BILFPOD - Bankrupt and Fired Before 30 | #BILFPOD with Mauricio Umansky

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Mauricio Umansky went bankrupt and got fired before 30. Then he became the No. 3 agent in the country and built The Agency to 170 offices in 17 countries.

Remember when I sold the Playboy Mansion, first $100 million sale in Los Angeles, and I made a ton of money on that one. And I came into the office the next day and everybody was like, hey, Maricio, why aren't you on holiday? Why aren't you on vacation? I'm like, well, that sale passed. What would you say to people that say that? You're so lucky, Maricio, you had everything handed to you. Well, it's just wrong.

It's not true. They fired me right before Christmas. I was around 26 years old when I got fired. I already had two daughters. I had experienced already a bankruptcy in a Chapter 11. at a very young age. My God, if you don't fail at least once a day, then you're not doing enough things on a daily basis. Welcome back to the BILF pod. We're Authenticity Trump's Authority here on the Biltpod.

Boss, I'd like to follow. I am your host, Maradorn. We love to highlight women in the boardroom to CEOs, founders, reality stars to real estate moguls. Today's guest needs no introduction for he is a force to be reckoned to founders. and CEO of the agency. His agency has closed over $100 billion in real estate. But the funny thing is he didn't start out in real estate, really

started out in fashion. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Mr. Mauricio Yamanski. Welcome to the Belfod. Oh, thank you so much. It's so good to be on here with you and can't wait to explore and figure out some of those

authentic things that you're talking about. Well, first, talk about authentic. Do you recognize this? Oh my god, it's so tiny on my screen. How about this? 90265, I recognize it. No phone do C sec. So I found this.

I found this. Does this ring, does this take you back? Is this nostalgia or what? Oh my God, I love it. Let me see that other one. That was a sweatshirt. Now that I know you're looking at my sweatshirts and everything. Yeah, that was a great, that was a t-shirt, right?

Yeah, this is a t-shirt. I love it. Wait, I just want to preface. I'm not a stalker. I was just doing my do it. diligence over here. So I found this on Poshmart. I found this is where, does this ring a bell? Does this take you back? Oh my God, that was a fun time in my life. It was a really, really interesting time. I just, you know, had a ton of fun growing that company. That was a lot of fun.

We took that company over with $3 million of sales and turned it into a $30 million company in two years. It was a ton of fun. You started in fashion and then eventually moved over. sold your company, moved over to real estate. I read an article that your daughter wrote, which I thought was incredible. She wrote a whole article about you and where you started and why you got into real estate. So take me back there. Like you go into fashion and then you switch over. That's a pretty, that's a pretty big switch.

What made you go from fashion to real estate? Well, failure in fashion at the end of the day. I mean, you know, in 90265, I had to, even though we grew the company tremendously, I was shipping goods. We were the first ones to do garment dye, and the goods were shrinking in different ways, and they were being returned. And so even though I grew it tremendously from a sales perspective, production was a mess. And ultimately, we had to sell the company, close it down, and sell it. The brand was good. The label was good. So people wanted the brand and the label. Then I went to go work for a huge

a corporate company that hired me. And, man, I was not built for corporate world. I could resonate. And I went to go work for them. I did that for about a year, eight months. And then they let me go. They fired me right before Christmas. And, you know, I was young still.

I mean, I started that company in 90265 when I was, I don't know, I got into it. We actually purchased that company. I don't know, I was probably 22 years old when I did that. Yeah. You know, so I think that I was around 26 years old when I got fired, and I already had two daughters, and, you know, had experienced already a bankruptcy in a Chapter 11 at a very young age. And, yeah, so, you know, it was time to make a change. And my brother-in-law owns Hilton and Highland, which was a great real estate brokerage firm.

And I decided, you know, I knew I was good at sales, and I decided to get into sales and start selling some bigger ticket items. started selling some big homes. Yeah, I mean, I can totally resonate. That's pretty much what happened in my story for myself, is that I went from corporate America, where I was supposed to go to corporate America, ended up in sales, which is really what I call the School of Hard Knocks, because if you haven't experienced sales,

then you really haven't experienced life. But, you know, I know you went into business with your family and then ended up leaving. Now, when it comes to family and business, people say, do not mix it. What would you say about mixing family and business? Well, I disagree with that. You know, it was great for us.

I mean, we had a great run. We had a great, my God, 15 years together. We made a ton of money together. Yeah. So, you know, whether it ended up failing in the end and, you know, it got some little hairy. And, you know, that's just part of life. But, you know, at the end of the day, we had 15 great years together. For sure.

And we made a ton of money together. And so, you know, things can work. I think egos sometimes get in the way, greed sometimes get in the way. But if you can keep all of those things apart, you can actually, you know, do business. But, you know, you're going to get into fights in business no matter what with somebody.

Absolutely. Right, whether it's your family, your friend, your partner, and man, you better trust who you're getting in business with. That's the bottom line. Yeah, I would definitely say, I agree with you. My business was built around family and friends, so I can tell you from my own experience that you're right. You know, it's about the lessons that you learn.

sometimes it gets a little, you know, it gets a little precocious, and there's definitely some trials and tribulations along the way. But a lot, you do learn a lot. You take a lot from it. And I know one big thing for yourself was when you left, I was reading that when you left, you know, that's a big leap of faith. That's a hard leap of faith for people that are, you know, you're in a comfortable situation, you're making a lot of money. So what was the turning point that you were like, you know what? I'm going to go full belief in myself and I'm going to start my own thing. Well, you know, I became the number three agent in the country. Yeah.

Number one in California. And there was really only two more spots to go. I love that. So, you know, the goal for me at that point was to become number one, right? But, you know, it was as much as I wanted to do that, there was a bigger goal. And there was something, you know, a lot of the systems and strategies that I used to become, you know, number three were teachable. They were repeatable. there were systems that I could, you know, work with people.

And I thought that there was a void in the real estate business at that time. I met a great friend of mine and colleague, Billy Rose, who I ultimately ended up founding the agency with. And I remember I went, you know, he used to run a meeting where we all shared private listings and we all shared all kinds of different, you know, knowledge. And I called him up and I said, dude, I've got this idea. And he said, yes, before we, I even pitched it. That's crazy.

And we launched the agency, and here we are, you know, 15 years later. Just so happens that we're pretty much 50-50 on those two worlds. And here we are 15 years later with 170 offices globally in 17 countries. So still growing, still pushing hard, and the end does not hear yet. You sound like me. Like, it's never enough. That's like me. It's never enough, you know.

Again, like my story resignates so much. It wasn't enough to do a billion dollars in sales, and I wanted to build from there and continue. But one thing I do want to talk about, especially for the audience, is the importance of building an agency that has a strong culture and why culture is a big part of business in building a thriving company. Well, culture is everything. You know, culture I define as the personality of the business,

and that's basically everybody that works at the business at the company should share in that culture, should share in that personality. That doesn't mean we have different personalities. We all have our own personalities. We all do our own thing. But there's certain things, there's certain personality traits that we all share in common. Yeah. And if you don't share that, then go work at another company.

For sure. You know, it's that simple. But that's what kind of keeps you together, right? It's, you know, for us at the agency, it's ethics, it's integrity. It's no assholes. It's collaboration. You know, it's these type of things that, you know, keep us all together. You know, we all, you know, we're only as good as our weakest link.

For sure. You know, it's these little things that we just, you know, throw out there and we talk about, you know, we stay hungry. You know, we dare to innovate. Like, these are the things that we talk about that, you know, that keep us all together and keep us all rowing the same boat. Yeah, I agree 100%. I think culture defines people, defines family, but when an organization has a strong culture, speaks, leaps and bounds about the company itself. Look, real estate is like insurance. That's what I do.

You base it on commission. So people have to want to come to work. You can't force them to come. But what do you do? And this happens a lot too. When you bring somebody in and they can't or won't conform to the culture, what do you do? Well, at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to let them go. Yeah. You know, I mean, you have to make some hard decisions at a certain point in your life. You've got to make a decision as to whether what's more important to your culture, you know, the big picture, the long picture, or, you know, one person that's making a few, you know, quit. And you've got to make a decision on what's more important to you, you know, and at the end of the day, I think, you know, you're going to make, there's no right or right answer to that decision. You have to analyze everything individually. But at the end of the day, you know, culture should win.

If that is what your North Star is, right? That's what your business is built on. Not every business is built on culture, by the way. You don't have to have culture to have a business. But there are certain businesses that are built around culture, and ours is one of them. Yeah. I mean, I think a business without culture is not a thriving business. I've been in business for 20 years, and I can tell you that when your culture is not strong

and your agents aren't running through walls for you, your business won't work. They have to want to come to work. You can't make them come. And if your culture, I mean, what else could you build your business around if it's not culture? Yeah. I mean, I happen to agree with you,

and that's a big thing for us and for me, so I'm 100% of the agreement. What would you say would separate an agent that's making $200,000 a year versus an agent that's making $2 million? I think a lot of things, but, you know, one of them is the fight and the grind and the grip, you know, that somebody actually has. Obviously, you know, there are other aspects that sometimes are uncontrollable.

Or some people have more of an advantage of, right? Like when you're in sales and real estate, you know, particularly if you happen to have, you know, a high, you know, you went to school in the city that you're selling at. You have a lot of friends and you're very popular and you've got a lot of people to talk to and call. it's going to be a lot easier than if you, you know, you come to Los Angeles from South Africa. For sure. You're starting from scratch and you don't know anybody. You can still make it, by the way.

I know tons of those people that did that and made a ton of money. But, but, you know, at the end of the day, there's a little bit of luck, a little bit of, you know, your background, but it's grit, it's perseverance. It's people that, you know, a sale is only as good as your last sale. Yeah. I remember when I sold the Playboy Mansion, first $100 million sale in Los Angeles, and I made a ton of money on that one. And I came into the office the next day, and everybody was like, hey, Mauricio, why aren't you on holiday?

Why aren't you on vacation? I'm like, well, that sale passed. Doesn't matter. The next one, right? So it's the mindset that it just keeps you going. You're not doing it for the money. You're doing it for the competition, for the need, for it's that, you know, for the grit, for the resilience. Like that's what that is. Yeah. No, I know. I call it chutzpah. I don't, I think you have to have

chutzpah. If you don't have chutzp, you don't have chutzp. If you don't have chutzp, you're not making it. And like, you're just not there's an I, you know, like, but yes, I think grit and grime, but what it comes down to is the chutzpa. And that's what you can be a hard work. You can have talent, but hard work's going to beat out talent every single time of the day. And that just kind of goes back to what you're saying. You know, you can spend time in your trophy room, but all of a minute. And then it's time to move on in because the sales game is fast. It's fast-paced. And the one thing that I think happens for people,

and maybe you can touch on this a little bit, however you want to do this, is, you know, when we come into the office, I always tell the agents, it doesn't matter what's going on out here. What matters is what's going on in here. So how do you, because this happens so much, especially with the younger agents or the women or whatever, when you have stuff going on your personal life, right,

which everybody has stuff going on, how do you separate that when it's public, It's public versus, I mean, not even public. Just when you're going on in your personal life, how are you able to separate that and continue to perform at a high caliber? As you said, it's all in these, you know, eight inches between your head, right? It's all up there. And that controlling that mind and controlling that mindset at the end of the day is critical.

And everybody does it differently. You know, for me, it's a lot of affirmations. It's a lot of meditation. It's focusing on the, on, you know, the task. you know, I can focus on a lot of different things at once. I can't multitask, but I can focus on a lot of different things at once. And I think controlling your brain and controlling your mindset is, at the end of the day, is everything, right? Because you're going to have noise, you're going to have distractions, you're going to have, you know, just yet noise.

There's no better way of putting it, right? Every distraction, every noise is out there. It's part of life. but during the time that you're trying to be focused and you're trying to sell which is you know our game right you know a football player gets on the football field they put on their cleats they put on their pads they put on their helmet and for three hours they're on right or for one you know three 15 minute quarters right they're on they got to be focused there's nothing else out there right and so what I say about sales is like I wake up in the morning

I get myself ready. I get dressed and I'm on. Yeah. And so, you know, once you're on, you're on. Like, that's your, that is your job. That's your, that's your game. Yeah. How many hours you could keep that focused?

You know, I say that if you could do, you know, three hours of tremendous focus and not get distracted and not do anything else, that's like working eight hours. If you could do eight hours, then you're, you know, you're going to kill everybody. Nobody's got, nobody's got a chance on you. Yeah. I mean, I think some might say that. And again, I'm not saying this, but I, you know, people look, I've heard this many times, like, you're so lucky.

You know, you had a big platform to get started on. You know, you're part of the Hilton's. You also had a wife that was on the housewives. But what would you say to people that say that? You're so lucky, Maricio, you had everything handed to you. How would you negate that? Well, it's just wrong. Yeah.

It's not true. I mean, first of all, you know, we, we, um, we, we, never got on to the housewives until after I was already the number three agent in the country. We didn't start television until I was the number three agent in the country. I did that all on my own. As far as having, you know, the Hilton connection and what have you. Yeah, Rick Hilton was my brother-in-law and I worked for Hilton and Highland. But there was zero nepotism. There was zero anything. I got I got nothing out of that. I got, you know, other than being put on a couple of open houses, you know, which was I was grateful for. And by the way, I want to be clear, I didn't expect anything.

So this is not me complaining whether I got anything or didn't do anything. I wasn't expecting to get anything. I needed to prove myself. And so everything I did in sales at the agency and all of that stuff, I did that without a platform. I always say I was one of the first people to get on one of the only salespeople that I know of on television that had a thriving career before they got on television and real estate, I should say, not salespeople, but one of the only real estate agents that had a thriving career prior to

getting on television. Everybody else that I know of, whether it be a million dollar listing or selling whatever Ryan's show is Manhattan or whatever, you know, all of those shows, they all made their careers on television. Now, I won't tell you I didn't use television. I used the housewives to help launch the agency. Why not? I used the, you know, at that point we had the platform, but that platform was created without any help whatsoever. And then I used the platforms that we were on to do that.

And then obviously we ended up with buying Beverly Hills on Netflix, which was a great series. And I love that. A ton of fun. People still want me to bring that back. Maybe one of these days we'll bring it back. But yeah, I mean, we definitely, We definitely use television and all the platforms and like I said at the beginning as a salesperson, if you're not using your connections and you're not using your network,

like you're not using your tools. Like that is part of your toolbox. So, you know, now whether you make a good call, whether people trust you, whether you can earn their trust, whether you can, that's on you. Yeah. Right. But the opportunities are there. You've got to know when to open the door and go and walk in the room and take advantage of it. Yeah, no, I mean, I agree wholeheartedly.

I've heard it my whole career. You're so lucky. You know, you had big boobs. You did this. How about this? I was just smart and I was able to exercise the assets that I had in addition to, you know, being able to sell. And that's an art in itself. So that's why I was asking because I hear it all the time.

Oh, you're so lucky. But it's not luck. It has nothing to do with luck. It's hard work. And then utilizing what you have. No luck. That's what salespeople do. That's what we do.

We sell ourselves every single day and everything that comes. comes in our toolbox with us. So I totally, I agree with what you're saying. So as so I do have another question for you. So what do you think is harder? Building a billion dollar real estate agent or rebranding yourself? I think they're both could be difficult.

Yeah. I think both could be very difficult. Rebranding is difficult because it comes with luggage. It comes with legacy. Yeah. It comes with a bunch of different things that you need to change and recreate and innovate and then change

change the perception. Perception is one of the hardest things to change. You know, like reputation. Reputation is your perception, right? I mean, so, and that's one of those things that you always constantly hear, right? You can destroy your reputation in a nanosecond by doing something wrong. For sure. Good luck repairing it, right?

So rebranding's hard. It can be done, but it's very difficult. You know, when you're talking about building a billion dollar brokerage, you know, real estate sales are kind of strange, you know, billion dollars is thrown out there. so easily. Yeah. And I have a big problem with that, but it's so easy to say, you know, Mike, you know, I remember there was an article that said, you know, I grew the company to $57 billion or something like that. And I'm like, that's just so stupid. I wish. I know. They don't understand that that's not the revenue you're taking home. Yeah, I know. It sounds good, though. It's good.

Use what you have. It's sales. It's good. It's a great platform. 100% yeah but building a you know building a global platform yeah we've done um again 170 offices to date i'm opening up 30 offices a year so you know by by 12 months from that we'll have 20 offices 200 offices um it's hard it takes a tremendous amount of work um you know you have to rely on everybody under you know that works for you and to have them do you know be experts and and believe in them and make them believe in themselves. Yet, you know, what keeps us all together and rowing goes back to what you just said earlier, which was culture, right?

If you've got that culture, then everybody can work over here and ultimately get to the same, you know, spot. Was there at... They're both hard. That what? What did you say? They are both. Doing both of those things is not, you know...

By the way, selling a house is not easy. Selling an insurance policy is not easy. Nothing. Let's just be real. Like, things are not easy in life, okay? But by the same token, you know, if you look at real estate agents, I think 7% of real estate agents do 93% of the transactions. Okay.

So, you know, we always talk about the 80-20 rule. Real estate in terms of agents, I think it's even, you know, I think it's a 93-7 rule. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's not easy. Right now, I mean, with everything, the economy, there's a lot, there's a lot more to it than people think when it comes down to building anything. And now you're international, right?

You have agencies all over, not just in the U.S., but throughout the entire country. 17 countries. I was just in Sardinia visiting our latest office. It's so beautiful there. And Sardinia, I love it. And, you know, I was in London, visiting London to open up in London next. I think that's coming soon.

We just opened up the Middle East and Saudi Arabia. We're all over the Caribbean, all over Canada, all over Mexico and Central America. and obviously all over the U.S. Wow. That mazeltov, that's amazing that you have all of these. And you're not stopping anytime soon, right? This is just, you're just scratching the surface over here.

It's like never enough. Just getting started. Well, it's not even about it being enough, right? It's like, what are you building? What are you doing? It's not about enough. It's not about, you know, that. I think that if you're looking at things as to what's enough,

it's just a different way of, it's a different mindset. it's a different way of looking at things. Yeah. I'm not looking at what's enough. I'm looking at how do I build a business? What are you trying? Like, what's your end goal? What is your end goal?

Is it legacy? Is it, you know, leaving something behind? To build a global business. Yeah, you know, I don't know if I have an end goal in terms of legacy or leaving something behind. I mean, I think that if you do a great job, whatever that job is, there's always an exit, right? Whether it stays in the family and there's legacy and it gets left behind and it continues and it delivers great cash flow or whether you still.

sell it or whether you go public or, you know, there's lots of outcomes if you deliver a great business. Right? Right? The world's at your fingertips if you do that. But first, we got to go build the business. Yeah. So I do have one question for you. So I know you, you know, you started at 41. That's when you took the leap of faith. Now for people, for people that want, because this is always like a, this is always like a question that people have. Is there ever a time or an age where you can be where you should just be like, all right, I'm just going to kind of go with the flow. Or can you be successful at any age? Oh my God.

I think you can be successful at any age. Yeah. And I think it's a mindset. Absolutely. I mean, you know, you can build things, create things. It just depends on what kind of energy you have. Yeah. And what you want to do and what kind of risks you want to take.

Absolutely. I mean, there's obviously risks and everything. And you said it, there's perception risks, there's reputational risk, there's money. all of that. But no, you could do it at any age. I mean, look at today, there are kids making billions of dollars. They're 18 years old, 20 years old, and they're making millions and hundreds of millions, right?

You know, and then you could be, you know, I think doors open for people. You put yourself in situations, doors open, and it's about, you know, whether or not you open, you open the door, go in the room and do what you're supposed to be doing. right that's up to you yeah right but all of us will have opportunities everybody on that's listening to your podcast will have multiple opportunities in their lifetime the question is whether they

seize those opportunities and see those opportunities absolutely first see it first see it then analyze it and then you know i'm getting little bubbles i don't know that was weird that was so weird first see it then analyze it make a decision and then you know you're seize it. Yeah. No, I agree. I don't think you're, it's never too late. I think you can start at whatever age you want. In fact, I think the older you, the more, I don't like older, the more season you become, I think that with life experience, the opportunity, you start to realize the opportunity is right in front of you. So you can reinvent yourself at whatever age. I think people just get comfortable and they, and they don't want to get outside of their comfort zone is what

happens. And that's ultimately why people, you know, they don't seize the opportunity. you lose at a certain age or maybe you start losing that drive. Again, and everybody's different today, right? Like, I mean, if you look at us, you know, there's 60-year-old men, you know, physically that look, or women that look like they're 75 and they're 60-year-old men that look like they're, you know, 45. Absolutely. So, you know, everybody's different.

Yeah. I mean, thanks, yeah. Yes, I do agree. But I think that when you're in your 40s, in fact, I think your 40s is like really when you blossom. That's like it. That's the time. That's go time. At least that like when I turned 40, that was go time. Everything changed. I felt like I was very comfortable with myself. Like it was time to go. So in your 40s, you have all of this energy to like, at least for me, it's like reinventing yourself. You want to grow bigger. I've had all of this experience under my belt. Like, what's next? So I guess it just I agree with you on that. I mean, the amount of energy you have in your 40s is pretty incredible. But I can tell you I'm 56 now. And I've got the same energy and the same grit. And, you know, I mean, we just launched the American Real Estate Association. which is a trade association, you know, 501C6 foundation that is there just to help, you know, real estate agents, you know, be better.

You know, because I think NAR National Association of Realtors is making a ton of mistakes. Yeah. You know, and, you know, we're now, you know, on the precipice of being the second largest trade association in the country. I started that two years ago. That's amazing. We founded that two years ago. And again, that's a passion project. There is no money there.

Okay. So, you know, it just depends on what kind of drive you have. Yeah. You know, what you want to do in your life. I mean, I'm working on a ton of projects right now. We just launched a beautiful technology platform in real estate in Spain that we want to take across all of Europe. Incredible. You know, a listing platform that's amazing. So, again, it just depends on, you know, your drive. Yeah, absolutely. I want to switch gears for a second and talk. and talk about, I'm going to switch gears real quick. We're going to switch it up and just talk about family a little bit and building your business

because I built my business initially with my ex-husband. Now with my husband, so weird. We're all in business. Don't even ask. It's like a whole thing. But anyhow, so building your business, you know, originally with Kyle, what was that like? You know, for people that are in business together, I just kind of want to touch on the experience itself, what it was like building this business with her.

Well, let's be clear. I didn't build the agency with her. That was not what we did. I married Kyle when we were both super young. We had an amazing, amazing marriage, amazing friendship. We still do. We built our lives together. We built all of our businesses together, right?

I love that. My day to day was the agency, the brokerage, the agent. She didn't come to work with me to do that. Right. But, you know, and she built everything that she's done, her production company, her this or that, et cetera, et cetera. We built all of that together, right? And she's, you know, was a part of, you know, supporting me. I mean, when I met Kyle, I didn't have a cent, you know, the support that she gave me, the confidence that she gave me. All of that is something that I would not trade for anything. And the fact that she gave me all of that gave me the confidence and gave me, knew that I had the support.

at home to go out there and take risks and do things and build. And, you know, when I wanted to be lazy, sometimes she got my ass in gear and I got right back up on gear, right? And, you know, and I did that for her, right? So it's a support system that comes together. It's not that, you know, we didn't build the business together. Yeah. Built their lives together. Yeah. We were babies when we got, you know, when we got married. I was 24 years old, I think, or 25. I don't remember. No, I love, it's so beautiful. I mean, the same thing happened. I was. was the same thing. I was 22 when I got married. I was divorced, but I was divorced by the time I was 30. But yeah, I think the biggest misconception is people think that, you know, it has to end

ugly. It doesn't have to. And then I love how, I love how you edified her. And, you know, you said, you know, it was a great time. It was a great marriage. But here you are today. And I don't think you, from what you're saying, there's no regrets. But now your kids are in your business, right? The kids are with you in business. Oh, there's zero regrets. My kids are in the business. We still talk almost every single day. You know, we still do family vacations. I love that. We're still great friends. I think you should set the record straight with that one too. Set that there's like enough with the bullshit, the tabloid nonsense. Here we have it out of Maricio's mouth because I'm sure everybody

wants to know it. Not that they need to know your business, but I am glad that you have a good relationship. Thank you. It's important. And I love working with my kids. I have two of them that work for me or work with me, I should for me, Farah and Alexia. And they're amazing girls and amazing kids. And I love that I get to work with that. My daughter, Portia, is now off to college. So just like yours, we're 18 and off to college.

We're leaving, taking her to college this week and super exciting stuff. That is exciting. And Sophia's doing her own thing. She's, you know, doing a bunch of, she's become a great influencer. She's absolutely crushing it. Amazing. And she's doing great. What's it like, though, with the kid, like I always, so my daughter, she's here with me at work.

And like right now, like, she's at that weird age where mom's not that cool, but your daughter's work with you. But what's that like? Like, are you dad at work? Are you the mentor? Like, who are you at work to them? I think I'm just me all the time, whether it's at work or at home. Our relationship is, you know, it's a French lead relationship. We can switch off and on from work in two seconds.

There's zero stress. Like we don't, you know, I'm not a highest-dressed guy. You know, at the end of the day, they have to do what, their salespeople. You know, they make as much money. I do the same thing for them as I do for anybody else. Try to motivate them, try to get them to be hungry and try to get them to make as much money as they can.

But, you know, there's no silver platter for them. Everything they do, they've done on their own. It's almost the opposite because, you know, I have, you know, a bunch of agents that work for me that I almost make it harder for them. I can totally, I do it too. I feel like there's a need hepatism. So everything they do, they do on their own. I love that.

No, I did them. I brought my son in to dial with all the agents, and they were all laughing at me. They were like, give him some money to call leads. I'm like, nope, nope, he has to do it the hard way. He has to hit the dialer and make his own money. Nope, not helping. I mean, you know, you want, obviously you want more for your kids,

But it's the same thing. I want to teach them what hard work. I had to put in the work, so were they. And anything in life that's worth having, you have to put hard work into anything. 100%. Now, you've built, I mean, you've built wildly successful, a huge successful business.

What would you say is one misconception that people think? Well, I think you said one of them that it was easy for me. Yeah. It was built on, you know, on the back of, you know, television and the Hilton's and the this and the family and all that stuff. It was far from easy for me. Yeah. I mean, I worked, you know, harder than most.

I can tell you I was always the first one in the office and always the last one to leave. 24-7. Nothing was easy. I think that's the biggest misconception. I love what you're saying, you know, in order to be successful in any sense, sales business. You have to be the first one in and the last one out. And when you become the smartest or the most wealthiest, get out of that room. Get out. And I don't think that a lot of people understand that, you know, sales were caught. I'm still learning. I mean, with AI and tech,

and believe it or not, insurance is going into a tech space, which is so crazy because I started door to door. But to understand the evolution of business is so important when it comes to any business. What do you, what do you think about AI and tech in your business? I think AI and tech is fantastic. I think it helps efficiencies. I think we need to learn how to use it. It's what you put in it and what you get out of it, right? If you put shit in it, you get shit out.

If you put, you know, building an agentic robot and learning how to use it properly is amazing. Again, if you use it to your benefits, right? I think there's great benefits that you can use in order to become a better salesperson if you use AI property. I don't think AI is going to replace the human. Yeah. But any human that is not using AI is going to be left behind and they're not

going to be a top salesperson in their industry. Yeah, I think you should reiterate that. Because I try to tell these sales people this all the time. You better get with the program. Otherwise, you will be left behind. Not understanding social media. What about what do you think about social media and using it for your platform in sales? The same. It's a part of today's world. It is what it is. I think it gives you an opportunity to create, you know, your personality. You know, it's a business card also. It's not, you know, a lot of people talk about it for lead generation. Yeah, you can get some lead generation out of it.

But more than lead generation, it's your business card. Yeah, it's your brand. It's your brand. So when you meet somebody and you meet a lead and you tell them who you are, you know, they're going to go on to your Instagram as part of their due diligence to think you're out of, you're somebody they want to do business with. So having a nice social media platform and somebody that expresses your personality, your authenticity.

You know, it's critical because that's how you're going to drive somebody to become closer with you. Or, you know, today it's a pretty good flex to not have anything. So, you know, or have nothing. But don't, don't copy others and just put up there stuff that you don't want to be seen or, you know, make sure it's your personality. Make sure it's authentic to yourself. I sure hope my agents are listening and driving in. I mean, Mauricio is so much more successful than I am.

So I hope they are listening today. That's social media. I try to drive this into them all the time, how important it is to have. That's social proof. That's what people are looking to. They're going right on the internet. They're checking you out. Your customers are.

You know, whoever you're talking to, that's social proof for them. So if you don't have something to show who you are, people are just disinterested at this point. So another question, just, you know, you're on, you're in the public eye. You know, you're a public figure. So who are you like when you're not, when you're not a CEO, when you're not a reality TV star, like who are you really? Are you always, are you always on the show? Or do you turn off ever? Like, who is Mauricio? Oh, my God. Well, first of all, we've been on the Housewives now. What is it? 16 seasons? I don't know how long it is. It's a long time. 15, 16, 17. I'm not sure what we're starting in a film right now. But I think that one of the comments that I get all the time,

from people when they meet me and they've seen me is that I am who I am yeah I'm not different most people just say you know my God you're exactly the way you want on television and that's just because I am who I am obviously on television you know you film you know whatever they film you know and it's not my show on the housewives it's you know it's Kyle's show and the housewives and all that stuff you know but they film us for what you know I don't know a couple hundred hours and then they put me on for you know less than 30 minutes mind, right? So you get a tiny little edited clip of me. But I am who I am. I don't change.

Buverly Hill is the same. I just don't change. I'm authentic. I'm myself. I don't try to change for television. I don't try to change for the public eye. It's too difficult. I don't have that much time. I don't have that much brain power. I just am who I am. I love that. Any regrets? Is there anything that you've ever regretted? You know, look, I don't know, there's, sure, there's regrets all the time, but they're all little, they're all unimportant, you know, there's nothing big in my life that I've regret that just, you know, that, you know, I think like everybody, I've made a ton of mistakes. I've done a lot of great things.

But that's, you know, is a mistake of regret sometimes, sometimes, you know, if you can learn from that, you know, then it's a smaller regret. But I don't have any regrets in my life that I look back and just say, damn, I really fuck that up. Yeah. That's fair. How about failures? I think like, you know, every, we talked a lot about all your successes, but every successful person has a failure. I don't care who you are. So what about what do you think was your greatest failure? I mean, failures happen all the time. And I think learning from your failures is as strong is, it can be stronger than learning from your successes. Absolutely. You know, I mean, as I mentioned to you, I had a, you know, chapter 11, a bankruptcy, you know, early in my life. Yeah.

I mean, I've lost listings. I've lost clients, right? Why do I lose them? Because I failed. I failed at something. I didn't return the call fast enough. I love it. I didn't lock the house, right?

I left and I left the house unlocked, right? Like an idiot, right? Like, you know, those are all failures, right? Like, I promise you I never did not lock a house again. Yeah, for sure. I learned from it. It was never not locked again, right? So those are all tiny little failures that you've got to learn from as a parent, as a father, as a husband.

You know, you have those failures as well. And relationships and business negotiation skills. You know, you've got to learn from these failures. I think we all fail. My God, if you don't fail at least once a day, then you're not doing enough things. Absolutely. Yeah. I know.

I feel like this every day. Like every day, I'm like, oh, man, I fuck that up. Let me try. You know, you're right. you're right. It happens with success. You're going to, you know, whether you're going too fast or you're going too slow or you're not going. It's like constantly juggling. I say it's always plugging holes. Like when one thing's going good, you're plugging a hole over here. Something, you know, it's constant. If you're successful, this is what's going to happen. So it's always hard. So now you're living your

life, though, right? You're living your life. I don't know if you're singling and mingling or you I don't know if you're a lot of talk about it, but I feel like you said you feel good. You're in, you're like the rebirth of your life right now. Not rebirth, but, you know, just enjoying yourself. So what's that like? Well, first of all, you know, a lot of people talk about, you know, there's, you know, tabloids and bullshit and comments, you know, this midlife crisis.

I don't have a midlife crisis. They talk about a rebirth, you know, a rebirth, a rethinking. Well, not rebirth. I just know you're out there having a good time. That's all I read is you're out there having it, which is fine. I mean, no judgment there. I think that's great. Yeah.

I've never changed. I've been an athlete all my life. I've been healthy all my life. Yeah. I'm in as good as shape as I've ever been right now. You know, I just finished the special forces, a television show that's going to be air. Can we talk about that real quick?

Super excited about. We can definitely talk about it. I know you can't talk about everything. So special forces, how, like, why special forces? How did you get on? What's your experience been like? You don't have to tell us the outcome. Well, first of all, I did it with my daughter,

Yeah. And so the fact that she and I got a chance to experience, and when, you know, special forces, the world's toughest challenge, it is the world's toughest challenge. It is so hard. I cannot even begin to tell you. And I think it's, you know,

both physically and mentally hard. Mentally, even more so than physically, even though physically it's extremely hard as well. But mentally, the grit, the resilience, everything that it teaches you to experience something like that with my daughter, I mean, it has just made us super close, super tight. You know, we have an ability to communicate now that we'd never had before. We were always best friends.

But now even more so. I'm so proud of watching her and doing everything that she did. I'm so excited for people to watch the show. It's a great show. And the cast that was on it, all 15 contestants were awesome. We built a great friendship amongst all of all. us were still in communication and talking. I love that. It was in the jungle, which was pretty cool. The first time that this show has been in the jungle, and that that's a very difficult landscape.

Humidity, heat, wet, you're constantly wet, you're never dry. You know, scorpions, king cobras. Everything. You know, difficult conditions, everything you can think of, we experienced. And it was just a great thing. that I'm excited about. When does it drop? When does the season drop? It drops September 24th. September 24th. You guys better tune in.

I'm going to tune in. On Fox. On Fox. Do we know the time? We do not. I mean, I do. We'll put it in the notes. We'll put it in the notes.

Okay, Maricio, so you, I mean, you've done a lot. You've built, you've fallen, you've risen, you've gone through, you know, reality TV. You've been in the public. you've had, you know, a marriage, you're a father, a CEO. I mean, there's, what are you leaving the audience with, like, what's next for you? What, what is next? Well, I'm excited about building a couple different things. As I mentioned to you, you know, I'm building this American Real Estate Association.

That's very exciting and it's just disruptive and it's innovative. I'm excited about building, you know, a national listing platform for real estate. I am right now I'm working on a charitable foundation that I'm very excited about launching that's very exciting to give back and to fight hatred you know in social media yeah I feel like you know we feel like hatred right now on social media is winning the war of social media and this is to you know just really to you know create you know to start you know to fight with the best side to fight hatred and give the message of peace yeah um give the message of you know love I love that so I'm very excited about

that and what about your course don't you have a father soon I know Mazel Tov I heard I know I didn't I didn't know if that was public yet I didn't want to I didn't want to spoil it so mazzletov that's amazing I'm excited I'm excited about that that's my next big thing I'm going to be a grandpa that is so exciting it'll be like are you going to be um a zady are you going to be what are you going to be Yeah. What's the name? What are you going to call? Like, what do you want him to call you? Yeah, we're working on that. I think I just like poppy. You know, I'm a Latino, so maybe puppy. Poppy, okay. All right. Okay. I love that. And you have a course, don't you? A course? Yeah, do you have a course out there? Are you teaching?

Oh, real estate coaching. Yeah. Yes, we do. I have a coaching platform and my God, that's been pretty good and pretty fun. Where would people go? Where would people go to find that? So we're actually relaunching that right now, so I can't, I'm offline right now, so I'll have to give that to you as soon as we relaunch. I love that for you. I'm working on something really big that I can't talk about yet. We'll be cross fields, because I feel like real estate and insurance.

You know, I want it to be cross fields. I want it to be exactly. Or sales? Yeah, more sales. I might have to bring you in my office to educate these sales reps that I have. I might have to. I would be, I would love to do that. Where are you located, by the way?

I live in Orlando, but I have 11 offices throughout the U.S. So they're all over. Well, let's do it. Yeah, they. Do you guys do a conference or anything like that? I do. I actually do. I'll tell you off air about it.

But yeah, I do. I do it. I do once a month. So maybe you'd want to come and do it. But, okay. And if people want to find you, where would they find you? I mean, on our website, the agency, or, you know, my social media, M. Um, Umanski 18, um, which I think you can also just find by putting in my full name,

Mauricio Umanski. Uh, I think you're findable, definitely findable. I think I'm pretty easy to find. You can find me. If you want to find me, you can find me. Mariccio, it has been so much fun. I hope you had as much fun as I did today. I love that. We got deep. We asked a lot of questions that are really important, especially for this audience, and understanding that business, it's, first of all, it's never too late to reinvent yourself. number one, there's no age and success at all. But number two, I think you just gave a real authentic perception of what business entails. So if you love today's conversation, please tune in for more amazing conversations with founders and entrepreneurs.

But Maricio, today, amazing conversation. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you.