Ep #375 – Bobby Castro – From Busboy to $350,000 Net Monthly Real Estate Income
Here is some of what you will learn:
Bobby’s Story (How he got to $300M Net worth)
The power of positive Cash flow
Mitigating Taxes with Multifamily
The exponential increases from adding value
Adjusting through the three market cycles
The resilience of multifamily
Leadership Qualities
“Ego is not your Amigo”
Information with Good Intent
The importance of starting where you’re at
To find out more about our guest: click here
To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 41411 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com
Join us at a Multifamily Bootcamp, visit: MultifamilyBootcamp.com
Full Transcript Below:
Ep #375 – Bobby Castro – From Busboy to $350,000 Monthly Real Estate Income
Hi! I’m Rod Khleif. Each and every week I record an interview with a thought leader that I know you’re gonna get a ton of value from. Now here on YouTube are the video versions of my podcast, Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. Now to make sure you get the latest information please subscribe and hit the notification bell. Let’s get started.
Rod: Welcome to another edition of How to Build Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Khleif and I am absolutely thrilled you’re here. And you are gonna love the guy we’re interviewing today. His name is Bobby Castro and he’s got, I mean, forget that he’s got a fantastic portfolio over three hundred and fifty million dollars. You know, makes about three hundred and fifty grand a month, you know, and he grew from nothing. No high school, I mean, very little schooling to no college to a billion-dollar portfolio now and he was a recipient of Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the year in 2012. He’s been on the Inc 500 13 times. I mean, I could go on and on but I I’d be doing him a disservice. I want it, we wanna hear it from him. Bobby welcome to show, brother.
Bobby: Thank You, Rod. Man, thank you. I’m a big fan and I really appreciate your time.
Rod: Oh no, it’s an honor to have you on and to have someone, and, you know, before we started recording, I asked how I could add value to you and I was so impressed with your answer and that is you just wanna give back and, brother, that touched my heart and so, you know, I wanna help you in any way that I can too. But if you’d start by just telling my listeners, you know, really a little bit about your journey because it’s so freakin impressive. So, I’d love to hear it myself
Bobby: Absolutely, thank you. Well, you know, I’m an individual. I failed the third grade and had a very difficult time comprehending what was, you know, all the information and it is speaking too, I was really about seven years old, extremely shy, very shy, and after the ninth grade, I think, teachers were as frustrated with me as much as I was frustrated with them. I was one that always had questions, not because I was trying to be difficult, I was just didn’t understand. And when you don’t understand you, raise your hand. You don’t understand it again, you raise your hand. Well, I was one of those individuals that just didn’t understand. So, I knew school wasn’t for me because I was frustrated. My mother which is an amazing individual. She was a waitress. Three full time jobs. Before Denny’s, we called Sambo’s. So, she was the waitress where a lot of us, when 6:00 in the morning you’re coming home from a wedding or a party or a club and the beautiful individuals waited on you 5-6 in the morning well that was my mom. And after that she walked home because there was really no vehicle, took a shower, we helped her, iron her apron, always kept the house clean and she probably slept for two, three hours and went off to her second job which was again a waitress. And then, at night the same routine and she worked at the Rowing Club Steakhouse in Miami Beach and during this whole time, it was all my mom, man. We had our lights, electricity out on a constant basis. She tried her best. We grew up with rent-a-center, for the ones who don’t know what Rena center is, you simply, you can’t afford a bed or a couch or a lamp or a coffee table, you rent them by the week and they used to pick it up. Read the lever pick it up and I saw all that straw that my mother went through and, you know, after the ninth grade, it’s a month, you know, I no longer one to attend school. Believe it or not Rod, without any no pushback whatsoever, she honored my request and I was obsessed then to get a job and back in the day and I don’t know what today looks like for a lot of young people, be had to be sixteen years old to get a job, and it was more or less a part-time job. They wouldn’t allow you work full-time. Well, I was able to get a job because my mom at Pasquale’s. That same restaurant I mentioned. The Pasquale’s, he hired me as a busboy to this day with even the wealth I have created and all the celebrations in life included, most importantly being healthy and happy, that was my “Aha” moment. That one job. I’ll never forget it. I was just on a podcast. It was yesterday and that was my moment and it’s still the moment today and, you know, fast forward, a lot of struggles and always in the hospitality industry and I saw my mom, how she worked her people skills. People, like my mom, because she was kind polite because she was working for her tip. She was maximizing the actual check because she knew if she really served and gave a great experience, she would be tipped 18%. As she needed every penny for her boys, and I’m so blessed, you know, my mother will be 80 years old this 16th of December and because of her, she allowed me to grow. I went and she finally got her first home. A beautiful married couple, no kids. He was a pilot. We rented from them and it was a constant struggle, I mean, they should have evicted at us many-many times and they didn’t. They just simply really was kind to my mom. They finally said, hey, Casey, it’s time for you to own something. Why don’t we just hold back X amount a few dollars and we’ll credit it, you will pick up some history of you making payments and we’ll locate some sort of a mortgage on the road. So, a couple years of few years went forward and she was able to do that with the help of these nice people. And not even about a year later, I forgot how old I was, I must have been very young, I looked at it, I found a mortgage broker in the flyer in Miami Lakes, I’ll never forget his name, Rod. His name is Woody and I called him and believe it or not, the dude actually entertained the conversation with a lot of other people hung up on me, it’s just a kid just callin about a second mortgage back in the day, it was a second mortgage, not a HELOC. Long story short, we were able to get twenty-five thousand. My mom said absolutely yes. Now, my father had me with 50, my mother was 27. He had 11 kids. So he was a different personality. He was the nine-to-five very passive beautiful and sweet. My mom was the grinder and he really didn’t have any comments or anything to say yes or no about. Everything was good and he was just let’s just call it a lady’s man. So, I opened a janitorial cleaning service because I was very good at cleaning because I was cleaning the house for my mom while she was working to keep as much stress on a very low level for her, iron her clothes or apron and I struck out dude. No one hired me because of my age. I didn’t have the proper insurance. Finally, on 36 Street in Miami next to the Miami highlight, I don’t know if it’s still there, I walked into an establishment called a Pink Pussycat and this is an adult establishment. I walked in, asking for the business and they said yes. And they’re just great people and I started cleaning that and I started cleaning other type of establishments because I found out they said yes to me. Well, that ended. It was short-lived because an entertainer mentioned out loud well, what’s his kid doing here 6:00 in the morning on a Wednesday? Shouldn’t he be in school or, and so that was the end of that. I gave up. I used that as an excuse to not look at, not seek other accounts. So, I sold it went back to waiting on tables. Waiting on tables, trying to start different businesses and then, my last job waiting on tables when I had my daughter, she’s 28 years old now, I worked out the Rusty Pelican in Key Biscayne and during the day I was selling memberships for the Better Business Bureau. I would call pawn businesses. Seeing if they were, you know, interested in this membership and again, all along I picked up something called people skills. It’s amazing when you have good people skills and you’re, we’re all unique, Rod and we have qualities and when yourself and you’re not trying to be like somebody or be something or be somebody you’re not, you’ll be so surprised the power the force of that. You become very forward in life and I was getting business opportunities at the same time from all these classifieds, the internet wasn’t available at that time, and I got a something I was interested in, equipment leasing. This is when medical equipment when doctor needs x-ray machines, business needs a copier machine but simultaneously, I was calling upon the same business to sell them a membership. So, I went in …
Rod: Membership to what?
Bobby: Better Bussiness Bureau. So, if you’re a business owner, I would sell you, you see, if you’re interested in membership.
Rod: Got it.
Bobby: So, I called upon on a business and he says, listen, I hate this membership. I think it has no value. You guys, don’t stop calling me, however, by this darn membership under one condition, you come work for me. I said, absolutely yes. But what’s crazy at the same time I got one of his packages. So, that took off to just great ways he retired.
Rod: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Can you help me understand what sort of a package? I’m not tracking.
Bobby: How does, how to get into the equipment leasing business? How to, you know, solicit business for the need of equipment? And then, how to locate the money sources to provide the financing? And then, you’re in the in-between and that’s a commission.
Rod: And so, he saw something in you and said, hey, you know, come work for me. Very cool.
Bobby: Yeah, and I think it was just good people skills and surrendering and bended and compromising to any conversation you’re involved in. So, things took off, fast forward, I became one of the largest Southeast originators in that space. Calling upon businesses and I was just good at it. I was good at the marketing because all along I worked at Don Shula’s Country Club. I saw business owners come and play golf. I seen how they react, how they talked, how their impatient, they don’t wanna stand in line and I took advantage of providing a hassle-free service. So, the market changed on me. My brother, it was my brother, I gave him 50% of the business. He was struggling with another business and I said, Eric, this is a great business dude, you know, oh Bobby, I don’t know about it but he came aboard. So, we were invited Eric and I to a Martha’s Vineyard to a intimate little conference and an investment banker of this person was going to show up and we’re gonna be introduced because we were a good originator and we just wanted to have, he wanted to have a celebration. Well, we met this individual, over dinner, had drinks, hit it off, again, people skills came into play. It was a game changer in my life. I mentioned to this individual that the market is changing. Doctors are telling me, they no longer need my financing because manufacturers were now offering it for zero percent to move more volume. Putting out individuals, like myself, out of business and I located the trend. I started getting pushback in the market. Dr. Castro what else do you need? And how can I help you with your financial needs? Well, I can use some unsecured working capital because my reimbursements never show up on time, and when they do show up on time, Bobby, it’s never the amount it should be or what I was expected. So, I’m a little cash crunch, IRS, I’m going through a divorce, I’m expanding, a buying on my partner. I said not a problem. I’ll find you the money. So, I told this individual in Martha’s Vineyard what this market was telling me. He said, well, it’s gonna be hard, Bobby. You know, everything I do is backed by collateral and this is unsecured. This way many-many years prior to Fin Tech today. So, I called him, called him, called him, called him. Finally, two weeks later, he said, send me a deal. I send him a deal of a doctor. He couldn’t believe the profile. He says, you’re telling me this doctor needs money. He’s a 765, just a gross income 380, DTI 35%, net worth two million, time in business 11 years, great stats. I said, absolutely because why? Because he doesn’t want to wait in line just like you don’t when you go to Disney World. You wanna pay a premium to get in there faster just like Federal Express versus regular rail. He understood it but he didn’t understand it. He goes, let me see what I can do, Bobby. No promises. He calls me back a couple days later. He goes, sure enough. I’ve got a very big bite. I think somebody wants to buy this paper. There you go. We started with, practically, zero dollars. It was 25 thousand …
Rod: This was your company then? You you started this as your lending.
Bobby: Yeah. The that was the start of bankers Healthcare Group which I just exited based on a billion-dollar valuation and I briefly get into that. So, we build an amazing company. Debt-free, no investors, no raises, just hard work. One deal at a time. One fun at time. Practically, no money. No money. Today, it has 550 employees. Today, it will produce a net income of say, a hundred and seventy million dollars. That’s not gross revenue. That’s not add backs. That’s true net income. It’s a very healthy company and in 2015 I think, it was, Rod, somebody came knocking, saying, hey, I wanna give you, I wanna buy your company based on a 250-million-dollar valuation and our heads looked up. Really? Okay. Let’s have a conversation. So, I sold 10% of my personal ownership out of, you know, we owned 100% of it. I owned 33.3, so, I sold ten percent based on 250. They wired me 25-million-dollars and, believe it or not, it wasn’t a wow factor. Going back to that 14-year old Bobby, that was a wow factor for me. Why? I don’t know today but that’s why I’m doing all this self-reflection mindful thinking. I just came …
Rod: So, when you got the 25 million, you weren’t wowed. Is that what you’re saying?
Bobby: With full transparency for my heart, that it’s exactly what I’m thinking.
Rod: So, it wasn’t like, wow, this is just amazing. It was just, hey, it was just business. Okay. Very cool. So, that wasn’t an epiphany. Not like your first job at, you know, bus and tables where you had an epiphany. So, the getting 25 million wasn’t an epiphany. Alright, fair enough. Alright.
Bobby: And I think, you know, when I was 14 years old, just having something new and fresh versus living in infested fleas, living in struggle, seeing my mom, she was a bright …
Rod: But buddy, the parallels between your life and my life are uncanny. I won’t take anything away from your story but, literally, about the 15 points you’ve made, mine are, I have 13 of them. From the mom, especially, I wanna salute your mom. You know, I had my mom show up at my Denver event, she’s 80 in a wheelchair and I’m behind the curtain crying because she’s the reason I got into real estate. So, brother, it’s really refreshing to hear this. So, anyway, you got the 10%. I wanna hear that you invested in real estate.
Bobby: Yeah, so, and, yeah. I’ve always dabbled into real estate and at that stage, Rod, I was more interested in saying, why would someone pay 250 million dollars? I didn’t get it.
Rod: Right.
Bobby: So, I said, I need to know this new information I don’t have because that’s where the power of success comes into play. New information when you maximize the old information already. So, I did some digging. We did dig and we found out, wow. They stole this company, after we found out the new information. I say, good for this twenty-two-billion-dollar institution. No wonder they’re successful. No worries. Let’s put fuel to that information and we did so Rod, and just under a year or call it a year, we took it from 250 to 600 million and we’d knock back to the same door saying, hey, we’re gonna take this to market at 600 million because we feel like we can easily get it. They said, we’ll buy it. So, they bought another 19%. So, as markets shuffle and joss, that new information always a justice with, you know, the market. Three years after that, we took it to a billion dollars. Putting more fuel to that information, I added, the three partners, decided to exit. We own 51%. I exited on my last slice which was 17% based on a billion-dollar valuation and that was about two months ago.
Rod: Wow.
Bobby: So, real estate, it’s real state came into play for me with some huge big mistakes. Real estate has made me fortunes today. The big mistake was not having the information. We thought in 2004 because everybody was doing it, we wanted to be condo converters. We wanna be the sellers
Rod: Oh wow. Oh wow. Okay.
Bobby: No information whatsoever just here in the hot trend and we jumped. And it’s not wrong jumping …
Rod: Miami or where?
Bobby: Right in Miami Bay.
Rod: Oh my god.
Bobby: Right in Miami.
Rod: Ground zero. Ground zero. I know this is going, okay.
Bobby: We step right into it. It was 75 million dollars of purchases, a hundred and ten percent leveraged.
Rod: Yeah. Wow.
Bobby: So markets shuffled on us. Hurricanes came. Dynamics changed. We were not prepared. We were not reserved. We didn’t have, we didn’t understand the market. Because of this beautiful company called Bankers Healthcare Group, it got us out completely of everything we went to closings and wrote millions of dollars in checks.
Rod: Oh. Wow.
Bobby: I said to myself, this will ever be the last time I would get distracted from my current business that is feeding me and before I jump into something, I am gonna get the information just like I did on that 250 million and I brought it the 600 million, me and my partners, and that’s exactly what I did. I started appreciating rentals where Bobby grew up, workforce housing. And I said, you know, what my parents were professional renters but they were professional not because any want own a home, lucky enough we met somebody nice and we were able to.
Rod: Yeah, that’s pretty amazing.
Bobby: I got into the rental business and I started small. A lot of people today, Rod, tell these young people, go big, go big.
Rod: Well, well. There’s one person that says, that most people start small, but so, what’d you start? Like, with some duplexes, houses, what’d you start with?
Bobby: I started with 11 units. It was seller financing. My wife and I in Hialeah, where I grew up, in a Latino community. I started with 11 units, and slowly, not fast, slowly, I worked my way up as I was in stages of that information and I pivoted when I maxed out that information and then, I trimmed fat to be sure I maxed it out and today, give or take, it’s under 2,000 units. It was thousands but we sold some portfolios. I also have some GP partnerships with few thousand units for myself, personally, and my family call it, a couple thousand units that feeds us tax. No tax implications about 350 thousand a month positive cash flow included …
Rod: Hey guys, stop, stop, stop, stop. I gotta stop you there. I just wanna make sure everybody heard what he just said. 350 thousand a month, obviously, before taxes but who’s counting and that’s just your portfolio. Guys, if you’re not inspired hearing that, then you’re dead. That’s all I can tell you. Then you’re dead. You know, I want to, and so impressive, brother. I can’t even begin to say I’m impressed. I wanna dig into a couple of these things, but let me say this, you have dropped so many incredible bombs. The last one was talking about not allowing yourself to be distracted and it resonates with me because there, you know, like me, you’re an entrepreneur. You sometimes, you get that shiny penny thing, like what happened with the real estate, but you didn’t do, you didn’t study it, you are fine fast and loose and like, again, this is me looking in the mirror saying this. And focus is power and when you dilute your focus, everything suffers. And I think you, probably, like what you spoke to experiencing that, but, so, talk to me about, so, you didn’t, I mean, this is a multi-family show, so we should steer it that direction but, man, what a story, brother.
Bobby: Thank you.
Rod: And again, the parallels are just incredible with your mom and failing in school and, you know, the busboy, I was a busboy at Denny’s Brother. That was my first, that was my second job Burger King and then Denny’s. So, I mean, I was right there with you. Just the parallels are crazy. But, and my mom babysat kids so she’d have enough money to eat and I mean, we wore good we’ll close the hole, you know, very-very similar stories and just really cool to hear it. But let’s talk about multifamily for a minute. So, you did the 11 unit. How did you bone up to buy that first larger complex? What did you, tell me how that happened. Did you do it with a partner? Did you have a mentor? Did you just do it on your own? How’d that materialize?
Bobby; Yeah. All the way up to the time we’re speaking today, I have never raised any money, never got any investors. Same thing with our main business. Never. Only because, Rod, I didn’t even realize there was people out there that are passive investors. I was so busy with the information. Working on the information versus getting distracted and I’m glad it happened because maybe I wouldn’t have gotten distracted and I wouldn’t have been a full time razor where I like, I see a lot of people just being consumed by raising money.
Rod: Right.
Bobby: Where you only have certain amount of capacity and that’s where leadership comes in, leadership skills coming. You have to get surrounded by leaders to help you scale and this real estate business, I’m gonna let everyone know how powerful it is besides cash flow and I wannat get a little bit into the power of $25 but besides amazing cash flow and creation of this wealth, that I have created because of real estate, just recently, I purchased a hundred and eight million dollars in two deals. There was one, 88 million dollars, 400 units and another one 128 units, 20 million 250, and I recently bought that for two reasons. My mom has always been cash flow, cash flow.
Rod: Good.
Bobby: So, then, I entered a phase in my life where I started needing more information to see what else can real estate do for me. Now there’s something called, of course, we most know about the appreciation and then the cost segregation of depreciation then, there’s amazing bonus that we all got called a hundred percent bonus appreciation. So with this hundred percent bonus depreciation that recently came out, I said, man, I have a big tax implication on a hundred, you know, I just exited seventeen percent on a billion dollars. There’s a tax bill that’s gonna become due.
Rod: Yeah.
Bobby: What can I do with real estate? It’s not, CPA did not give me any guy …
Rod: You bought those properties to mitigate the tax burden? Oh my god. It was beautiful.
Bobby: Yup. It was a bonus, and what’s crazy and David, my CPA, David, did never, he’s never ever guided me this way. It was Bobby Castro chasing new information.
Rod: And let me, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to interrupt. But this is so important. I don’t wanna pass this up. Guys, most CPAs drive looking in the rearview mirror, and I’ve suffered through this myself with and, you know, gotta help me if he’s listening, but it’s always been reactive. And you guys, those you getting in, you know, getting into this business, you have to be proactive. You have to tax plan, like Bobby did, like, actually, I did the same thing this year, and so, it’s so critical and you have the ability to mitigate these, I mean, what an incredible example, your example. So, please continue, but I just I wanna preface, you know, the conversation by saying, most CPAs do not do this. They don’t tax plan. You need to find one that does. Very-very important if you’re going to get into this business. Alright, please continue.
Bobby: Very-very, very good point, and because we’re all ultimately responsible for our own results.
Rod: Thank you.
Bobby: And, because of that, it was an amazing cash flow in place. Income where I don’t, there’s no guarantees of a dollar increase. I buy them and can I live with what’s in place today but it was enabled me to have a tax structure of 19 million dollars of deductions.
Rod: Wow.
Bobby: So, you talk about 19 million so, long story short, whatever my tax liability is, I will be paying millions of dollars less because of these multifamily assets besides feeding me and my grandchildren and overtime appreciation and then, for the ones that are on to the value-add and it’s a real kind of loose world bird now. A lot of brokers like to use it and I always like to say, the value add today is really a deep value add. A normal value add, this is what how I see it. The power of 2000 units. If I raise all the rents by twenty-five dollars and I multiply that by two thousand units and then I multiply it by a year and I divided call it a six percent cap rate today …
Rod: Which is being conservative. How much?
Bobby: I’m being conservative. 10 million-dollar valuation. So, I’m all into this evaluation because I learned new information with my exits. That’s 10 million-dollars just in one year. The power of a value-add is not so much put a kitchen counter in there, you have to slowly get these rents up until the market says no more. Okay. Let me put a kitchen counter in there, let me see if I get 10 dollars at the market says yes, you go and pretend. So you manage your capital improvements without going out of business and trying to do everything at one time.
Rod: Oh, that’s a great. That’s a great tip and, you know, the exponential impact, like you just, like you to show, we’ve got a 101-unit property that got destroyed by a tornado in Ohio and we’re able to ramp the rents five hundred dollars and that’s a ten million dollar freaking increase.
Bobby: Wow.
Rod: Just, you know, it’s the exponential, you know, value of these increases is incredible. Which is why we’re here, but, this isn’t a, so, is this something a recent realization of yours? I mean, you knew this going in I’m sure that the impact of that.
Bobby: Yes, I did but I didn’t appreciate, I didn’t really digest the information. I knew about it but I didn’t realize what it meant. I don’t know if that makes sense, and a lot of us, we …
Rod: You were focused on the cash flow. So, it really didn’t matter. You weren’t focused on value anyway. You’re building cash flow which is more important anyway, especially, in this marketplace. So, very cool. Very-very cool. So, you know, we’re getting a little bit micro. Are you, do you self-managed? Do you have a third party property management company? How’d you handle the management?
Bobby: We were self-managing all this. Me, my family up to, just recently about a month ago, we hand that over to a large management company that manages over 200 thousand doors and the reason we did that, we’re now to a point where we wanna be asset managers …
Rod: Right.
Bobby: Versus property managers because now we’re in a phase of new information and in this market I feel that we don’t want to get distracted. I’m managing so much because right now it’s very important what we’re looking at, how we’re buying, stressing and testing in. The markets, I’ve always tell people this, there’s always money to be made in all phases of three markets; down market; middle market and a high market. You just need to adjust your model so I want to pay attention to that versus getting distracted I’m managing it because right now you need to surround yourself with people that know what they’re doing more that, you can’t be the smartest person, so I’m focusing on surrounding my, you know, individuals like yourself, individuals like have far more experience because even though I have a lot of units, man, there’s no ceiling light ….
Rod: No, I love it. I love it. Alright guys, there was another bomb, okay? He just dropped another bomb. He’s netting 350 grand a month and the comment was there’s no ceiling in life, okay? I hope you’re writing this shit down guys. So listen, and I couldn’t agree with you more. There are incredible opportunities. I mean, yes, you have to kiss a lot of frogs but you said it again you’ve got a stress test these deals and, you know, because to think that we’re not going to have a contraction is a pipe dream. So, you know, but it’s the beautiful thing about this business is it’s primarily empirical it’s numbers and if, you know, if you stress test the deals, you look at your competition and, ideally, you’re better than your competition and you’re conservative and you put money in reserves and all these things that you might not have to do, you know, in every cycle but you absolutely have to or every period of the cycle but you absolutely have to do right now. So, that’s awesome.
Bobby: You know, one thing I wanna mention to a lot of people who are listening, that nightmare I had, that big mistake, I learned and if I can help limit some big mistakes with some folks out there, that condo convergent put us out of business. I did a look back in that cycle and if I had multifamily assets versus losing everything in the condo conversions and being a developer of information I know, guess what those rents only dropped to in the worst day, at least …
Rod: I know. Because I live it.
Bobby: But it only dropped a $150 a month, I would have still made money, I still would have carried myself. Those assets would have been far greater in value today and the power of their, you know, when the markets do adjust, rentals really don’t drop as much as people think they do.
Rod: You look at a time line. Yes, there’ll be dips like 08 but you look at a time line they’re continuing to go up and again, another parallel to my story. That’s the reason I started this podcast cuz I had, you know, I was split between houses, I didn’t do condo conversions, I did houses and apartment buildings. The houses pulled me down because it was too spread out but the apartments, again, I could have easily survived if I hadn’t crossed collateralized them. It’s very-very similar um so so let’s circle back and by the way guys, his family just started an Instagram account for him which is I’m fumbling through that myself. I’ve been instructed to post on Tuesdays and Fridays 60-minute videos but anyway, here’s his official Bobby Castro and then he’s also got a website. He’s starting BobbyCastro.com, obviously, an awesome guy to know but let’s go circle back to leadership because I know that conversation is something you’re passionate about. I don’t want my listeners to miss out on that. So, let’s dig into that a little bit. Talk to me about how you feel about leadership. You built this incredible giant company, Bankers Healthcare Group. Talk about the leadership qualities it took to make that happen.
Bobby: First, you gotta be very humble. You gotta surrender because US entrepreneurs, we’re our worst enemy. We wanna do everything. We think we have all the answers. No one get doing better than us and I was one of those. I was really one of those in a big way. I started realized in the word “stuck”. I was like a hamster on a wheel. I was busy but I wasn’t going nowhere. It was the same results. Same results because that’s all the information I had. I need to know new information. How you get new information, you hire leaders, you surround yourself with leaders that know a little bit more than you do and, you know, ego is not your amigo and there’s a lot of business …
Rod: I gotta write in down. Sorry,sorry.
Bobby: No worries.
Rod: That’s awesome. Ego is not your amigo. I’m stealing that one. Okay, keep going.
Bobby: You know, and I just made a lot of money with that dammit I wish I did it earlier but you have to make mistake. That’s part of growing but the big mistakes, you try not to repeat them, and that’s something I never will ever repeat. I will continue moving forward through leadership no matter real estate, no matter business, no matter my family, I continue working on myself, to continue surrendering, to more information I don’t know, only when I max out on the current information because we can get overwhelmed with too much information.
Rod: Sure, sure.
Bobby: So, we gotta be careful …
Rod: Let me hammer a point home if you don’t mind, forgive me. You know, guys, in any business, the CEO is almost always the bottleneck and that’s what you discovered early it sounds like Bobby and that’s what you mean by surrender you have to realize believe it or not there are people that can freaking do it better than you can. And that was a realization for me. It fairly embarrassed to say not that far in the distant past realization, okay? So, absolutely and you said hire leaders, so important, guys, to look for people that know more than you do. Ego is not your amigo. Love it. What else, my friend.
Bobby: And how do I get a leader, Bobby? There’s a lot of small business owners. I just came from a conference, awesome small business owners, and, you know, I couldn’t help myself at the conference, I’d like to do less talking because I wanna hear from the crowd and I, man, they were lined up with questions. I said, guys, take advantage. Ask questions. And most of the questions surrounded the following: Bobby, how do I surround myself with better successful people that know a little bit more, and it was a real estate conference, that know more about real estate than I do and I don’t know anybody everyone in my family, all my friends were all broke, we don’t have the information you keep talking about. I have no one dude, where can I find it, and I tell to everyone you find it, online. You look for information that has good intent not in what is the motive behind those information …
Rod: Good, good. Good distinction. Information with good intent. Awesome distinction. Okay.
Bobby: It’s everything because you’re so desperate sometimes, you will grab the first face of information and spend so much time consuming it and guess what, you start realizing, my god it’s a year. I’m still not moving forward. So, I think it’s so important, this information, now, I’m getting a little familiar with, not familiar social media for the first time, it is scary on the information out there. I’ve been always a big fan of your podcast …
Rod: Thank you.
Bobby: … it’s start with your act and Eddie, my son-in-law, I got him right on to your podcast because, you know, I’m a big believer, Rod, start with your act and with your act, that’s the information to focus on. Don’t get overwhelmed, you know. And so, leadership, you know, they give me that information. I had 550 amazing individuals and we brought individuals on because of our people skills because here in South Florida, Rod, and you live in Florida, we’re all about Pina colada’s and strawberry daiquiris. We’re not Silicon Valley, we’re not New York City, so, it’s hard to recruit.
Rod: Yeah.
Bobby: You need your people skills to convince people, you need your people skills to receive information and I found out in life, coming from the Richard Branson, I was able to spend some quality one-on-one time with this individual along …
Rod: What a gift that was. Wow.
Bobby: When you reach a certain success in life, you will see the true individual, it shines. You know, it’s amazing and I can’t get that off my head and this year, I’m all about giving value to so many because if you don’t have the money to start right now, you’re like my mom, you’re like me, it’s okay, man. Just dialing into information. Continue stacking. Stacking means get a second job, get a third job, put your people skills on, get a promotion, but at the same time with your non-refundable minutes where you spend them, it’s so important. You don’t get them back. Invest in information. Good information, good intent. You don’t have to buy it. You know the money, don’t buy it. It’s online so …
Rod: All free. It’s all free. You just gotta hunt for it, you know. And I tell people that, you know, I have programs, obviously. If you can’t afford them go online, it’s all there. Listen to my podcast. Listen to other podcasts. It’s all, there’s so much information but invest in yourself. I love it, man. Well, unfortunately, we are running out of time and I’m disappointed, frankly, that we were running out of time and I can tell you, I have not said that very often. So, I’ve really-really enjoyed you, Bobby, and your energy and your heart and the fact that you truly are humble with what you’ve accomplished. That’s a pretty impressive thing and, you know, I’m sure that you got that around Branson as well. I’ve heard beautiful things about him and humble and what a beautiful man he is as well.
Bobby: Incredible. How incredible, I mean, …
Rod: Yeah.
Bobby: Not enough words.
Rod: Right, right, right, right. Well, listen my friend, I am super grateful you took your time to be on my show and thank you for what you said about the podcast. That’s really a treat to hear from someone of, you know, of your stature and, you know, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you better, my friend. So, thank you.
Bobby: Much love, dude. Much love and looking forward to attending one of your conferences and who knows we can maybe do business together. We’re in Florida so …
Rod: Love that.
Bobby: … much love, dude. Thank you. Very great.
Rod: Thank you, brother. Alright. Be well, my friend. Take care.
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