Multi-millionaire explains how to make 8 figures a year with Edwin Carrion

I'm like, Frank, how do I get to building $10, $20, $30, $40 million homes? And he told me a very simple answer. He's like, all you have to do, just add another zero at the end. And it was just that.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Multifamily Strategy. I'm your host, Christian Osgood. Today, joined by Edwin Carrion. This guy is very recently just showing up all over my media with his company, a startup. 365. I want to talk about that. We're of course going to go into real estate, but really, really excited to have you on, Edwin. Thanks for joining us, Christian.

Thank you for having me. And to everybody listening, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever part of the world you're listening. Get ready for another amazing show with Christian Osgood.

Edwin, so good having you on. I love adding some context because I think a lot of people have seen you online. You have a, you have a fairly sizable following. So I do believe a lot of people have an idea of where you're at today, and we're absolutely going to get into it. First question I have for you: where did you start? Before the companies, before the real estate, what was the starting point for Edwin?

Um, the starting point for Edwin, it's, uh, a humble kid from Ecuador that migrated to the United States at 12 years old, raised by a single mother. From a poor family and having that need to become successful. And that's where everything started.

It is amazing to me how many people start their story with, I immigrated to America. There is an assumption, especially in real estate, they're like, oh, well, it must be nice to be rich. Of people on this podcast, I think 2 of the last 15 people actually started with some money, which, by the way, you're allowed to do. I think most of us want our kids to inherit some wealth. There's nothing wrong with starting ahead. Majority of people who make it, our starting point is not multimillion dollars. It's not, hey, I was born here in a huge house. So, kid from Ecuador, single mother, when did you get started in business? Like, what was your first ever business opportunity?

Okay, so let's not call it a business. Let's call it my first hustle, right? Well, I always tell people, people think that they have a business, but it's not really a business until it runs by itself. So let's go back and I call it a hustle. Let's start with my first hustle. And my first hustle was when I was 14 years old, that we live in an apartment building and the beeper just kind of came out and it was the new hottest thing in town. And I wanted to get one of those. But again, living with a single mother that had to raise 2 kids on her own, and it sounds like the Tupac song, right? I'm like, I need to figure out how to make some money so I could buy the things that I want. So what did I do? I looked around and then I saw a bunch of cars in the parking lot. I'm like, huh, there you go, I could solve a problem and it's wash cars. So talk to a good friend of mine and I told him, let's go knock on doors and let's go wash cars. And sure enough, that's how we got started and quickly got to the point that I had more cars to wash than I could handle on my own. So right there, really early on, I learned the power of delegating, meaning that I hired another friend of mine to wash the cars. We split the profits and I became like a sales guy, go knocking on doors, asking for people, neighbors to wash their cars. And I had my friends washing their cars. And I could say that was my first, first ever hustle.

That's amazing. And you do that at 14. So I think we're going to see as we get through this podcast, Some people stumble into being an entrepreneur. It sounds like you're a naturally born entrepreneur from the beginning. You're like, hey, I could see what needs to happen. We'll bring on the staff. We can scale. I love this. How big did your 14-year-old car washing operation— how big did that get? Was it just you and a buddy? Did you end up hiring more people? Where did that adventure end?

No, it didn't last that long. I hired like 3 friends. I think it was in total like 3 friends. That I hired in total. And then that was it. After that, it died because I went to get my first real job. And I worked as a bag boy for Winn-Dixie, which is one of the grocery stores in Miami at that time. And that was like my first real job working part-time on the weekends and getting paid per hour. And I got to learn a lot of things there. And what the biggest lesson that I got from there, I could tell you that You know, customer service is the key to everything, building those relationships. And what I mean by building those relationships was that I started building relationships with the customers. So when they used to come on the weekends, they wanted me to take care of them. And every time I used to take care of them and walk them out there with their groceries, they'll give me a good tip. Sometimes it was even more than I will make on an hourly basis. But I think that kind of ingrained in me always be good to people, always take care of people, and always build that relationship.

How did you take the skills from customer service as a bag boy and apply that into business later in life? I think a lot of people are stuck in a 9-to-5 or you're in an entry-level job, especially young people, and they're like, I don't see the path forward. And what I believe is that you need to focus on building your skills. It sounds like you found the skill to build as a bag boy. How did that play out later in life?

Played out amazingly because that's one of the things that I truly live by. It's, and I try to teach people, is don't sell anything, build a relationship. People want to work with people that they like. People want to work with people that give them value without having to ask anything in return. And so become a person of value. And to me, that has helped me tremendously because building that relationship might not have gotten me the client that I wanted at the moment, might not have gotten me the investor that I needed at the moment. But years down the road, that person either became a business partner, became an investor, or became one of my best referrals that I could ever have for customers. Because now you become so— you build such a good relationship with them that now they tell whenever somebody needs something and you're that person that could provide, solve that need, they think of you and they're going to say, you know what, go to Edwin. Edwin could do this for you and he's the right person for that. And the other one is, don't build relationships with people that you think you're going to get something from them. To me, one of the biggest things has been that while I was growing in my career and in my wealth, I met people that were, you know, at the bottom and I built good relationships with them. With 5, 10 years down the road, they're at a certain level that now they're going to be such, such much, but they're going to bring so much more value to you that is tremendous. Value that you get from them.

Well, and when we apply this to real estate, I— something I say all the time— they're owners, not sellers. And I think that's basically what you're saying here, is it's not, hey, I want to get something from them. I think a lot of people in transactions, I hear the terminology all the time, well, I'm looking for sellers, I'm trying to find someone who's going to sell. Meet with people who own real estate and be around with people who own real estate. You'll find real estate. I found that true in business as well. Everything that you want, someone else has. That is, if you go after their thing, they are not going to want to have a relationship with you. It's not— you might get a transaction if you go after a deal, but if you go after a relationship and you actually invest in that person and they invest in you, it could be multiple deals. It could just be another person that they know. When you get connected, other players of the game will deal you in. You add value to them, they add value to you, and it's organic. If you go after a transaction, if you think of an owner as a seller, Uh, you're not playing the game right. I think you learned that from the beginning. Treat everyone with the highest level of service. Don't go after what they have. Just add people to your universe and you will progress.

Yes, definitely.

Talk to me a little bit about the different businesses that you've been a part of, because you've done multiple. You're not just a real estate guy. You are a, you are a business entrepreneur. What have you been involved in over the years?

You know, I, I've been very, very fortunate enough, uh, to be a jack of all trades, master of none, right? And I embrace that a lot. And I've been in the car washing business when I started. Then after that, I got into the DJ business and I love that business. Then from there on, I got into real estate development, which it's been an amazing business. And that one I could call my wealth creation vehicle. I was in the jewelry business. And I was able to build a great company, sell the great company, and exit and retire really early on. From there on, I went back into real estate development and I was able to buy a transportation company. And that's my cash flow vehicle. And, you know, do some type of investments and be able to be diversified. But the last thing, which is one of my passions right now, which is to be able to teach everything that I have learned over this past 20-plus years in business and failures through success and help entrepreneurs achieve the same level of success that I have achieved by teaching them all the strategies and all the techniques that I use day in and day out in all the businesses that I do.

The purpose of this podcast is to meet with owners. It's not just owners of real estate. We have a huge leaning on that being multifamily strategy. However, it's meeting with owners who have done things and it's learning. I think the mistakes are often even more powerful than the things that they did right. But learn from people what works and what doesn't and emulate it. There's mistakes that I made in real estate, even on deals where— I mean, we have deals where we made $1 million, but we could have made another $300,000, $400,000 had we just structured our debt this much differently. You make these little mistakes and they can be really costly. I love that there's a lot of people do have this passion for teaching, but I love it when it's paired with actual real-world experience. You've been through a lot. Are there any major takeaways that just immediately come to mind where you're like, "Boy," I call it the stupid tax, but it's where it's like, "I didn't know this. And had I known this, this would have saved me so much money or so much headache." Were there any lessons in any of these businesses that immediately jump to mind where it's like, "Boy, had I done this differently, world's a difference"?

I think in all of them, and I'm still learning after 22+ years in business, I'm still learning. I'm still making mistakes. And I think it's part of life, right? But the good thing now is that the mistakes that I make, they're not so big because of the mentors that I have in my life. But just going back to a recent one, I think the biggest one that we have to look for is always to make sure that we find the right business partner. And once we think we find the right business partner, is making sure that we do the right due diligence on them to understand that they're being completely transparent and 100% honest with us. Because we all make mistakes, you know, we all have done things that we weren't supposed to do or things that we thought they were right but they were wrong. But the most important thing is like when you find that person that you want to do business with, do you know everything from them so like that you don't get dragged on into other problems because of that person. And that just recently happened to me by partnering up with somebody that wasn't doing the right things that I thought I got most of the story but I never really checked out their story, their background. So it's important that when you're going to marry somebody in business, make sure you do your whole due diligence, you know their whole family, and you have the right documents to be able to protect yourself in case something happens.

That happens in almost every partnership, and that is one of the most common things that gets brought up on this podcast. I know I've had amazing partnerships. I do a lot through joint ventures, so I have a lot of partnerships, and the partnerships that don't work out, are incredibly stressful. They can be incredibly expensive, and it's just— it is the worst. People are variables, and in a business where I like to have as few variables as possible, it is really, really important that you find the right people. Are there any tips that you have on what makes a good partner and how you can avoid the wrong partnerships?

I think the most important thing is, number one, make sure they're aligned with your values and your beliefs.. And I think to me, that has been like one of the biggest ones. Make sure they're aligned with your values and your beliefs. And then from there on, make sure that they're fully transparent and you check out, you do a little bit of due diligence on what they're telling you. If they're telling you that they retired because they made millions, then figure out that it is the truth. You know, if they tell you that they went to school and they got a bachelor's degree in business, make sure you check that out. You know, there's nothing wrong with that. And if they get offended because of that, then that means they're not the right person because Nobody should be ashamed of somebody checking out what you have accomplished and what you have done, whether it's good or bad.

Absolutely. Transparency is huge. And I'll add to that, I think that setting the goals of the LLC, actually knowing like, hey, we are going the same direction, we have a set path. Like the goal of this company is to get to X together. We're not going to renegotiate anything unless we have a major problem until we get there. And once we get there, I always have a meeting. Like, say it was to build a 100-unit portfolio with one person. We have a meeting once we hit 100 instead of just continuing to do business. Hey, we hit our goal. Do we want to keep buying together? Do we want to trade any pieces around? Having set targets and review periods when you get there, that's been massively, massively helpful for me. If you're wandering in one direction, someone eventually— for those who aren't watching this on YouTube, for you podcast people, I'm pointing two different directions. Someone points, someone goes this way, the other person's pulling this way, the LLC gets pulled all over the place. You never hit the goal. Everyone ends up frustrated. And usually both people have reasonable reasons to be upset with each other. It just doesn't go the way that you wanted.

And to add on that, you're very right about that. To add on that is what happens is that when you start with somebody, a lot of times maybe that person never sees that have never seen or experienced that same level of success that he's going to experience in the future. And when they get to the next level of success, maybe that's too much for him and then things change because you hear the saying a lot of times, you know, people— money doesn't change people, it just exemplifies the type of person they are. So, you know, if they're greedy and they're stingy, you know, they're going to be worse the more money that they have because it's exemplifying the type of person that they are. And it changes. And it happened to me in one of my real estate businesses that I had a great friend of mine, very humble, very cool, but the moment we made a lot of money, like, that person changed completely. And we had to cut off the business relationship at the time because of that because, you know, he became greedy, he became stingy, and his values and morals changed and they weren't aligned anymore.

I had that happen. I also don't think people should partner with friends and family. That's a personal belief. One of my early partners was one of the people who was a groomsman in my wedding. We introduced money into that relationship and values did not align. I managed the deal. They didn't do anything, but we tripled their money in 2 years, which I think is pretty darn good.

Not bad.

They immediately, immediately after we sold that deal, pushed to try to go into legal proceedings to try to extract more money from the other partners because they felt that they were owed more. Get this, you're a real estate guy, you get how insane this is. He wanted me to pay him for every month the unrenovated units were vacant because he didn't want to do capital contributions. His argument was, well, I let you manage it, so it's your fault that we didn't make even more money. I want you to reimburse me all of the missing rent for vacancy. Now, if you're aware of a property management company that guarantees zero vacancy and will pay you, I am, uh, please sign me up. But that is not in my contract. So I ran into that. Like, I mean, that's— it's a bummer because it's a friendship, right?

And it is.

That friendship was awesome until we introduced money. So my lesson here, for me, money will change your relationship. I've seen it make people closer. I've seen it tear people apart. But if you have a relationship that you're not willing to change, don't introduce money to it. Family and friends, if you're not willing to change it, don't risk it because that was a fail for me. I'm sorry you go through— you're going through partnership struggles too. They're never fun. I think people have more stress for me than money. When the relationship's strained, that hurts more than a monetary thing. Do you agree?

Oh, it does. It does, definitely, definitely, because with time I think you learn that, you know, money is not everything. You know, it's the other things that you're able to do because of it. But at the same time, you know, as a person, depending what kind of values, what kind of morals you have, you value relationships, you value people, you value other things a lot more than money.

Absolutely, absolutely. There's a point, especially in the beginning, where usually money is quite important. When you're getting rolling, it takes time to get cash flows up. But you hit a certain point, I find, fairly early in a business cycle where you're like, okay, we're profitable, we're sustainable. Uh, the money is easier to come and go. The people— everyone's unique. You lose a relationship, that relationship is never the same again. Um, they have a lot of— they have a lot of value. Speaking of, with real estate transactions, with deals, tell us a little bit about your real estate business. You said that's where you build the wealth. Talk to us about that.

Yes, yes. So, on building the wealth, the good thing is that a few years ago, I realized that you have to give meaning to the things that you do, right? And to me, I realized that real estate, you know, even though it's one of my passions, it's my wealth creation vehicle because that's where I continue creating the wealth in real estate and investing in businesses as well and entrepreneurs. But as far as real estate, I love because I'm building the American dream. I think everybody dreams of owning their own home. And right now, I have the luxury of building. I'm a developer, a real estate developer. I build high-end luxury single-family homes. And to me, it's building the American dream. It's building that dream house that people dreamed of and putting like the best finishings on the house and creating this amazing product. And what it does to me, not only does it give me that feeling of fulfillment, but also it continues creating my wealth because real estate, a lot of people create a lot of wealth in real estate. And to me, that has been my niche. Real estate development.

Now, going back to the very beginning in your car washing business, you immediately figured out, hey, I— my skills are bringing on new business. And you were able to— you mentioned you were very good at being able to delegate and put the people together. What does your role look like in the development company? Like, how did— how did that start? What do you do in the day-to-day in this company?

My role is being visionary, meaning that putting the project together What are we going to do? How we're going to do it? How we're going to execute it? And bringing the money on it in order to be able to be executed. So, for example, just a quick rundown, like right now my next project is going to be a $12 million single-family house. So, it's kind of going through the phases. Okay, this is what we're going to build, $12 million. What do we need to do now? And then running down through the A through Z. We need the land, we need the architect, we need the design. How big is the house going to be? How do I want it to feel like? So, if I'm building a $12 million house, I have to start looking at houses that are worth $20 million to see what they have so I could bring that in and add that value to a $12 million home.

And that is so fun. How do you— how does one scale to building $12 million homes? I— my, my instinct is the first development you did wasn't a $12 million home. Uh, no. How do you get— how do you get started in, in building homes? And how do you get to, you know, we're building a, a a home for $12 million that looks like a $20 million home. That is an insane level to play in single family. That is insane. Where do you start on that adventure?

Well, I think to put it like in very simple terms and, you know, another real estate developer that he builds like $50 to $100 million homes told me once and I met him and I had the opportunity of meeting him and spending time with him. I'm like, Frank, how do I get to building $10, $20, $30, $40 million homes? And he told me a very simple answer. He's like, all you have to do, just add another zero at the end. And it was just that. And from there, you know, it's like we limit ourselves with so many things in our life. Like, how do we take our business from $100,000 to $1 million? All we need to do is just add another zero at the end, right? That's how we do it. And what do we need to do? Then we'll figure it out what we need to do along the way. And it just kind of happened that way. But yeah, when I started in real estate development, I was building $200,000 homes. And then from there on, I went to the $400,000. And then from there, I went to the half a million dollar homes. And then I was going to start doing the multimillion dollar homes. And boom, the market crashed and I went bankrupt and I lost everything. And then when I started again, I started building the multimillion dollar homes and I started on the $2 million to the 4th, and now going to the 12th.

How long did it take you to do that progression from, hey, I'm starting with $200,000 homes to now I'm doing, you know, $10+ million homes? How many years did that real estate journey take to scale from one to the other?

Well, I've been in real estate for quite a while now, so I really started when I left the Marine Corps in 2002. So I've been doing real estate for 22 years now.

It's absolutely amazing. You said something there that it took me longer. So my first ever partner, his name is Cody Davis. I met him, he was 20 years old with 30 rental units, 3 buildings. I know for a fact he'd never earned any money because he was a broker in the office and had sold like one small deal. I'm like, how are you doing this without money? He's like, well, I wanted to buy single family and then I realized it doesn't make enough money to actually provide for me. So I started with the 12-plex. I was like, oh, So, I really resonate with that. I bought 2 duplexes. I got stuck. And then, my next deal was a 38. I was like, "How do you scale?" Add a zero. Now, important to note, your mistakes are amplified by an extra zero as well. I think experience— I think too many people add steps to get to where they want to go. And I think we're trained to do that from first to second to third to fourth to college to high school to job, whatever it is. High school to college. But as you're scaling, I think we add too many steps. You have to remember, where am I trying to go and what is the fewest steps that I can responsibly take from A to B and not add new steps? And you said the perfect thing, add a zero. You didn't go from $200,000 to $10 million. You went from $200,000 to $400,000, from $400,000 to $6 million. You had a progression, but over 20 years, You were always marching directly towards what you wanted to do, and now you got to do these crazy high-end luxury homes. Uh, do you even know how many homes you've built at this point? I mean, you do a lot of developing.

Yes, I, I think I've built a little bit over 100 homes in total in my whole career.

That's amazing. How does that feel to be 20 years in and to look back and be like, over 100 homes, and I'm doing like massive projects? How does that personally feel to have arrived there?

You know, it's a really good feeling, especially because I could go with my kids now and I drive by the first neighborhood that I started building and I could tell them, hey, this is the first house that your dad built. This is the second house that your dad built. And I could start looking at the first projects that I built. But as time went on, when I had my kids or when I was building, I could tell them the story that, you know what, if you ever buy that house,. And if you go to the master bedroom on the right corner and you lift up that tile, you're going to see my signature on the concrete floor. If you go to this house on the roof, if you lift up the roof shingles out of the roof tile, you're going to see my signature on the concrete roof. So there's little things that I left in every single house that I could go back and I could tell a story about where you could find my signature, or you could find a piece of me that I left behind.

I talk to so many real estate investors, and this is so disheartening. I will talk to people on this podcast, and you'll talk about their business, and they're like, "Oh yeah." "What is your goal?" "Well, I wanted to make more money." It's like, "Okay, but like, why?" "I don't even visit my flips. I just put systems in." There's a bunch of real estate people who don't love real estate, and it just blows their mind that I actually love the game. This is what it looks like to love the game, people. Every house, I remember where I signed it. You care about the projects you complete. You've done over 100 of them and you still care about the projects. That is when you found a real passion. Edwin is someone— that's what it feels like to love real estate. That makes me so happy to hear. I hate it when people are like, you know, real estate, I could take it or leave it. It makes money. I'm like, oh, come on. It's No. Have pride in your work.

And I think that's the wrong path, right? Thinking about the money, just focus on the money. And it happened to me. I think it happens to a lot of people. When you're at the beginning stages of a business, you know, you're concentrated on the money. But later on, you figure out that it's not about the money. It's about living the life that you truly want, fulfilling all your childhood dreams. And to me, real estate and the entrepreneurship world has provided that for me. Being able to really put a checkmark in everything of my bucket list so I have a really fulfilled life, meaning that, you know, have the cars, have the houses, travel, be a pilot, like all the things that I wanted in my life, like I have been checking them off. And I continue to doing that because as we continue growing, I keep adding little things on my bucket list. Like one of my big ones has always been to live in a foreign country with my family. And right now, you and I, that we're talking, I'm in Cali, Colombia. I'm living in South America. I just did the move last year and I'm living in a different country, experiencing a new culture, having fun, and still doing the things that I love to do.

That's amazing.

Cali, Colombia.

How are you liking it down there?

I love it. I think it's been such a blessing to be here and a great experience. My kids get to learn about their culture. Where her mom is from, where I'm from. I'm from Ecuador, but I'm talking about the Hispanic culture, right? They get to experience that. They get to be in an environment that is more family-oriented versus like in the United States, everybody's all about work, work, work. So it's more family-oriented here. There's beautiful scenery, so we get to go out and travel through here. And my wife and I started doing bike riding, mountain biking, and now we go up these crazy trails that you never thought I would go ever and go up these crazy hills and just have have fun and, and just enjoy this moment of my life now that I'm still young versus waiting for me to be 67 years old, retire, and then start traveling the world like a lot of people think.

Goals. Yeah, I think it's so important to hit your goals in a manner that actually makes sense. I think too many people have been sold on like, hey, you can do all the things you want to do when you're 60 and retired, and majority of them won't retire. And sadly, I, I rent to a lot of people. I, I do My specialty is fixing up entry-level housing so that it is affordably priced. We do it very repeatedly, but it's affordably priced housing that is way nicer than all of the other affordably priced housing around it. That is something that we're really passionate about. But a lot of people, a lot of people who rent from me are older at the end of their career. They may have a part of their payments, maybe from Social Security that they live off of. They never get to do the dreams that they had when they were in their 20s because they never set a timeline on it. They never pushed hard enough. And they found at the end of their life, they're like, I can afford a nice apartment in a city where I don't go on a lot of vacations. And it's sad. You've put together a goal and you hit it again and again and again, and you kept scaling. It's a question that someone asked me recently, and I don't— I still haven't come up with an answer for this. I'm curious if you have a good one for this. When you've hit success multiple times, there's like goal after goal after goal.

When is enough enough? I don't think there's never enough, right? And it depends what success means to you, because success means a lot of different things to everybody. To me, success, living my life, it means living my life on my terms, living my life by design, meaning that doing what I want to do. And it's not about financial success, having a lot of money. Because it was never on my mind to have $100 million, right? It was never on my mind. But in my mind was, this is the house that I want to have, these are the cars that I want to have, these are the things that I want to do, and focusing on those things. But when you ask me when is enough, I don't think it's never enough, especially if you're surrounded around the right people. And to me, I was very happy, and I always said, you know, let's think about 10 years ago, I said, you know what, I'm going to retire. When I retire, I'm going to retire and I'm going to have a 45-foot yacht. And to me, that was like my dream boat, my dream yacht. That's what I'm going to have. And sure enough, I buy a 50-foot yacht and I have a 50-foot yacht. And I'm enjoying my yacht. And one day, I get invited to go on my friend's yacht. And he has an 80-foot. And now the itch comes in that, wow, my 50-foot is too small. I need an 80-foot. So when isn't it enough? I don't think it's ever enough. It's just like, you know, when you get exposed to something that you were never exposed to, you get that itch that you want more, that you want that thing. And it's up to you if you want to go for it or not.

So is it safe to say what motivates you isn't isn't the money, and it's not, it's not the 80-foot yacht. It's the progression. It's moving forward towards the next thing. I'm sure you'd be just as happy with a 50-foot yacht as an 80-foot yacht. I, I'm sure your, your dopamine levels don't change significantly from one boat to another, but having this— no, definitely not. The pursuit of the next mission is what motivates you.

Yes, uh, that, but at the same time, we have to add What is that going to do in my life, right? So, and I'll tell you, on my 50-foot yacht, I'm able to create amazing experiences for my family. Those are moments that are going to be unforgettable for the rest of their lives. I'm able to network and bring friends and bring entrepreneurs to be able to inspire them to have those things, to be able to understand what it is to live that life. But at the same time, having that bigger one, now I'm able to impact more people. But now because People are going to be able to see that if I'm able to do something like that, everybody's able to do that. Why? Because when you start looking at me, you know, somebody that comes from very humble beginnings, somebody that is an immigrant, somebody that still has an accent when they speak English, and he's able to accomplish all those things, why can't you accomplish those things when you were born in a country of opportunities, on the land of opportunities, you were raised by good parents? And you could put any excuses you want, but you know, when you look at me and you try to compare that, then you're gonna see that you're able to do that as well.

[Speaker] I love this. My least favorite comment that I'll get on any YouTube video, on anywhere in social media is people go, oh, well it must be nice to have whatever starting point. It's like my starting point was I had no money and I was screen printing t-shirts for $11.50 an hour. I wasn't even screen printing, I was cleaning the screens. I was using the chemicals to clean 'em. You make your own opportunities no matter where you are.

You are—

and yes, in America specifically, for those listening here, we have more opportunity than a vast majority of the world. You actually have a lot of freedom to do the things you want to do. No matter where you're at though, you create the opportunities in front of you. A majority of people on this podcast, especially lately, English is not their first language. But they made some business in the US that has taken off. Most of us, real estate. Your ability to absorb information, network, be in your surroundings. I, I think you nailed it on the head, like your, your skill, service first, be around people, be a person worth being around, and then set clear goals and then just knock 'em out. I, I like the fact that it knows everything you said here. I want this car, this house, this boat, this square footage of boat. And it's not, I want this much money. It's what would I have to get to? How much money do I need or how much income do I need to be able to afford the thing that I want to do? That to me is a healthy relationship with money. I know where I'm headed. I just know what that thing costs. So now everything I'm doing is geared towards let's generate enough business to be able to do the thing I want to do.

This is gold. I think the one other thing that you need to add in there is to also embrace where you come from and who you are and your limitations. And I think the moment you start embracing those things, that's when you really become a real person, meaning like I embrace that I might not speak perfect English. But, you know, I'm happy with that. I'm happy with who I am. I embrace that. And I said it early on that I'm the jack of all trades, master of none. That means that that's why I was able to have multiple businesses because, you know, I wasn't just focused into real estate and said, you know, this is all I know how to do, that's all I'm going to do. It's like, no, I know a little bit about this, let me get into this and I'm going to make it happen. So embracing what we think, what our limitations are, and I think once we start embracing those limitations, it helps us kind of break through to the next level.

And it helps you focus on the things that you're strongest at. I see a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck at a really early break point where they want to be good at everything or understand everything. When you know the things that you're weak at, that's, that's where you introduce other people into your business. If you want to have a— and you defined it perfectly, by the way, a business is when it can be self-sustaining and it can operate and grow. It doesn't require you to be actively in the business every day to be a sustaining organism. When you are building your business, there's gonna be things that you suck at, and that's okay. You may be more creative, you may be a visionary, you may be really good at the details, but you, you're not great at figuring out where you're headed, whatever it is. If you can identify that limitation and add people to your universe, that's where you start hitting businesses that hit 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures. All of those require, in my opinion, a deeper self-knowledge of these are the things that I should be doing in my day. And these are the things that other people who are better at different tasks need to be doing for us to progress. I, I think that's absolutely genius. Wow. It's almost like you've thought this out. Um, and people should, uh, people should learn from you if someone wants to, to, because so much of what you said is just amazing mindset. And I think that's where it starts. I know you have the practical application and I, I, you'd mentioned that that is part of your coursework. How, how big is mindset?

It's a huge part of it because if you're trying to go to add the other zero, let's talk about how we talked at the beginning, right? To add the other zero. If you're trying to add the other zero, but you don't have that mindset for that, then you're never going to be able to get there. So if you're trying to get to $1 million, but you're afraid of investing $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, how are you going to be able to get to the million dollars if you're afraid of $10,000? So it's working with the mindset of how do I get you to really understand that is just another zero, to stop putting the value in money and, you know, thinking that money has a value versus what you really want and putting the value into the things that you really want to accomplish in your life. And finding and figuring out that it's always best to invest in yourself with the right mentor that has been there, that has done that, so you could get there faster. Instead of getting there on your own in 4 or 5 years, you could get there with the right mentor in 2 years. And it cuts the learning curve a lot. And it also cuts the mistakes because there's going to be some mistakes that are going to be costly. Like I had mistakes that cost me millions of dollars because I didn't have the right mentor. And it took me a few years again to get back on top doing the same thing. But could I have avoided those by having the right mentor?

Yes, you definitely can. So my final question for you then, this is your advice for me, is the Is the path from $50,000 a year to $500,000 a year, is the mindset change and the path forward the same trying to go from $500,000 to $5 million or $5 million to $50 million? For example, I've made it from tens to hundreds to— I make a few million a year. Is the path to making the next zero the same in each breakpoint there, or is there a notable difference adding zeros as you get farther in the game?

Uh, the path is about the same. There's a couple of things that you have to do different, and the couple of things that you have to do different is number one, the mindset. Number two, letting go of your ego, because as entrepreneurs we have an ego that nobody could do anything how we can or anything better than we can. And it's bringing the right people on the right seats to be able to help you level up. And that's why I don't call myself a self-made millionaire because I am where I am not because of my own doings, but because of the people that have supported me along the way. The, the, my employees, the mentors, uh, my wife, and all the people that are giving me advice, and all the people that trusted in me. And that's why I am where I am, not because of me. And that's why I kind of took that self-made millionaire out many, many years ago. And now I call myself a God-made millionaire because I give God the grace of where I am and everybody else that has helped me get to where I am today. I love that. But it's letting go of that ego, letting go of that ego.

If you are stuck in the 6 to 7 figure range, check your ego. See if it's ego that's holding you back. And that's what I'm going to do right after this podcast. I'm like, where are the things where I'm like, no one else can do this but me and I have to do this? I think I'm going to find a lot of things where I'm like, I'm holding on to some piece of my business too tightly because I don't trust the I don't trust the ability to expand or give it to anyone else. That's great feedback. I love this. Every level mindset. That is a great takeaway. Edwin, thank you so much for joining us. If people want to find you, follow you, join your courses, join your community, where would someone find you?

Yes, you can find me on my website, edwincarrion.com. I'm all over social media, Edwin Carrion 78. You can find me there and you could get a free copy of my book. 9 Secrets to Building a Million Dollar Business and Life at my9secrets.com.

Fantastic, Edwin. Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this, like, subscribe, follow, whatever you do on whatever platform you're listening on. This has been another episode of Multifamily Strategy. We will see you on the next episode.