Blaze Your Own Trail - Episode 18: A Real Estate Journey With Alex Vidal

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

In this episode Alex and I discuss: His upbringing High School Sports Being a father at 19 His start in Real Estate His Podcast What he is up to next Connect with Alex: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-vidal-president/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vidalalex/ Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/alexvidalpresidentrelatedisg/ The CloserClub Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_bkYx7irS0hHWoqXjW1nVg/?sub_confirmation=1 The CloserClub itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thecloserclub-with-alex-vidal/id1486706484 Follow us on IG for episode clips, behind the scenes content and more!! https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, before we get into the intro, just wanted to say I hope you all are doing well with all of the social distancing and everything in place for the rapidly spreading COVID-19 virus. I know it's tough being stuck inside. So hopefully you are with friends and loved ones and playing games and, you know, just trying to keep your mind off of everything that's happening out there. So just keep in mind, you know, we can only control the controllables. So there are certain things that are outside of our control. And there really isn't a whole lot we can do about that. But we definitely can control our attitude and how we're reacting to everything. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Alex Vidal. Really great guy.

He's got a cool story and a cool journey. I hope you enjoy it. And we will chat right after the episode. Hello, everyone. And welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And I've got a very special guest with me today. his name is Alex Vidal.

And Alex, if you can, just give the audience just a little intro about yourself. Sure. Thanks, Jordan, first of all, for having me on, man. I appreciate it. So my name is Alex Vidal. I am president of a real estate company in South Florida. About five and a half years ago, we had two offices and 40 realtors. Fast forward to today, we have close to 500 realtors, and we're opening up our sixth office.

I've been in real estate since I'm 19 years old. So going on 23 years, kind of crazy to say. say that even though I'm only 41. I'm an avid crossfitter and triathlet and I also host my own show, my own podcast like you called The Closure Club. And in a nutshell, that's me, man. We do about, we do almost a billion dollars a year in sales as well here in South Florida and Miami. And that's my story and I'm sticking into it. Hey, that's awesome. That's very cool. So let's rewind a little bit. So I want to kind of get some context on you. And I know that you've been in real estate since you were 19, which is phenomenal.

So let's dive back. So back in elementary school, those years. So where did you grow up? And, you know, what were you like when you were a kid? Man, interesting question. I've been on a few podcasts lately. You're the first one to ask me that. It's kind of Patrick Bet David's side.

I like it. I love it. I was born and raised in North Miami, lived in North Miami, or in Miami all my life, with the exception of two years. I did a stint in California when I was 20. I did a stint in Colorado about 10 years ago. And as a kid, man, I was just the wild crazy boy, you know. It was always into sports, always outside.

Outgoing. I think I won like Mr. Extrovert in high school or Mr. Personality in high school for being the guy that talked to everybody. High energy. And that was really me growing up, man. I just balls to the wall, as they like to say. Okay. So when you were a kid, so how did you use that energy?

You know, I'm severely extroverted as well. Always, you know, getting into certain things. So what were some things that you got into maybe that kind of gave you some insights of that entrepreneurial spirit when you were younger? Sure. Well, I'll tell you, having a kid at 19 makes that change really quick. But prior to that, I was always in the sport. So going into like grade school, like six, seven, eighth grade, I was playing basketball

and running and always participated. I was very competitive. When I got to high school, that's when things really kind of exploded sports-wise. And I did. I literally played football all four years, played basketball for three years, did soccer a year, did baseball for a year,

and did track as well. And I actually went to the state championships here in Florida for track. And that's really how I garnered that competitive streak. I think one of the reasons why I race triathlons now and do CrossFit is because I like competing so much that that's one of the things that I can do and feed that competitive spirit. I actually have a big race this weekend on Sunday. That's awesome. And so do you think that, you know, being involved in those types of

sports gave you the right mindset to be able to run a successful business? I think they gave me the mindset of wanting to be competitive. I don't, you know, it's interesting. I had a kid at 19 and from that point going forward, it's almost like it's a blur because you're working full time, you have a school full time, you're going to school full time, which I ended up dropping out of college and, you know,

I had my family full time. And so I would tell you that the entrepreneurial spirit was more born as a result of who I was associated with in the real estate business. They're never really working for the huge corporations, but privately owned companies where I would work, you know, directly with the owners and seeing them as owners of companies, that really is what lit that fire to that entrepreneurial,

you know, leadership side. Sports, I think, did it to a certain extent because I'd be like the captain of my teams and all that. So it was cool to motivate and be that leader. But the entrepreneurial part really started when, when I had my kid and I needed,

you know, then all of a sudden things change. You have, it's not just you anymore. You have somebody who depends on you. And that just changes the whole landscape on every single level, at least for me it did. okay so you know you went through high school with those sports 19 you've got your first born so

when when you found out about them what were kind of the first things that you thought of like like in that moment you found out you're going to be a dad you know what was it that where you were like all right you know i need to either make these changes or maybe i'm on i'm kind of on the right path Like what was going through your mind at that point? Definitely wasn't on the right path. I was a camp counselor working at the local summer camp. And then they had, you know, throughout the year they'd have camp, like after school care and all that stuff. And I was a camp counselor.

And when I found out she was pregnant, I was just like, all right, well, we're having the kid. And I'm not pro or against abortion. It's whatever the hell you want to do with your life. Who the hell am I to tell you what you want to do? But for me, it was just kind of like, yeah, we're having the kid. And I'm Cuban. You know, my parents are Cuban. came over here in their teens and you know they always taught us to do the right thing and for me

that was the right thing and to stand by by his mother and uh i needed a real job and essentially didn't realize it at the time but i started farming out my resume and essentially anybody who had a job classification a job at posted in the classifieds got my resume or whatever you can go i don't you think it was called a resume really um and i had it boiled down to where i had two opportunities and One was selling advertising at the Miami Herald, which was a job that my mom got me because my mom, she just retired after being at the Miami Herald for like 50 years. Or becoming the assistant to the president of the largest real estate company in South Florida, privately owned real estate company in South Florida. And the only reason I took that job, because I got asked that question a lot, like, well, how did you find real estate? And did you always want to be in real estate?

I'm like, no, I fell into it. It kind of found me was I had the ability to be. this guy's literally his secretary. And that's, you know, fast forward here we are 23 years later. And so I needed a job. I needed to pay the bills. And I found this position. And then, you know, there's more to that story in terms of like, you know, what really

was the matchstick that lit the career. But I got in the real estate because I needed a job and it was a job that I got on my own versus a job that somebody got for me. And to me, that was important. I didn't, not that my parents would ever hold anything over my head because they never have. but I'm very independent in that way and I want to know that what I have in my life I've been able to earn because I earned it not because it was given to me and and that's the rest is history

man it's been a fun ride okay so you literally started in real estate as like you said as an assistant so you know what what would you say are maybe the three top takeaways that you learn in your first six months in this world that now is pretty much everything that you're doing revolves around it. So what would you think of some foundational lessons that you picked up? Well, I'll tell you, within eight months, I was promoted from the secretary to the recruiting director for this company. And it was because I really was listening to what I was paying attention to what was going on. And when you're the assistant to these guys, you're privy to information that the outside world doesn't necessarily get to hear.

because you're there. You're writing. You're getting all their mail. You're seeing all their stuff. You're checking their emails, all that. And really the biggest lesson that I learned, and I try to share this with everybody is, don't wait for me to tell you something. Find the hole in the donut. And the hole in the donut was I'd hear the owner of this company, who I'm still very close friends with today, talk about how they are hiring 70 or 80 agents a month, but they were losing 70 or 80 agents a month. And how, you know, they felt like they were on a treadmill of the growth of the company. They were just hiring to replace the agents that were leaving because the type of agents that they hire getting into the business were brand new. And that's a very high turnover segment of our business, right?

And they would be purchasing a list of everybody who had just gotten their license in the state of Florida. It came out weekly. And I said to the owner, I said, hey, do you mind if I start calling these people, letting them know that this is what we do as a company for brand new agents? And do you mind if I call them? And nobody was calling them at the time. And he said, yeah, go for it. Just do it after hours. And I said, sure.

So when the clock struck that I was officially off the clock, I started calling these agents. And then all of a sudden, here I am setting up all these appointments for the branch managers at 35 offices, you know, for the branch managers to be getting all these interviews. And so the biggest lesson by far, I don't know if I can pinpoint three, but I would tell you that the biggest lesson by far is, or let's say two, is keep your ears open because that's where you hear what the opportunities are.

and then too don't be afraid to fill that donut don't wait for somebody to come to you take the initiative to go to them and say hey this is what i'm hearing and i think i can i can offer help in this way do you mind if i go for it and i was very fortunate to have a boss who believe i don't want to say he believed in me but he didn't see any risk in me doing it and said hey go for it and within eight months i was promoted to the recruiting director yeah so he may not have believed in you in that moment, but he believed in your drive, right, in your initiative, right? And the fact that nobody else saw this vacancy, if you will, this hole. And you saw it, right? You had the foresight to say, hey, I think if we do something a little bit differently here, we might be able to lower that

turnover rate. And I know how it is. I mean, I've been in sales for 25 years and I'm in the property management industry and the turnover for the leasing folk to tie, right? I mean, sometimes they can get up to 70%, I think, in recent years. And a lot of it really boils down to, you know, getting the right people in the right in the right roles and not just hiring to fill a void, but actually making contextual hires so that we're getting the right people in the right places. That's right. Moving the ball forward, right? That's exactly it. Absolutely. All right. So you're in month eight now, right? You started as an admin. Now you're director of recruiting. So how How did your career move after that?

So what was your next role in the position? Or maybe did you go somewhere else because they had another role for you? Well, it's an interesting story. So I was making $21,000 a year as a secretary. When I became the recruiting director, I was making a whopping $26,000 a year. And I got wind of a recruiting conference that was specifically for real estate recruiters in Indianapolis.

So I asked the owner, I go, do you mind if I go? He paid for me to go. Probably not the best decision for him. I ended up meeting a guy by the name of Rich Cosner who owned the largest Prudential Real estate franchise out in California. And when I met him, long story short, he moved me to California. And I created the entire recruiting division for Prudential in California. At the time, I was actually still with my 18-year-old's mother.

But we happened to have gotten separated while out in California. and decided to move back. So when I came back, Rich introduced me to the guy that owned the largest prudential franchise in Florida and did the same thing for them. And then he left to Colorado. He didn't own it. He was a CEO. He went to Colorado to start his own thing. I weren't in the sales and I sold real estate up until the market from like 2004 to the market crash in 2008.

And that's when this guy, Roger, who moved to Colorado, said, hey, why don't you come to Colorado? We were doing okay over here. and I went over there, created the recruiting division for him over there. So a lot of it was, you know, secretary, recruiting director here, California, Florida. And actually, in that time, I became a sales coach. Then I went into sales. And then when Rogers' non-compete was up in Florida, a year later, he calls me, he goes, hey, guess what?

I said what? He goes, my non-compete's up in Florida. And I said that, I go, oh, man. And he starts laughing. He's like, what? I'm like, you're going to ask me to move back, aren't you? He said, yep. So move back.

We acquired a company here, ran it for a few years. Then I decided I was just done leading and managing and I got back in the sales. And then I met the owners of the company I work for now related ISG International Realty. And I met them in July of, I met them in like April of 2014. And by July of 2014, I was hired to take over the company. they told me when I took over the company, they said, listen, we're thinking of closing the brokerage. And I don't know if they meant it or not,

but that's what they told me. And we're thinking of closing the company at the end of the year, but let's see what you got, Kid. And one of the things like, this is video, audio only, so they don't see it in the video, but I have all my company awards behind me to remind me that even when nobody else believed in the company I did, and I knew I could do it.

And that inner motivation I'd like to be reminded up. And here we are, fast forward five and a half years later, We're one of the top brokerages in the country, which is really, really cool. And we're cranking it. We're definitely one of the top brokerages in South Florida and doing different things that nobody else in the marketplace is doing, which really sets us apart. 23 years, man, it's a long time. It's kind of crazy.

It's scary what you think about it. Absolutely. No, and congrats on all the success. I think, you know, the one thing that I'm seeing that's a constant is you're just a fighter, right? You're just, you know, you're up for that challenge and you're like, hey, challenge, closing in a year, challenge accepted. Five and a half years later, right? You're leading the pack in a lot of different ways, which is phenomenal. And so one thing that you said a little earlier that really stuck out was, you know, you got sent to a networking event and it probably wasn't the best idea.

So how fundamental will you say for the audience that's listening, do you say that networking is, whether it's networking on from the social aspect, because, you know, I look at social media as a 24-hour networking event, right? Really, if you can look at it that way. And then also from the in-person context. So would you say that networking is pretty important to you? It's significant, right? And I'll tell you why. I think that it's almost like this.

Let me sum it to you this way. It doesn't matter how good you are at something if nobody else knows about it. And in our world today, there's only a certain amount of ways that you can do that. Social media by far, because social media, is your advocate for you at three o'clock in the morning when you're sleeping it's always speaking for you but the networking piece that there's a strategy to networking like if i'm a realtor i don't want to go to a networking event with a bunch of realtors that's really not going to do me any good but if i'm a realtor that wants to focus on the high end going to a network event in the

marketplace i want to be in that's going to feature or have guests that could potentially buy high-end properties that makes sense and in today's day and age that there's a lost And I don't know what age your audience is, but the younger people are, the more they're turning to technology to replace the face-to-face, belly-to-belly-belly, palm-the-palm interaction. To me, at 41, yes, and I'm big on social and all that good stuff, there's just nothing like that face-to-face belly, belly, palm-the-pom. And how else can you get people, how else can you get people to like you and trust you, if you're not there learning about them,

learning what their hot buttons are, and doing that in person. So networking absolutely will put you in a circle that will open up opportunities. And one of my bosses taught me once. I remember I was recruiting an agent. It was the guy for Prudential here in Florida. And I was recruiting this.

It was my very first interview. And he goes, after that interview, come in and tell me how it goes. And he goes to me, and I did the interview. The guy sucked. Within five minutes, I ended the interview. Because the guy had the personality of a doork

So I come in and Roger he goes hey how was the interview I said the interview is terrible we ended in like five 10 minutes He goes well why I go the guy had no personality I don't want to waste my time He goes well the problem is now you left the bad impression of our brokerage on that guy and that guy is going to go out and tell everybody That he said no to us that you know rather than not saying no to him and that and that we're the worst company Because you never want to do that you want to put yourself in the position to say yes or no and that's what networking allows you to do networking allows you to go and meet people put yourself in that position whereas if you stay home you're just you're definitely not going to ever have that ability social media alone is not going to do it uh social media just backs you up so when you meet people it's great to be able to tell them and i'm sure you do this it's great to be able to tell people yeah

google me you know uh it's a it's a pretty cool thing awesome and i think that's definitely good advice because like you said you know that face-to-face interaction you can get more of the nonverbal communication which to me is just as important as the words that we're saying right it's being able to actually see people up close and personal and get a feel for who they are as a human. That's right. I mean, listen, my podcast, I've tried it like this via split screen or whatever. It doesn't work for me. I can't do it. And I give major kudos to those that can pull it off because it's a skill that I don't have. But in doing that, it allows me to meet face to face with these guys. And the net worth, I added it up the other day. It's like over $11 or $12 billion in net worth of the

that I've had on the show. And I got like most of their cell phones. And that's a really cool thing that otherwise may have not happened if I wasn't face to face with them, you know? Plus they know me now. Like if I run into them at an event, they'll seek me out. They'll like, hey, Alex, how you doing? Come over.

They give me a hug. They invite me in, you know, all that stuff. Whereas maybe they forget about me if maybe I wasn't, you know, they're spending the time with them in person. I'm a huge fan of in person, in person activity. Awesome. And so tell me a little bit about your vision right now. You know, I know you set the bar high, right?

We've seen that in hearing your journey of how you've been able to blaze your own trail. You've really set the bar high every time that you do something. So what are some goals that you have right now for your business? My goals are to make my broker not the biggest but the best. We're actually going the other way. We're trimming a lot of the fat in our broker. So at one point we hit as high as 560. we've gone as low as 400.

We're back up to like 500, but we're about to do another round of cuts. My vision is to make our company valued at least for this year, get it to where it's got a value of $10 million. I want it to be a brokerage where the best realtors work for already or want to work for us. And I want my show to be the number one podcast in the world. And that's it and just plug away at that.

And then obviously my personal goals with competing. I want to do at least six races this year, potentially a half iron man. I don't get too caught up. I know this sounds kind of crazy. And this goes against everything that everybody talks about in terms of like you need to have a five-year plan and you need to have your 10-year plan. Like Bobby Castro, who's got his net worth is like $300 million.

His real estate portfolio is another $350 million. And he goes, you know, so many people get lost in the future that they're not working on there today. And I look at it and say, where I'm at today, is what's best for me today. Does that mean I'm going to be a related ice G five years from not 10 years for now? Man, I really hope so. I'm becoming a partner in the company.

I want to be here. But at the same time, I understand that I need to work on today. And if I can improve today over tomorrow, yesterday, and tomorrow I can improve it over today, then that ball is always moving forward. And you just never know where your life is going to take you

and what opportunities are going to present itself. Because if you would, if I look back in my life and told you I would have never, I never would have envisioned living in California or Colorado. And I did, you know. And so that's great to have those goals and I have it. But right now my main goal is I focus on the golf balls and I'll share that story in a minute. I focus on the golf balls in my life and make sure that every day I'm doing a little bit

better than I did the day before. The golf ball story, if we have time, I'll share it with you real quick. It talks about a college professor and he, he gets in front of his class and he takes out a jar and he fills the jar with golf balls. And he asks the class is the jar full? And they all respond, yes. He then takes pebbles and sand or pebbles fills the jar. He then,

I just gave away the story. Ask him if the jar is full. They say yes. He then takes sand, fills all that empty space for sand. He then asks him if it's full. They say yes. He then takes two beers, pours it in the jar.

Now they're like, hey, they start laughing. They ask him, what's the point? Talk about how the golf balls in your life are the big things. You know, they're your job, your passions, your family, your kids, your health. The pebbles in the sand are all the, like, they're keeping the house clean, you know, having to get the groceries done, you know, the check in the mail, the shit that needs to be done, but doesn't necessarily need to be done right to second. And what happens is most people fill their life with the sand and the pebbles first, which means they're no, they're leaving no time for the golf balls. And so right now, when I look to do something, if it's not a golf ball in my life, I don't do it.

Like being on your podcast, for me, is a golf ball, right? Because this one helps you, a fellow podcaster, which I love the podcast community, right? But the reality is that I'm working on building my show, and this is how guys do it, right? I'm on your show. You're hopefully one day I'll be on my show, whatever, and that's how we grow together. And so this is a golf ball and I make time for it. And so I would tell the audience, like figure out what you're going to be. golf balls are because you will always have time to handle the sand and the pebbles. But if that's

where you put your attention, you're never going to be moving that, you know, that ball forward. That's awesome. I love that story and I love that analogy. And kind of in that same realm, you know, you're, you're busy guy, right? 41. You have four kids, right? And you're president of a company and you're out and about. You're networking. You're building these relationships. So for the audience that's listening, you know, maybe they're a new parent or maybe they've got a couple So can you tell people like what do you do to make sure that you maintain and focus on all the important things in your life? Well, I make it convenient, right? So it's an interesting thing.

When things are important to you, somehow find the time and when they're not important to you, never have the time. That really is what it boils down to. So fitness is a big deal for me. And when we moved out, we kind of moved to the suburbs of Miami and no longer really made it convenient for me to go to any CrossFit gyms. My wife and I looked at each other and we said, screw it. We ended up putting an entire CrossFit gym in our garage. So I changed my environment to make it easy to maintain my commitment to fitness. And so that's number one.

I time manage really, really well. One of the things I did, and again, this is audio so you don't see it, I used to spend three hours a day in my car. And I said I had to come because I have six offices. And I had to come to a better relationship with time. And I was like, screw this. People want to meet with me. They think it's valuable enough to want to meet with me.

They should come to me. and I changed my environment in my office to make it an office where I want to be happy to come to. And so now, and I make people come to me. And now I'm having between 20 and 30 meetings a week versus five to seven or seven to ten because I'm no longer having to really drive around as much because I'm making people come to me. So I made the changes, man. I made the changes. I told people, hey, I'm the president.

And I don't want to sound egotistical. It's not about that. But, you know, people aren't coming to me to be guests on my show. Grant Cardone's not coming to me. I'm going to Grant Cardone. And so if those people can come, it's important enough to me to want to go to them. And so I feel the same way. If people feel it's important enough to want to meet with me, they should come to me.

And so you make those changes. Like I made it easy for me to work out. I made it easy for me to get more done at work. I have the right team in place that supports me in leading the brokerage so that I can focus on things outside of the brokerage like the show, which eventually does obviously help the brokerage as the leader. and those were some really big changes. And going back to the golf ball story, if it's not a golf ball, I don't do it.

I farm it out. And Bezos Kulian, CEO of FitBody Boot Camp, taught me this. And he was talking about like, and he got it from somebody else talking about Zone of Genius and how of everything that you can do in your life, only 5% needs to be done by you. The other 95% could be farmed out. and just because you know how to do it doesn't mean you need to be doing it. And that really hit home with me. And what I try to do is I focus on the things that only I can do.

And if somebody else can do it on my team, I ask them to do it. And I focus only on the things that I can do. And you make those kind of tweets here and there, all of a sudden it's like, boom, you got time for everything. I love that. And I love those tips. And especially for that last one, because, you know, it's such a beautiful thing when you're managing people, when you actually let people operate in their strengths, guess what happens?

Their morale goes up. They're more excited to do it. They're happy to be at work, right? And then you're living in that 5% the 95% is actually, like you're not worried about it being handled, right? Because you have the right people in the right places. And so I really, really love that advice.

And you set up the right systems, which I didn't do before. And I learned recently. I set up the system. So like, hey, now I do weekly staff meetings. And I used to use the excuse, well, we're all over the place. and, you know, sort of to get everybody in one central location,

it would take a half a day. So now I'm doing Zoom staff meetings with all my staff. It's increased of productivity, humongous. And I started really paying attention to the details. The easiest example was that. So I take my sport of trapplon very serious, and I have a nutritionist that keeps me on. And I'm like, and there's a certain weight that I like to be for races.

It's just, it's easier on the body, I'm faster on the swim, I'm faster on the bike, I'm faster on the run, whatever. and I was telling him, I was like, man, I'm not, I'm just not losing the last three or four pounds. And trust me, it makes a difference when you're racing for two, three hours. I'm like, man, I'm just not losing it. And he goes, well, are you measuring exactly what you're eating? And I'm like, no, I'm not. And I said, you know what, I'm going to take one day, just one day, and I'm going to measure.

And stupid example, I have two shakes a day and I put almond butter in my shake. Okay. I thought I was putting one tablespoon of almond butter in my shake. Well, it ended up being I was putting in three. Okay? That adds up to almost 500 calories more per day. Multiply that out over the course of a week. That's 3,500 calories.

That's a day and a half of eating that I was adding to my quote-unquote nutrition just because I wasn't paying attention to the details. This week alone, I did that, and I dropped the weight like that. And I'm at 187 this morning, which is the weight that I want to be for the race this weekend. You know, and so you start paying attention to what the details are. And then all of a sudden what you think you're doing like, oh, I don't have time because I'm so busy doing all this. You really paid attention to that.

You realize you're probably wasting a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram and the pebbles in the sand. And then all of a sudden, you don't have time to do all the big things because you're focusing on the pebbles in the sand. But you've got to take the time to actually pay attention to those details to know where you're going wrong. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that because, you know, I, like everybody, have gotten into that headspace where it was like, man, I don't have time for this. And then, yeah, you're right. It's like, did I really have to, like, binge watch that show?

You know, did I really? Was that the right investment in my time or could I have used that for something more productive? And when you make those shifts, it's very easy to identify areas that maybe you can repurpose or really change and shift. So, you just said something very important. I know, I'm sorry, Jordan. You're good. to cook up. We're like, you know, I could have used that time to be more productive. And so a lot of people will say, well, what are you ever supposed to have downtime then?

If you're, if you have free time, you're using it to be more productive, like, hey, when do I ever get a break? Well, the more productive you are and the more cognizant you are of your time, you actually have free time. Like, I take off every, listen to, I take off every Thursday morning because my wife is off every Thursday. And the kids are in school, at least during the school year, even in the summer because they're in summer camp. And that gives us, I just take off to like 11. But man, that gives me two hours with my wife to go and play tennis and grab breakfast together before I go into the office. But if I wasn't aware of what was my time and making sure that I was only handling the big

things, then I wouldn't be able to do that. So by paying attention to your time and using your time wisely, you open yourself up to have that time to be and watch that TV show and not feel bad, as long as you're not wasting all your time on the minutiae, you know. That's exactly right. Absolutely. So for the audience, tell everyone a little bit about your show, the name, you know, when you release episodes and the type of content that you're talking about. Sure. So my show is called The Closer Club, The Closer Club.com. I started about two years ago. There'll be two years in June. And the purpose of the show is this, you know, my clients are realtors.

Realtors' clients are buyers and sellers. And so in Dayton Broward County, which is Miami, Fort Laud. there are over 50,000 realtors. And if those are my clients, how do I get in front of them? And so I had to go to the sandbox that they play in. And the sandbox that they play in is social media. All right. So now I'm in social media. What's the toy that they play with the most in the sandbox? And it was a video. And I said, well, what other, you know, it's a great platform to be able to showcase my energy, my passion, my vibe, my knowledge of the market and real estate, et cetera. And I leverage some of the connections that I know with some local powerhouses. And really it was real estate related questions, primarily in the beginning.

And then there was a real estate conference down here that has about 5,000 attendees. And I reached out to the PR agency and I said, listen, I want to speak on one of the panels. And they came back to me and said, Alex, listen, we love you. Because I went to high school with the girl that owns a PR agency. She was, we love you and we love your company. But the company that puts on this event that we represent doesn't know you or the company, so they're not going to do it. I said, cool.

I hung up the phone. the very first phone call I made was the Ryan Searhan from a million dollar listing New York. And then from there, it took off to celebrity entrepreneurs, politicians, athletes, huge national real estate players. And in the show, it's all about entrepreneurship. We always start with like a back, you know, how they got similar to you. We start with, you know, how did you get to where you're at? We always end with like a book or a podcast recommendation for the audience. And the meat of it really depends on, you know, how do they stay motivated?

when they were at their lowest points, how did they bounce out of it? What are the top business lessons they've learned? You know, things of that nature regarding entrepreneurship, how they handle high pressure. And you start to see it could be an athlete to somebody who runs a huge multi-billion dollar business. There's a lot of common denominators that transcend the business world into sports and politics and all that.

And it's really fun, man. I really enjoy it. It's a passion for sure. That's awesome. All right. And so for the audience is listening, if people want to get in touch with you, maybe, you know, you definitely gave the website for your show, but how else can people find you?

Where are you at on social? And where would you like the audience to come and figure out where you are? You can find me on Instagram at Vidal, Alex, V as in Victor, I-D-A-L-A-L-E-X, at Vidal Alex, Alex Vidal on Facebook, or you could Google Alex Vodal the closer club and all together. The closer club is all together. And that'll pretty much, you'll find me. Awesome, man. Well, hey, this has been awesome.

Definitely been great getting to know you a little bit better and for the audience to get some more context into Alex. So thank you so much for coming on the show. And I know we'll definitely stay in touch. And I hope to make it down to Florida to see you and come on your show as well, man. Yeah, man. Awesome. Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Wow. What an amazing journey.

You know, to have a child at 19 and to be able to still have a job and not only that start really moving up into the ranks, Alex is definitely somebody that has a lot of perseverance. So make sure you connect with them. All of his info will be down in the show notes. So make sure you reach out on LinkedIn or IG or check out a podcast on YouTube as well. I really, really appreciate you all for your continuous support with the show. If you haven't already subscribed, please, please do subscribe. And don't forget to tell your friends about the show.

That's how we're going to be able to reach and impact the most people as possible. So I can't wait to talk to you on the next episode of the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast.