The Power of Expansion: Lessons in Entrepreneurship, Resilience, and Real Estate Wealth

I've created my first enterprise and I realized the value of time and how valuable time really is. Entrepreneurs see the value of time and they rent other people's time. And 96% of the people out there trade their most valuable asset, which is time for money. There's nothing wrong with it. That's just how it is. When you make a $40 profit in a 10 minute transaction, you can't go back and work for 5 bucks an hour. I made a decision that I was going to pursue profits for the the rest of my life. The multifamily game is not a speculation game, it's a numbers game. Interest rates have an impact on it. Before we even buy our real estate, we're going to stress test our own deals. No matter what the goal is, you can always expand on the goal you want to be. Get to a position where you're consistently uncomfortable, you're consistently expanding. If you're not expanding, you're contracting. And if you're contracting, you're dying.

Welcome my friend Alfonso Cuadra to the show today. Alfonso, how are you, my friend?

I'm doing good. A little cloudy outside, we got technical difficulties, but we're still shining, baby. We say you are shining.

I think we're back, I think we're back in business for everybody. I actually just got kicked out. This is our second time trying to record this, so, so you know what, things happen in business. We gotta roll. And I appreciate your patience, but so, so, so excited, so excited here today. And it's always been a pleasure connecting with you and chatting about everything. But I want to hear a little bit more today about your journey. I haven't heard this before. I'm excited about it because I know where you're at today. But maybe just share your story with everybody who's listening.

Yeah. So take one. You said you wanted me, you wanted me to go to day one, let's.

Go to day one. So all the way, all the way.

But I was actually was sharing a story about how I wanted MJ Shoes, Michael Jordan Shoes. If you remember late 80s, early 90s, everyone had to have these, you know, Michael Jordan shoes. And I remember talking to my mom and begging and like, mom, please. And my mom just said, no, we can't afford these shoes, right? So, you know, I was trying to figure out how to get these shoes. You know, I try to get jobs, I try to do all these things. Nobody, nobody was hiring at, you know, a 12 year old, I think it was, might have been about 12 years old. And we Lived in Ottawa. Housing, right, Social housing. You know, I gave you a little back, a little bit of my background. I came here as a refugee. My mom had $30 in her purse. We had two pieces of luggage and that was it. That was our whole life. And so, you know, we're very poor, you know, and Michael Jordan shoes would, would probably be our entire food budget for the entire month. Yeah. And you know, she just said, we, we can't do it. So I tried to figure out ways of how to do it. And then we were playing football one day and one kid comes, there's 20 kids on the field and one kid comes and he says, I'm moving next week or something. And I have this paper route. Who would like my paper route and all. Nobody, Nobody said, you know, made any indicator indications that they wanted the paper route. And when, when nobody, nobody put up their hand, I put up my hand, right. And I said, what is that? What is a paper route? He's like, yeah, you deliver the papers, you get paid. And I'm like, how much you get paid? Well, the entire route was an entire building, an apartment building, and it was 400amonth. Beautiful, right? For sure I can get my MJ shoes like that. So I started doing the newspapers. Now the good part is I'm getting paid $400 a month for a 12 year old in the early 90s. I mean, that's a lot of money. The issue for me was that the paper route had to be delivered after school and early morning Saturday and Sunday. So as you know, Bob, that's prime time, cartoon watching time, right? Yes. So I had an issue, right. I, I, of course I enjoyed the money, but it was, you know, definitely to taking away something I love to do. And so I got my MJ's. I'm sitting at my buddy's, Johnny's house and he's looking at me, he's like, whoa, where'd you get the shoes? And I told him I got them at Fort Locker or whatever, I can't remember the place. And he says, how did you get them? And I said, well, I got a gig, I got this gig. And he's like, well, I wish I had a gig. And I was like, Johnny, you know what, what if I could have you help me with these? You know, the deliveries. So you do the deliveries and I do the collections at night. So I don't know if you remember, kids used to deliver the papers and then they used to collect the money and then bring it to the supervisor, right? Yeah, yeah. And now adults, adults are delivering newspapers or I don't even know if newspapers are being delivered anymore. So Johnny became my first employee. And so he would do the deliveries after school and Saturday and Sunday morning, and I was able to watch my cartoons and, and I paid Johnny $200 a month. So now I'm clearing $200 a month. And my responsibilities are to oversee the operations, right? So I would go and talk to all of the clients, right, make sure I can collect the money. My issue was I used to deliver the papers. I was so tired. And then I would, you know, I would be too, too tired to go and collect, do the collections. And so now I was able to do the collections. And it was only like a couple of times in the evenings and, and then I would now getting good with the supervisor. Cause now we're, we're making all our collections and you know, all the money's coming in. So he's like, would you be willing to take a second paper route? And so where I lived, this one building, 27 stories. And this other building was probably a smaller building, maybe about 14 stories. So that smaller building was $300 a month. And so new problem again, I'm making, I'm clearing $200 over here, but now I got to put my time over here. And so I hired Sammy, which was my second employee. So now, you know, I'm making $150 over here, $200 here, that's $350 a month. And now I've created my first enterprise and I realized the value of time and how, how valuable the high really is. And that's what it comes down to, right? So entrepreneurs see the value of time and they rent other people's time. And 96% of the people out there trade their most valuable asset, which is time, for money, right? And so there's nothing wrong with it. That's just how, how it is. And so that was my first experience of being an entrepreneur. Later on, later on I left the paper route. And obviously coming as an immigrant coming from a war torn country, I actually missed a lot of educational opportunities. So by the time I was 15 years old, I ended up dropping out of high school, living on the streets. I had some really dark moments in my life. And that's probably another podcast, but at one point I was panhandling for change. So things got really, really bad for me. And so I had a life changing moment. When I was 17, I became a dad. Actually my daughter, okay, that was born September 22, 1995. This is her birthday today to be exact, right? 30 years ago. 30 years ago she was born. I was a 17 year old kid and now I'm a father. And the second left the hospital. I said to myself, I gotta, I gotta do something right. I tried to get a job. That job, you know, paid five bucks an hour. It's not, wasn't gonna be good enough. And so one of my first paychecks, what I decided to do is start a business. So I went to Toronto. So I live in Ottawa. I went to Toronto. Yonge street, you used to have some of these, you know, street vendors, and they would sell the jeans and T shirts and I bought them in bulk with my first paycheck. And so I brought those to school the next week. And a pair of jeans that I bought for $20, I was able to sell it for $60, making my first 40 profit. Now when you make a $40 profit in a 10 minute transaction, you can't go back and work for 5 bucks an hour. And so I made a decision that I was going to pursue profits for the rest of my life and I started to develop that business. That business allowed me the time to go and finish my high school and also provide for my little family that I had at the time, get a place. I mean, at this point I'm a full grown adult, right? I mean, I have responsibilities, I got to feed out, I have mouths to feed and I have to go to school. And then I'm building this small business. Now my vision when I started was at some point I wanted to have a physical location. And so people thought I was crazy, it's not going to work. And ultimately what ended up happening, I ended up getting some, some of my friends involved. They pitched in 200 bucks, 300 bucks, one kid pitched in 50 bucks. Ah, you're in, right? And I managed to raise about $2,700. $2,700. Not a lot, you know, that's not a lot of money. But to make the long story short, because I'm not sure how long we have on this podcast, but.

To make a long story short, I took the $2,700 and not only did I turn it into my first physical, physical location that I opened late 1997, but so I started the business in 95 and I opened the first physical location in 97 or late 97, but I took that business across the country, so opened up locations all across the country, became a major distributor and an importer of clothing. And you know, my destiny was to be an entrepreneur for the very beginning. Because that's the only thing that made sense to me. And, you know, that's kind of how I started in the entrepreneurial world is just like that.

I love that. And, you know, thinking back when you made that first dollar profit on that pair of jeans, I don't know if you can remember that thing, but it seems like a moment in your life that you probably wouldn't forget. Yeah, well, no, I was like, okay.

Yeah, well, I remember working. I was a, My first job was a dishwasher. My first and only last employment, it was. I was a dishwasher. 17 years old. So you're pretty much at the bottom of the, of the food chain when it comes to restaurants. Like when there's, you know, yeah, clean up in the bathroom. Guess who they call is the, is the dishwasher, right? And by the way, dishwasher, the person that's handling your dishes goes and cleans up message in the bathroom. I hated that job. I hated that job. I hated the boss. I hated everybody there. And it's just like, is this my life? You know what I mean? You know, is this how I'm going to. I'm 17 years old, I'm having this moment, right? It's like, oh, my God, like, what am I going to do with my life? And, you know, making that $40 profit, it was like, oh, so this is how you do it, right? I felt like when I figured out how to watch cartoons and make money at the same time, right? I felt exactly that way. It's like, oh, okay, this is how you do it, right? Yeah. And so, you know, those were my first moments as an entrepreneur. It's like real making those, you know, the first time I figured out, look, the first six months of my business, and I don't know, I don't know what the limitations are in terms of, you know, going back. You know, this is like 1997, 98. But when I went to the. My first accountant, he's like, okay, well, like, you know, where's your business number? Where's your this and that? The other, I said, I don't have it. I don't have any of that. You know, you're safe now. You know how it goes, how things go. But, you know, like, I, I didn't know accounting. I didn't know taxes. I didn't know any of these things. I just needed to start and I just started and I figured out, I figured things out on the way. I mean, the first time my accountant got me to Open my first corporation. I'll never remember. I never forget it. Like in 19. It's August 1, 1998. Right. That was my first corporation. And it's like, no, you should have a corporation. And this is how you do this. And like, oh, okay, this. Wow. I didn't know. So that's been my life pretty much, you know, every day I gotta learn something new and I'm always trying to better my best a hundred percent.

So. So walk me through a really good picture of, of where things start and how you got the entrepreneurial sort of blood flow happening. Talk to me a little what you've got going on right now. Tell me about what wealth, geniusness is all about.

So I shared a little bit about my first business. And I think it was a mixture of a need, a necessity that I had because I had a young family and my experience being a dishwasher and having my first employment. Pretty much I said, I never want to do this. Also, I wasn't a very good student, so I knew academia was not going to be my future. So when I figured out, you know, how to make money, you know, I never had any financial literacy at home, and so I would spend all the money even though I was doing very well. I think I, I saw one of your Instagram posts where it said, are you a contractor? Are you making X amount of dollars per year? And you don't see any money. I mean, that's, that's the story of a lot of ours, right? Money comes in you, you, you generate so much money, but then it just disappears. Like you're like, where everywhere did it all go? Yeah.

Funny how we all seem, all seem to get better at make here. The more invest, more invest. We get into it. Yeah.

You know, and you know, for me, you know, not only was I really bad at managing money, I was very much a consumer. Right. I wanted to show how successful I was. I grew up, I grew up poor in my life. Right. And so I felt that you needed to show people how successful you, you are. And so I had a Cadillac Escalade and all these, all the cliche things, you, someone would do it 21 years old with money. I did 10 times worse. You could just use your imagination. So I pretty much find myself, you know, 24 years old, negative, negative. A million bucks. Right? And you know, that's not a, that, that's not a great place to be in because at that point I remember even though my business had grown now, stores were shutting down, key suppliers were cutting me off more Competition, so, you know, give you some, some background. I started selling hip hop clothing, clothing in the late 90s where there was no competition. Then Athletes World decided to come in. You know, corporate Canada decided to, hey, we want to cash in on this too. And so they became a major competitor and they got deeper pockets. I can't remember where athletes worked. What company owns Athletes World, but, but it's like, you know, deep pockets, you know, and then you got the Internet, you got Alibaba, you got all these things that were coming at me. And so I'm 24 years old, and I find that the business now is negative. A million bucks I owe all these people, and there's no money and people are, are stealing, and it's just a pure mess. And so I said to myself, I gotta, I gotta do something here, right? I got. Or else, you know, I'm gonna just end up working back as a dishwasher, you know. So I started reading. I started, you know, I went to. I remember going to Chapters, walking to Chapters, and I'm like, where's the business section? Right? And there's a business section. And then looking at all these books, and I saw this one book, rich dad, Poor dad, and I started reading. I started reading, and it's almost like the same moment when I figured out how to watch cartoons and make money at the same time. I'm like, okay, there's a method to this. There's a reason why I'm in this situation. And so I started reading more and educating myself more and, you know, getting into mindset, reading about other wealthy people. And the common thread amongst all the wealthiest people in the world was that they all own real estate. And so I made a decision that I will never, ever be in that position ever again. And I was going to rebuild my company. So I went back to work, I rolled up my sleeves, and I went back to work to rebuild my company. But this time it was going to be different. This time I was going to have a second stream of income that was indestructible. So if competitors ever came again, or maybe, maybe in the future, no one wears clothes, you know, I was, I was going to be okay because at the, at the end of the day, people always need to live somewhere. And so for me, real estate, specifically multifamily, became this secondary stream that I was building. So by the time I got to 30, where I sold my company, I had built my real estate portfolio. And, you know, I didn't have to work another day in my life. And so at that point, I'm 30 years old, I'm, I'm, I'll be, I'll be 48 in about a month. So 30 years old, I'm like, okay, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? And so what I wanted to do is help as many people as possible achieve financial freedom through real estate. Because at that point, at 30 years old, I did it right. I didn't have to work another day in my life. I had all of my time back, very similar to being 12 years old. And I figured out how to get my time back and you know, watch cartoons and make money. That's kind of what I figured out at 30 years old, how to do that with real estate. And so I wanted to teach people that. Right. I was so passionate. I'm not a speaker, I mean I was not a trainer, but I was so passionate, passionate and obsessed over, over the subject matter that it just oozes out of my body. And people get it, they get the importance of building some of these streams of income that even though they have a job, at some point these things are going to be there to back them up. And so I became known in the industry for real estate. I've trained thousands of people since then and created thousands of millionaires through real estate. And so at some point other companies started to hire me to do training for, for their, like real estate training for their, for their students. And I was happy, you know, that I was being flown all over the, you know, all over Canada and the US first class, everything, and everything was good. And then Covid happened and all of those events went away and I thought, okay, what am I going to do? Well, I started Wealth Genius at that point in time. And so it was going to be a tight knit community, like minded people and we wanted to teach the strategies that we're working now. We, you know, in real estate, in this educational space, there's so much to learn. People get so confused. I like to focus on certain things, strategies that work like multifamily. And so that's what I did, you know, I did that, you know, from the very beginning. And you know, from COVID till now, we've grown the community. It's a member based community so people have to have a membership, but 1500 members right now across.

Wow, that's pretty awesome. Awesome. So I've had the pleasure, pleasure to join Alfonso at some of his, some of his events, you know, even before I go there, always watching that you are working harder than everybody else in this space. You know, I need to see you going from city to city, bringing your knowledge and your wisdom to everybody. I don't know how know how you, but I do see your commitment to supporting this space and it's, it's admirable to be honest. And I've had leisure to be at some of Alfonso's events and they put on a fantastic event. It's always got huge impact. Sharing lots of knowledge and experience. The community is incredible. So kudos friend. Knowing that you've built business and which I would also you is what maybe the fa. The fastest in real estate education platform.

I think, I think we pretty much took a lot of market share. Look this what happened Covid. Everyone shut down and everyone went, went online. Everybody went virtual. Everybody was happy because virtual, you know, as you know, there's, there's no expenses, right. And the second the lights were turned back on, I know because I've been doing this for a very long time. I know how impactful and how important the belly to belly connection is. And so I went in person the way I think it's like, whoa, okay, we're, we, we are new here and so let's run before other people start coming. Because I've, I had this feeling like, oh my God, everyone's going to come back to, to in person. Turns out everybody stayed virtual and I was able to take market share and you know, in terms of what we do in, in this space, I think we're it. Right? We're, we're it. And if, if someone out there disagrees, I'm willing to hear the argument. You know, every day, every day there's, there's new people, there's new gurus, there's, you know, I'm trying to remember what this guy's name or Mozi, is it Ormozi? What's his name?

Alex. Yeah, Alex or Mozi.

He, you know, he put out this massive campaign to get all these people to become gurus, right? So everybody and their grandmother think about the, the amount of gurus because he's doing well, right? He's creating other educators, right. And it's, it's fantastic. And so people ask me all the time, aren't you afraid of all of these educational companies, you know, popping up? I'm like, not really, because they cannot work me.

Right, right. I can vouch for that. I see, I see you doing the grind, my friend. It's, it's definitely an impressive. I want to pick your brain for a minute. You know, we've got you, you've you're, you've got maybe one of the largest, if not the largest real estate, real estate platform in North America. Uh, so congrats for that. But now that we have you, what are some things that it would share with someone who wants to get into real estate investing? So I've got a couple areas for you and maybe I can jump through. First one, what would you look at as a smart strategy for building a diverse real estate portfolio? Where would you start?

I would not go to diversity in strategies, but I would, I would go deep on a strategy and diversify myself through markets. Yeah, that, that's, that's what I do. Right. I looked at all these things, you know, 20, 25 plus years ago when I was transitioning from being, being in business to a full time real estate investor. I studied on what the wealthy were doing. The wealthy are not buying triplexes and duplexes, they're buying significant larger commercial assets. That's, that's what the wealthiest families have. Hotels, retail, office, industrial storage, multifamily. So if you look at the wealthiest people in the world, they own real estate in one of these sectors. Now when you look at the average person that's just getting started, all of these, out of all of them that I just described, they will be impacted during economic uncertainty, except for multifamily. And so multifamily just happens to be this asset class that because of the nature of what it is, you're getting commercial financing so it's easier to finance. You're buying a building which comes with a caretaker and a property manager and an asset manager. You know, it's almost like you have a little business, a little franchise, if you will. Right?

Yeah.

And the, when you tap into economies of scale where you have more money coming in to pay more of those expenses, now things make sense. And so, you know, if someone's getting started, I would say a lot of people spend a lot of time playing small. And what happens is that, you know, okay, you take your time and you build up your confidence, but, but you waste a lot of time with the wrong properties. And so there's nothing wrong with getting the education first and making a jump into multifamily. I have lots of, I have lots of students that have skipped the duplex and triplex and have gone to a 4 plex, have gone to a 6 plex, I've gone to a 10 plex. And so if I was starting over from the very beginning, I would have leveled up faster because I felt I spent a lot of time in My career at the beginning, playing small, scared. And it's mostly because, you know, lack of education. Right. So the education will give you the confidence to take the action. And so once you find your asset class. So mine was multifamily. Now I'm going deep on multifamily and I'm going to be obsessed. You got to have an obsession with over it and you got to be willing to put in the time to learn just the same. The same way someone's going to learn Airbnb or flipping or wholesaling. There's lots of other strategies and they're all great. So choose one. I chose the safest one. And you go deep, right? And maybe you got to, you got to partner up with other people to learn. And maybe you got to, you know, you got to join organizations like Wealth Genius to make sure that you're surrounded around people that are like minded and they're doing the same thing that you're trying to do. I've got to meet a person that was obsessed, that was focused and determined on achieving something that didn't get it, that didn't achieve it. I've yet to meet a person, Bob. I've yet to meet a person that was completely obsessed and determined to do something and didn't do it. The problem is that people get into something and then they get into something else. And what about this and what about that? Maybe I can become a Realtor and then maybe I can become a mortgage broker, maybe this and that, the other. And so their energy gets spread out over multiple different things and they never give that one thing the full attention it deserves. But if you can, if you can go into one strategy, build systems and, and you know, you can diversify yourself through multiple ways of doing that one strategy and through multiple different markets across Canada and maybe diversify into the U.S. that's what I would do.

Yeah. Let's talk about market conditions, interest rates, how that all plays in now. Cause I think you said at the beginning, hey, you know, life is, life is good, interesting. You know, what does that mean for someone who's looked to get into real estate right now? How is the economic situation? Is now a time people should, people should be looking.

Now is absolutely the time to get into real estate. People tend to want to do things when everybody else wants to do them. And Warren Buffett said, when people are greedy, you should be fearful, and when people are fearful, you should be greedy. And so when the, you know, we had 20, 21 and everybody and their grandmother was a real estate Genius emotions get involved and FOMO kicks in and people make dumb decisions, right. And they hoping that things are going to increase in value. You know, they become speculators. Right. So the multifamily game is not a speculation game, it's a numbers game. And so interest rates have an impact on it. But we also, before we even buy our real estate, we're going to stress test our own deals. Right. What I love about real estate multifamily is that the overnight rate bank of Canada doesn't really impact us as much as the bond market, the cmb, the Canadian mortgage bond, because that's how they fix rates for commercial real estate. And so the beauty about commercial real estate is that you're going to pay the lowest interest rates, longer amortization. So that means that the, the properties are going to cash flow more smaller loan to values. The, the person that you're buying the property from is also an investor. And so where we are in the market right now is actually an incredible time to, to, to get into real estate. We are currently going through the biggest wealth transfer in human history. $124 trillion is, is set to change hands in the upcoming years primarily because these baby are retiring. They're, you know, they're retiring businesses, they're, you know, they're leaving real estate and portfolios and unfortunately, you know, they're exiting life. And so that opportunity has never been greater. And so there's a lot of mom and pop operations that bought really apartment buildings a long time ago. And the, the next generation really has no interest in owning any type of real estate. They there's right now in my inbox you have multiple different families that are selling their properties, you know, $0.50 on the dollar. And so right now is that time, right? There's you know, maybe in 2026, you know, when interest rates get really low and everybody and their grandmother wants to be a real estate investor again, it might not be the time. Right. So you have this little window of opportunity right now where you know, people are motivated and interest rates are relatively low where you can still go in and negotiate and pick up a lot of these great portfolios that you probably won't get another chance to look at ever again.

Yeah, and I'll, I'll just chime in too from the finance perspective as, as well to say, you know, a lot of these things work together, you guys, right? Like interest rates has an impact not only, only just it's more attractive, but you have to realize when it becomes more attractive, interest rates are Dropping rates are dropping usually means prices go up as well. So there tends to always be this balance. And one of the drivers of a lower interest rate is that continue to rise probably 3, 3 to 4% for every quarter point. We're anticipating more. And Alphonso, if I'm hearing you right, which I believe I am, you know, the market is primed, interest rates are heading in the right direction. Get ready for the opportunities because they're out there right now and they're going to continue to be there next at least 12 months. Months from what we. From an economic perspective. Perspective.

Don't take your photo. Gas pedal.

That's it? Yeah, that's it. Can you like maybe share some secrets that you have for the long sustainability and success? Because it's definitely, you know, there's for sure. That's a, it's a strategy that rates shorter term or ter term. What's the to long term sustainability?

Yeah, so I only focus on the long term. Right. So, you know, when I, when I'm investing, I'm not investing based on what's happening in the, in the market today. I look at what is this asset going to look like over the next, you know, 30, 40, 50 years in my portfolio? Even further than that. How is this going to look like when I'm no longer here and my family, my kids and my grandkids are having to take on this portfolio? Right. So those are the things I think about. I don't think about what I'm doing today. I think in the long run. And so the beauty about multifamily is most people, they focus on cash flow, right. And I see people walk around, cash flow is king. And you know, people have T shirts, you know, cash flow. And everybody's running around cash flow. Yes. I like, everybody likes a little cash flow and everything, everything should cash flow. But cash flow is also taxable. And so the way I look at an apartment building, it's like we're going to plant our equity and at some point in the future there's going to be harvest. And so what people don't consider is the other profit centers within an apartment building. You got mortgage pay down, you got natural appreciation, you got forced appreciation, you got depreciation. So what's happening is that there's other things that are operating in the background that most people don't, don't consider. So when they look at the cash flow of the, of an apartment building, you're like, wow, what is this? You know, how many of these do I have to own to Replace my income? Yeah. So that's shortsighted, right? That's like people that want instant gratification. Right. And so, you know, if you compare from a cash flow perspective, you're kind, you're, you're really going to be, you know, you're going to be surprised. Right? But the objective of the investor is that now we get to improve our property because the value of an apartment building is based on the income and expenses. So income minus expenses give you, gives you your net operating income. And that's how apartment buildings are evaluated. And so when you improve that net operating income, you instantly create value. And so your job through the first five years is to manage that property. Well, first of all, you got to stabilize it, then you got to optimize it, then you got to maximize it. And so over the five years, you've increased the rents, reduced the expenses. Now there's going to be a harvest. So at the beginning you plant your equity. Now five years later, there's going to be a harvest where you've created forced appreciation. There's been natural appreciation, that's just an offset of the inflation. And then there's been significant mortgage pay down. Now as an investor, you're going to go back and you're going to refi, refinance your property. You're going to pull out money tax free. And to me, tax free money is better than cash flow, taxable money, right? So most people forget that this happens with every single piece of real estate. But with multifamily, it happens at scale because now you're tapping into the multiplication factor of, you know, any, a small increase over 60 units has a dramatic impact on the value you've created. So that small seed of equity that you planted on day one, five years later, you may be pulling out 800,000 tax free. And so your job now is to make sure you invest back into the property a little bit. Make sure you don't want to kill your golden goose. You want to make sure it's nice and eats well and it does well. You want to nourish it like a mother and protect it like a father. And then you take the rest for you and maybe go back and reinvest it somewhere else and start the process again, plant another seed of equity which now is going to produce five years later. So the reason why that's so simple and most people don't pay attention to it is because it's not instant. I mean, the, the HGTV makes it, you know, makes flipping look so good. I mean, within a 20 minute episode. You can make 100k, right?

Yeah, every time.

Every time. It works exactly like every time. And so for me, I want to build wealth slowly but surely. I want to, I want, I want to make sure I'm in the right markets. Calculated risks. We always are looking at our exposure to risk. We're looking at, you know, the next asset and I'm looking at what is these assets going to look like in my portfolio when I'm no longer here?

Well, you just got everybody a little, a little bit excited about really. Tell me, tell me a little bit about your wealth Genius Expand event. And so again I, I mentioned I've had the pleasure to be there. I was there at Expand last year. Tell us where it is, when it is his. How can people get there?

First of all, it comes from my philosophy of expansion. Okay. Because the way I've been able to grow all of my companies and everything I've done, it comes from this philosophy of expansion. No matter what the goal is, you can always expand on the goal you want to be. Get to a position where you're consistently uncomfortable, you're consistently expanding. If you're not expanding, you're contracting and if you're contracting, you're dying. It's like a plant, if a plant's not growing, it's dying. And so I have this belief and this drive that everything needs to be in expansion mode. And that's where expand comes from. Because expand is your opportunity to now take your business to the next level. That's how everything starts, through expansion. And so this Expand Investor conference, it's our eighth edition, so this will be our eighth Expand Conference. We've done it in multiple different cities. You know, investors fly in from all over North America, all over North America as speakers. We've got over 60 different presenters that will present over, over that weekend. We have over a hundred different vendors. And it's just a, it's been like this conference that really doesn't require millions of dollars in marketing. And you know, we, we don't need to bring like a grant cardone and all these, all these people because people are going there for the experience of the conference, not just the, the, the headliners or whatever. And we, we bring, we bring some of the best investors, speakers, trainers, business coaches. You know, you'll be, you'll be on our stage, but people are also going there to, to build connections. They're, they're going there to build their businesses, they're going there to take their businesses to the next level. And so that's why we're so proud of Expand. And this time it's going to be in Mississauga, the Lux Convention center in the Hyatt. And we're excited. October 31st, November 1st and 2. And if you're not there, you're square.

Yeah. And, and one always put on a great event. You're constantly educating. You know, I would say that's one of the reasons why you've, why you've had so much succinctly giving value to your community. And for anyone listening who's interested in estate, you definitely, definitely wanted this out. Alfonso, where can people both find information about the event?

Okay, so the all you got to do is either go to Eventbrite and type in Expand Investor Conference Mississauga or you come to our website, go to WealthGenius AI forward slash expand or WealthGenius AI. You go to one of the tabs Expand. You get all the info.

Yeah. And we'll include everything in here, here as well on the podcast and any of the farms with the links. We'll make sure that we, that we share it out as well. Finally, a big supporter of order of, of what you're building and what you guys are creating creating and the education that you're the community happy to be part of that process as well. So definitely that, that everyone who's listening if real is something that you're, you're currently doing better at it or it's something, something that you want to into as a way, way to create long term success for you and your, you and your family. You're at this event and if you can't make, make the next one, you know, make sure they're wealth genius as well. They do a lot of great things. Last thing that I just, just want to get from you, I know giving back, barring the next generation is so important important to you, is it that you are focused on giving back? What are some of the things that you do and why is, and why is it?

Well, there's something so powerful about the words that we use and someone really challenged me on the word and I want to do the same for you. Just to give you some something to think about. I used to say give back, give back, give back. And then someone said, alfonso, we got to use the proper words because give back means that you've taken something that doesn't belong to you. You're just giving. And so something to think about. Right? Because it's. We don't know where, we don't know where these words come From, But I want to give of myself, I want to give of my experiences. I want to help other people achieve great things in their life. I want to help other people tap into more of their potential so you can create more, become more, do more. And so one of the things that impacted me is learning about finances, learning about investing, learning about business. And so I am passionate about teaching other people financial literacy because I felt that I didn't have that. And so back in 2006, 2007, I started going into the schools and educating young people on credit, buying real estate, entrepreneurship, all this stuff. And I felt such resistance and I couldn't understand why. And I remember being in a, in a boardroom with all these, with the school board and having these meetings. I'm like, guys, like, let's figure out how to get an auditorium full of young people where we can teach in financial literacy. Well, that's not the mandate, but we'd love for you, Alfonso, to come and speak to our at risk youth. You would be great for our at risk youth. And I said, guys, I'm sorry, I just have a question. Who do you consider to be at risk? Oh, people in the inner city and, you know, these type of marginalized groups. And I'm like, all young people right now are at risk because the world is changing faster than the how they're being taught and what the education, educational system can offer at this point in time. And so I remember being so frustrated and I thought, someone should do something about this. And then I realized that maybe should, that should be me, right? And so back in 2015, we started the Quadrant Youth foundation with the mandate of teaching financial liter to young people globally. We want to impact a million young people's lives between the ages of 12 to 17 and put them through our program. Currently, we have put 7,500 kids through our program. You know, that mission has extended to other countries, developing nations. We went to the Dominican Republic, we went into the schools, we brought school supplies, and recently we started working with Tara from Freedom Tree. And we brought, we did an incredible financial literacy event in Sierra Leone, Africa. And along with that, we're building a school in Africa. So all of that giving, all of that giving has resulted in young people's lives being changed. And you know, some of these young people's, the businesses that they've started, it's been incredible and so fulfilling.

Love that. That is super awesome. And the Iing not giving back, but giving is definitely extremely powerful for everybody. You know, there's, there's not much that makes feel relevant and valuable in what you do is when you're giving to others. It, it, it it's thing. So congratulations to. Listen Alfonso, this has been amazing. I want to continue to push everybody to make sure that they're at Wealth Genius October 1, November 2 in Mississippi. Yeah and I will make all the links are here. Thank you friend for sharing your your genius with every here and want make sure that everyone has all of the links for you and how to connect with you and we'll make sure that anyone who wants part of the mission that you're on that they are. Thank you again.

Can't wait to see you on stage because you bring so much value my friend is it's. It's so incredible. One of the things that I love about what you do is that you remind real estate investors that they're still in a business. Right? A lot of people that get into real estate, you know they, they have this idea that, you know, there's just kind of a sideline thing but you're actually in a business and you, you have a business and you need to treat it like a business and so you, you bring that aspect to it and your presentation is incredible. So I can't wait for the people that haven't seen you yet to come and see you@Expand. October 31, November 1and 2Mississauga. Get your ticks, get your tickets, be there or be square.

Everybody, this is my friend Al FA Quadra. Thank you. My friends, this has been the wealthy entrepreneur. We are here to empower our entrepreneurs with informed financial information so that you guys can make decisions. Because I truly believe entrepreneurship is the most positive, positive energy of energy and shift positive change in the world. So we are here to support you along that journey. I'm Govro. It is always a pleasure, always a pleasure to have you here. You have any comments, questions, drop it in here. We'll make sure that we get back to back to you make follow. We release a new episode new episode every and I would love to see your smiling face smiling face of this podcast next time and thank you for joining us today as today with Mike Alfonso here and look forward to seeing you guys again next time.