just quitting their job quitting their jobs, they're seeing they can work from home or, you know, do freelance work. And we're seeing it probably an interesting kind of shift in work, you know, the work mentality and the average employee nowadays. So it's interesting.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, that's totally true. I think that all of that is going to play into how we invest in live as individuals. And so it is interesting to see how that's going to play out. But I want to back up a little bit, though, and I want to talk about your tech background in your W two, how you've used that experience there. Because there was time where you were doing both? How you use those experiences to help leverage your success in investing? Is there any particular skills that you used, that really helped you out while you were building your portfolio?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, you know, as an engineer, you build systems, right. And I worked in a tech company where we were dealing, we had many systems, and you rely on those systems to make things more efficient for you. So you don't have to actually do as much work physically, you can reduce the amount of work you have. And therefore you can do a lot more, because you're not stuck in the weeds, that mentality ports over very well into the property management business. Because the property management business is all systems. I mean, it's problem after problem after problem after problem after problem. And then when you think you're done solving problems, 10 more problems pop up. So if you're not constantly creating systems and these processes to be able to deal with all the problems that that pop up, you will easily just drown in problems. So yeah, I mean, the property management world, we use our software, we use Bill Diem, which is, you know, property management software, pretty, pretty standard. You know, we have a system where the tenant calls the office, and then we have an assistant that picks up and then he sends us the message or he he has like a checklist of things he has to follow. Before coming to us for things, we have to just rely very heavily on contractors for the maintenance side. And the property management software really helps. We use monday.com for like task management also, it's there's very various software's like monday.com that are, you know, similar, that's been very helpful, because now we have employees, we have three, four employees that are doing different things. So it's easy to delegate tasks, and keep track of them and respond. And we're always building systems and adding more. I mean, as you grow, and I was having this discussion with my wife yesterday, like we've added, I think we've added so many units in the past year or so, and we haven't really scaled accordingly. Now, we're kind of like trying to scale. And there's a lot of stress in sort of managing the portfolio, but it's just a matter of putting the right systems in place, right, and then taking the time to develop the systems implement them, like getting out of the weeds, getting out of the day to day, designing the system, putting it into plays and putting the right people to manage it. And then you can sort of walk away, but it's hard to pull yourself out of it day to day. And it's through the initial, you know, Legacy task, which is the designing of the system. And you're always kind of in like this cyclical mode of like, yeah, growing and then putting a system and then you grow to the next level. And you have to put more systems and it's tough. But yeah, the tech background definitely helps. Because, you know, we're very tech savvy, and we learn quickly and can adapt very quickly.

Derek Clifford:

I mean, I could totally see that situation coming up, where let's say that you realize that you've got to bring on a new hire, right. And for you guys, that may not be a big deal. But maybe for someone who's just starting out, and it's their very first hire, even if it's like someone that's virtual, and you've got to continue doing your day to day operations. And then you also got to train up this person and smooth out the processes. Like there's this front end effort curve, right? And then it eventually drops below the effort that you originally started out on. But do you have any tips for people in doing it? Because sounds like you've done that a lot of times, like, how do you manage that work? How do you get ready for that? Like, is there a mindset piece to it, talk us through that.

Carlos Rovira:

It's hard. And there's a lot of fear associated with it, because you could hire somebody spend all this time training them and then they end up not working out, right? And then that fear, the fear of that happening prevents you from taking action, and then you just don't hire the person. And then you'd still do this, you keep doing the work. And then you become it's very difficult. You know, I would say just screen people very, very well. There's the DISC profile. There's all sorts of personality tests that you can make people take to like figure out the type of employee they are the type of worker they're going to be. But it's hard man, you have to take a leap of faith at a certain point, and just hope for the best and just kind of run with it. I never expected to have to manage employees. I mean, I got into real estate because I wanted financial freedom, but then you quickly realize that in order to scale, you're going to end up having to hire people and to hire people. You have to manage those people. So it's not At 100% passive income if you're managing people. So it's a tough sort of evolution that you go through as a business person. But you know, there's a certain level of faith, you have to have that you're doing the right thing, and then you just screen people really well. And then just, you know, treat them well. And things should work out for the best.

Derek Clifford:

Sure. Let's talk about awareness of these problems. So how do you know when you need to install a process to fix something? Because I guess in one way you can you can install processes ahead of time before things become a problem. But I know from experience, because I've tried that before that that doesn't work out too well, because you just waste time. How do you know when you need to move something from, you know, an employee handles this or you handle this or whatever, to really needing to create something and invest the time and energy to do it? Like, what's your criteria for thinking through that?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, that's a great question. I think, when your attention starts moving away from revenue, generating activities, and starts moving towards solving problems, and you realize that all of a sudden your business isn't growing, because you're spending more time in it in the business versus working on the business, it would happen in different ways, depending on the stage you're in. But I think that's the key, if all of a sudden you realize, man, I haven't picked up a new client, or I haven't picked up a new property or haven't looked at a new deal in a while or in this money days, that's when you really, you have to sort of take a step back and really look at what you're spending your time on. Because if you're spending your time just working in the business, and that's really when you need to start thinking about hiring it out, or putting a process in place to get you out of having to do that those tasks. And at least for me, it tends to happen. Like when there's like an acquisition, or like a new property or new portfolio that we take on that we're kind of in the weeds of the zone, like integrating the property. And that's when I get like the most burned out. And then I'm not, I'm not looking at the next client, I'm not considering the next deal, because I'm working on this current portfolio. And that may just be a natural process of the integration of property. But that is when I think to myself, Man, I wish I just had a person that I could say, Okay, we have this new property, there you go. And then I can just go look for the next deal. So yeah, I guess when you're looking away from revenue, or when you're not following the revenue, and you're following the operation, that's probably a time to sort of reflect and analyze, you know where you're at.

Derek Clifford:

Is there anything that you can say? And I don't know if you'll have an answer for this, but I'm just curious, is there anything that you do to help with that awareness? Because sometimes, like, half the battle is just realizing that you're struggling with this, you know, because when you're in the business easy to talk about right now, right, Carlos, but when you're in the business, and you're realizing, oh, my gosh, like I'm spinning my wheels here, is there anything or anyone that can help you realize that maybe you need to start taking a bigger perspective,

Carlos Rovira:

It's my anxiety levels, Derek. If I get home, and I'm still thinking about work, and I can't be present with my family. And when my kids and I have a million things running through my brain, that's definitely the time to take a step back. And my anxiety levels, basically track with the next growth, right, like, so like, if I pick up 40 units tomorrow, two weeks from now, I think my anxiety levels gonna be pretty high, because I'm gonna have been working on this for two units, you know, for the past two, three weeks, and then it's sort of like levels off after, you know, the thing gets stabilized and moving on to the next deal. But yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think most entrepreneurs struggle with some sort of anxiety, I have a lot of anxiety that I that I have to deal with. But that's the driver sometimes to perform right is that fear of failure, and that fear of not being good enough? That pushes us to move forward? And I don't know if I answered your question or not.

Derek Clifford:

I think you did, I think the the anxiety, and yeah, the anxiety and the fear, as soon as you start feeling that in a very visceral way, or it starts coming out in ways that you're even, that you catch yourself, I think that's the that's the point in time, we're like, Okay, it's time to either install some processes, or some people or both. And that usually means that you're on the brink of something big. So I love that response. Now, you have set up a lot of processes and systems in your business. And you kind of have to because you're doing property management, and you're doing all these different types of things in your company, right? You're doing syndications property management, you're, you've got capital stuff, all these things going on? How do you think about actually setting up a process? Does it depend on the tool that you're using? Like you mentioned Monday? Do you write it down on paper first? Or do you pull people together at a meeting to say, hey, let's solve this problem? Can you get us into the nuts and bolts of how you put together a process that solves a problem or maybe a recent problem that you guys ran into?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, I guess there's, there's either a technology or a person like other people or technology or both, that you would have to integrate into your system to solve whatever problem you know, usually there is a tool or some sort of software. It's very easy to have too much. Software, it's called Tech debt. So we used to call when you would have too many systems. I love that word redundant. But using monday.com has been very, very fruitful for us because it just puts every task in one place, and we're not relying on emails. So yeah, technology is definitely something that is relatively inexpensive, could solve a lot of your problems. But if you don't have people behind it, then it's basically just a program doing nothing. So it's probably just a combination of people and technology in terms of getting people together. Yeah, I mean, I don't like meetings. The reason I became an entrepreneurs, because I hated meetings, when I was in the tech world, it was like meeting after meeting after meeting and we would meet, we would meet about things, and then no one would ever do any work. Like it would just be like, That's right, and talking and talking. And then there was not enough time to do any of the work that we talked about in the meetings, because the day was over, because you spent the whole day in meetings. So I try to stay away from too many meetings, sometimes you have to have them because just communication amongst your organization is key. And my wife is our CFO, she's a Chief Operating Officer. So she manages our employees, and she has a weekly meeting with them, where they go over all of the pending tasks that that we have in monday.com. And that sort of makes things kind of move. And then we have meetings as needed. So if we realize that we're like, tripping up on something constantly, then we'll sort of regroup me like, okay, let's discuss this, here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna work on this, this is the new process and you send this to this guy, he sends this to that guy, you send that person, if that doesn't work, then you do this. And we, and then we just roll with it. And you have to be flexible, you know that the the process may change, right? Like what works today may not work tomorrow. So you have to just be open to you know, changing the process and trying new things in order to kind of solve new problems.

Derek Clifford:

It's good, it's good. So the processes that you establish is usually an indication of how far you've come, right? Because the more processes you build, and the people that you install, to help solve problems in your business, the more problems you solve, the bigger that you grow. Right. So what I want to talk with you about real quick now is going back to the mindset piece is maybe for you and your wife, how would you say that the problems that you solve now have evolved over time? And what does that say about your guests business?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, that is another excellent question. I mean, that the early problems are very basic, hey, this toilet is clogged. call the plumber, right? The problems we've been dealing with lately? Are more organizational, more systems more more high level, right? Like, how are we going to manage our people? And how are we going to solve the problem like the toilets in a scalable way. So then you start moving away from like the Hey, call the plumber quick solution, right? And then tomorrow, follow up with a plumber, make sure you went to, here's the system, it gets inputted into the system, then there's a day where people, there's somebody in charge of going into the system to make keeping people accountable. So there's a more of an accountability aspect to it as well, because you've got more people involved and more communication, because you've got more people involved. So as you grow, there's more cooks in the kitchen. So you have to implement more communication tools and more things like that to keep everybody everybody accountable. So yeah, the problems just get more complex. And sadly, it's very easy to become bureaucratic. And have too many meetings. Yes, so yeah, it's this tiptoeing of like, we have to grow. But we can become a bureaucratic machine that just has too many processes and too many systems, how can we be stay efficient and stay in startup mode, but grow into something that's not a startup? But yeah,

Derek Clifford:

That makes sense to me. And I think that's a great answer and a clear testament that you guys have walked the walk already. And I really liked that. And as far as your mindset goes, what can you say about how important it is to focus on your mindset while you have been doing all this building? Because you've done some pretty incredible things, and I don't see it ever slowing down, I think you guys are gonna continue rolling and growing and pushing the bounds of what you guys are capable of doing. How important is mindset to you and your team? And maybe even how do you build that into the team itself if you do at all?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, man mindset could kill you. Right? It could make or break you. In my darkest days. I just want to sell everything short the money and like, put the cash in like this, like low yield, money market account, and then just go, sleep, stay in bed under the covers and hide. And those are the days where I achieved the least right because I'm not there mentally. And then on the flip side of that, when I am in like kind of this flow state, and I'm empowered and I am energetic, that's when the best ideas come to my head and that's when the best outcomes and successes come. So staying in that mindset is key man, and it's very easy to get out of it. And I think isolation is something that would put you in that darkness. If you don't surround yourself with other people who are are doing the same types of things have conversations like this, where we tell our stories and reflect on our successes, if we don't do that, and if we don't surround ourselves with other successful people, we end up isolated, we end up isolated. And that's when our mindset drifts. And then that's when we start to fail. So yeah, I mean, people talk about meditate meditation, I don't read about meditation, I get like meditation add, like when I started, and I had two small children. So the minute I like, decide, and stay quiet, Somebody's knocking on the door asking for something. So it's tough for me to get in that that state, I tried to pray in the mornings, pray slash meditation. And that kind of helps me out a little bit. It's hard to slow down once the day kind of like, gets going. But if you can find little pockets throughout the day to like, turn off your phone and not look at your email, and just kind of like, relax and reflect. I think that really helps you not go down that path, you know, not stray away and just go crazy, because I can go crazy. And I can get all these crazy thoughts on my mind and ideas and problems. And then I'm done. Right? My mindset is derailed. So yeah, mindset is key mindset is key. And the more you grow, the more you have to nurture that mindset. Because the quicker you could fail if you stray away.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, that's a really good reminder. And I want people to really listen to that advice from you. Carlos says that the more that you grow, the more you have to really pay attention to it. It's so important. And I think that's going to be a huge takeaway and a big gem of wisdom, at least for me to take away because, yeah, man, the more throughput that you have in your business, the more people depend on you. And if you're not on it, right, things could turn real quick, either a lawsuit, or you know, theft, or a resident, like a ton of things could happen, you just have to be on top of it.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah. And those of us that didn't come from wealth, that was I grew up middle class, I came from an immigrant family of Cuban immigrant family, I've had to sort of build my wealth from zero or nothing. It's very easy to go back to default back to like, the immigrant, you know, scarcity mindset mentality, when things get heated, when you start to reach that tipping point of growth, and you get scared and you start to freak out, it's easy to say, okay, but I'll just go back and live like this. And that's very tempting. And I struggle with that every day. I mean, I grew up in a family where we were hanging up our paper towels, my grandparents would hang up the paper towels to dry. And every day, when I grab a paper towel, and I dry my hands, and I gotta throw it away, I get like a little mini, you know, guilt trip. But it's very easy to jump back into that mentality. And then that's when you hinder more growth, right? Like, you need to persevere and continue right and not default back to the scarcity mindset.

Derek Clifford:

Yes, let me ask you one last question before we start heading into the Rapid Round here. In terms of rest, a lot of us were abundance members, and there's a lot of people that struggle with this, what is your process between you and your family to identify those points in time where maybe you've got to intentionally stop growing, just keep the status quo. It's just so that you can create some space for you to feel creative, empowered, or restful? Does that recovery time ever enter in your guyses mindset? Or has that been there? Tell us a little bit about that.

Carlos Rovira:

Well, I constantly fail at resting. I mean, it's hard to say no to opportunities when they come up. Because again, you go into the scarcity mindset, if I don't say yes to the opportunity, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna go out of business and end up poor on it, that is such a difficult thing to do, is to stop and be present. Let me tell you lately, I've been horrible at that, and my wife to like, she'll work more than these. Sometimes it's like seven damages on her laptop, but I'm gonna get off the computer because then I'm tempted to get on my computer, and then it's the spiral, or like, she'll be working. And she'll talk to me about a problem that's happening at seven o'clock at night when I've already turned off my computer. And then I get pulled back into the thing. So we need to be better at that. We travel a lot like we have a little place in the Bahamas. So we go there a lot. And that's a good place to kind of disconnect. Only on the weekends, we don't work on the weekends, I don't even turn on my computer and my phone, most of the time is in the office like charging put away. So it's little things like that to your phone. This is a killer. This is a killer, because there's notifications or social media. So many distractions are in this little tiny machine, that if you don't physically put it away from you, you're gonna get sucked into it. So if you can turn your phone off, I don't even turn my phone off. But if you can figure out a way to get rid of this for periods of time, you will get the rest that you need, like the mental rest. Because this is an addiction, you feel like you need to go back and check it you really need to go back and check Look, I just got a notification of some news article. So I had to look at that while I was talking to you. It's constant, constant, constant, constant, constant stimulus that takes away our rest. There's a book called the ruthless elimination of hurry it's, it's written by this, this Christian pastor John Mark comer, which talks all about that like finding rest and finding the ability to disconnect and finding the ability to get away from like this distraction. and culture that we've that we live in, highly recommend that book. That's a big challenge. And for go getters like us are entrepreneurs, we're always looking for the next deal. We're always looking for the next thing. It's hard for us to stop and, and rest.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, and by the way, thank you so much for sharing that and being totally honest and transparent. Because, man, I'm glad that I mean, I know that I'm not the only one that's struggling with this. But you're right, I guess in a way it is scarcity. It is like, oh, my gosh, if you don't take advantage of this thing right in front of you, you're not going to be able to get that opportunity again. And then of course, we both have this compounded mindset, right, Carlos, where it's like, if you don't get this, then you're not gonna have a stepping stone for the next place. Yes, it's not going to compound into the next and the next and the next. And so that's the last one. One of the things to ask me like, of course, it's not the last field, what if that's the last deal, and I gave it away, that's it, and then everything dries up? Like, it's all these irrational thoughts that go through your head? Yeah. And it's really funny to watch this game on play out in your mind. And you know, one thing when I was working my w two, that one of my colleagues who at the time early on in my career, didn't know what that what type of value they were adding to me. And I have since told like, 50 people while I was working my job and they've in turn thanked me for it was, you know, an outlook where you get those little every time an email comes in, you get those little like notifications, like these little banners in the lower right hand corner of the screen anyway, you could get those. And the company default was to have those enabled, and people didn't know to go into the settings and turn them off. Yeah. And someone told me that as a project manager, where you're herding cats, right, that was my role. If you don't turn those things off, your energy is going to get so scattered. And until I actually turned it off, and found out that like, you can set your email. So when it comes in, it goes into a certain project right away without even looking at it. You can focus your time and energy in blocks and pieces of attention that's directed and intentional by you. That's when you're going to get stuff done. So you got to be the master. So the double edged sword with these tools that yes, we're available 24/7. But if we can direct the energy and keep it in a place where when we want the information we want, it's there and available, and we can interact with it. It's super powerful. So it's both dangerous, and also incredibly effective. So yes, my thoughts.

Carlos Rovira:

And it's, we have this mindset, which it's like an instant gratification mindset. So like, when somebody sends me a text, they feel like I need to respond right away, or like an email comes in. And I feel like I need to respond or solve whatever that problem is, or answer that person's question right away. And that's not the case. Like, if we just stopped every single time we enter notification to deal with that notification, we would never get anything done. So if you just turn off your notifications, like I turned off my notifications for my text message. Like I don't see the push notification, I have to open the text app and see all the messages. Since I started doing that I have been so much less stress stressed out because it's not like this constant like, you know, intrusion into my life, or people asking me things and you know, sending me links and articles and this and that, I can actually take the time to sit and go through my text messages, and respond accordingly. And it's everywhere. Like you said, the little notifications down on the bottom, there's a notification here, there's a notification there. It's either news, text, email, social media in your face, if we can turn those things off and put them in the proper place like, this is when I'm going to check them. And at this time, I'm gonna check my email and people have to wait, they're gonna have to wait to get a response from me. You realize that people aren't pissed off at you because you didn't right away respond, right? Like, people are more demanding.

Derek Clifford:

Because they're busy too, because they're busy.

Carlos Rovira:

Exactly. But we have this mindset. And I do too, as an entrepreneur, which is that again, it goes back to the scarcity. If I don't respond, that guy's gonna get mad, he's gonna fire me, he's not gonna hire me, bla bla, bla bla, and then I go down this horrible path of like, what ifs that will never materialize? Just from getting a text message.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, dude. So I'm totally with you on this thing. And, you know, the other bonus is that eventually, I don't want to say ignore someone's text, but you base you and you answered with intention based on Okay, you'll answer texts one time at 4pm every day or at 4pm. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right? People will learn to work around you. And that's what you want is you want people thinking for themselves, because I found as a project manager, if I answered everyone's texts and emails, which I did for many years, they start to rely on you instead of finding the answers out themselves. And that is a big problem, especially if you're trying to scale so you know,

Carlos Rovira:

And you can easily train people to rely too heavily on you. Right? Correct. Because they know they're gonna get instant gratification. The minute they ask you a question, and it makes them sort of lazy, they won't think for themselves. And then it's hard to undo that. Because then when you start to push back, then you're the guy who's saying, No, you're the guy who's no longer there for them. And people can easily turn on you get mad at you for not responding because you've trained him to rely on you so heavily. So that's an interesting concept. But yeah, and as a manager and as an owner, it's hard because you have a vested interest in the business, you don't want it to fail. So you feel like if you don't help the person right away that can have negative consequences on your business.

Derek Clifford:

It's all I gotta say it is, it totally is. I gotta tell you, I love this Venn diagram that we're creating of business technology and human nature or mindset, right? You know, and right at the intersection is these darn notifications.

Carlos Rovira:

I'm gonna go I'm gonna burn my phone after this.

Derek Clifford:

Perfectly. We've done we've done something great today, then that's awesome. All right, man. Well, what I want to do is I want to head into the final round of the show, which is called the Rapid Round. And so same five questions that we asked every one of our guests and we hope that you can answer them in about 30 seconds or so. And but yeah, let's do it. All right. If you're ready for it, let's do it. Number one, what book has had the biggest impact on you? And why? And we ask that it can't be the purple Bible or the actual Bible itself?

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, I mean, Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a great book. But you know, it's a hard question to answer because I feel like books hit you at different stages in your life. So pick my favorite book, because my favorite book today may not be my favorite book tomorrow. This year, the book that really has impacted me is the two of them. Actually, same author Dan Sullivan, Who Not How and The Gap and The Gain, man, those books are awesome. Who Not How obviously for the do it yourself, like micromanager like me, it's it's basically like, hey, you need to hire people to help you. Like you can't scale if you're not going to rely on other people. So get over that. hire more people, to not how and then The Gap and The Gain is Oh, my God, incredible like, basically, he tells you, you're either living in the gap or you're living in the game, the gap is you're looking at the future, and what you haven't accomplished yet, and you're unhappy. And if you live in the gain, you're looking back at everything you've accomplished, and you're grateful that you've accomplished that but you don't lose your ambition to continue achieving incredible, incredible like shift in mindset because I constantly live in the gap. My wife constantly is in the gap. My kids live in the gap. Like we started pointing it out to them like hey, you're you're so you're being ungrateful that you have everything we've just done, because you're complaining about this one stupid thing. You're living in the gap, not in the gain. So that's a great book. And then another one, it's it's been more than 30 seconds, but it's and then another one that you recommended to me was the Joe Dispenza book Becoming Supernatural. That book is crazy, crazy, crazy mindset shift book. But yeah, there you go.

Derek Clifford:

Lots of power in all three of those books. And those are definitely my top 10 as well. And the gap in the game was huge for me. And I love the ninja mind trick that you can do on yourself. And then the practicality of who not how and then also, you know that becoming supernatural is just something else. So definitely recommend that for all of the listeners out there. Number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what do you think is the first actionable thing they could do to follow in your footsteps?

Carlos Rovira:

Just take action. Get over your fears. Just buy that first property. I mean, it's hard to screw it up, right? Like once you buy a duplex, it's not that hard. You rent it out, you make sure you put good people in there, you collect the rent, pay all the expenses, you move on, right? It's this big, scary thing, because there's a lot of money involved with it. But really, I think the day what actually needs to get done, it's very easy. It's very simple. So just get over the fear. Get over it. get over the fear of failure, essentially, and just do it risk risk and just try things. Because there's nothing worse than not taking action, right? If you don't take action, you basically fail.

Derek Clifford:

That's great. Great advice. Awesome. Number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three to six months that you've used to help save you time and or effort? It can be personal madness.

Carlos Rovira:

Oh no. It's simple. Calendly the calendar thing.

Derek Clifford:

Yes, of course,

Carlos Rovira:

How many times have you like gone back and forth with somebody like hey, what time works for you to meet? Oh, to between two and three, four or five? Okay, four and five. You work? Four or five for you. Okay.

Derek Clifford:

Oh, wait, you're on Central Time. Not not Yes. Oh, shoot.

Carlos Rovira:

With Calendly. You just send a link and say Hey, pick a time book. And then it's really easy. So that's been great. 100 bucks or whatever. A year under 60 bucks a year. Super worth. Yep.

Derek Clifford:

And they even have a free version as well. So definitely, there's no excuse. It's great. Yeah. All right. Number four. If the people that you know how to describe you with one word, what word do you think that would be?

Carlos Rovira:

Relentless.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, I could see that. Your work ethic is pretty impeccable. They're awesome.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah. And if you tell me I can't do something. It makes me want to do it even more. Don't ever tell me I can't do something.

Derek Clifford:

Sounds good. Number five. Last question is what small thing do most people not know about you?

Carlos Rovira:

I'm a lefty.

Derek Clifford:

Oh, cool. All right

Carlos Rovira:

Left handed baby.

Derek Clifford:

That's awesome, man. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, Carlos, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about how much we hate texting and talking about processes systems, w two transitions, growing businesses mindset all of the above and I've really had a blast and thank you so much for coming on. But before we end the show, why don't Should tell everyone out there how they can find out more about what's going on in your world. Or maybe if they want to connect with you or if they want to learn more about how they can work with you. This is your time for platform.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram theCarlosRovira. Yes, I had to put up the "the" front of my name because somebody else took my name, Carlos Rovira, Instagram, you can send me a message or add me or whatever. I try to post stuff. My travel stuff. You know, whenever I have problems with property management, I'll post it up there for for some laughs. And then I think Twitter, Twitter is the same. Also theCarlosRovira, so you can tweet to me. And you know any of those work, man? Yeah, pretty much. It's pretty good about responding.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you, Carlos. And lots of gems of wisdom here. And, man, Carlos, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was great to have you here.

Carlos Rovira:

Yeah, man. Thanks. Thank you. It's an honor.

Derek Clifford:

Really appreciate it. And for you listeners who have listened to all the way to the end, I just want to thank you guys, as well. And please, wherever you're listening or watching this content, please like, subscribe, thumbs up, comment, engage with us so that we can appease those algorithm gods and get more and more exposure to more individuals and also get on some incredible people just like Carlos to share their stories and their wisdom on the podcast. So thank you, dear listener for tuning in with us. This is Derek and I'm signing off. All right. Take care everyone.