The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Dealmaker: How to Succeed in Business & Life Through Dedication, Determination & Disruption Mauricio Umansky

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

The Dealmaker: How to Succeed in Business & Life Through Dedication, Determination & Disruption Mauricio Umansky https://amzn.to/3LWefUU Mauricio Umansky, real estate mogul, longtime fan favorite of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and star of his own Netflix series Buying Beverly Hills inspires budding entrepreneurs and self-starters of all backgrounds with tips and strategies to find success at work and at home. After more than twenty years in the cutthroat real estate business, Mauricio Umansky has seen and heard it all. Now, he’s ready to share everything he’s learned throughout the highs and lows of his illustrious career in this part memoir, part leadership manifesto. From the challenges of his childhood to outgrowing his father’s textile company and falling out with his brother-in-law Rick Hilton, while also raising a family and maintaining a strong marriage for over twenty-six years, Umansky has plenty of advice and lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and self-starters across all industries. By outlining his fundamental principles of success, Umansky will embolden those who are ready to work hard and are prepared to meet adversity head on, which requires endless stamina, grit, and determination. Each chapter will center around a specific piece of wisdom and offer insightful takeaways including: How to Play Hard and Work Harder, How to Find Your Professional and Personal Passions, How to be an Innovator Not an Imitator, The Art of the Sell, The Benefits of Remaining Positive, How to Achieve Balance, and so much more. Umansky’s journey has been anything but boring. It’s been unpredictable, exhilarating, and emotionally and physically demanding at times. In The Dealmaker, he imparts his hard-earned knowledge, along with strategies he’s taught himself, for anyone and everyone looking to build their own fruitful career and to find the happiness we all seek in life. Welcome to his exclusive and exciting world.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. Wonderful to have you guys as well. Thanks for tuning in.

We've got an amazing guest on the show. We're going to be talking about his newest book. And, of course, we have the greatest minds and authors on the show. And none of them are me. That's why we have guests on the Chris Voss Show. But we'll get to him in a second. In the meantime, refer to the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Remember, the Chris Voss Show is the family that dearly loves you but doesn doesn't judge you at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law

she's a nice person i hear uh anyway guys uh or refer the show to your family friends uh go to youtube.com for just christmas goodreads.com for just christmas the big linkedin group linkedin newsletter the 103 000 group over there check all that business stuff out we certainly appreciate oh and the new ai podcast we've launched as a vertical uh ai chrisfoss.com uh ai podcast uh with chris foss so there check all that out over there today we have an amazing gentleman on the show he's the author of the newest book that just come out april 11 2023 the deal maker how to succeed in business and life through dedication determination and disruption mauricio umansky is on the show with us today and he is the founder and ceo of the agency

representing some of the world's top celebrities developers and resort brands along with his netflix series buying beverly hills he has appeared on the real housewives of beverly hills you may have heard of that show i think a lot of people watch it yeah yeah there you go uh with his wife of more than 27 years kyle richards uh she has four daughters count them holy crap what do you have against boys i'm just kidding uh and the deal maker is his first book welcome to the show mauricio how are you i am fantastic chris and i'm really happy to be on the show, Mauricio. How are you? I am fantastic, Chris, and I'm really happy to be on the show with you. And I love the introduction. So I am ready to blow my brain off and blow everybody's brain off. Well, let's do it. Let's do it. So give us a.com wherever you

want people to look you up on the interwebs to get to know you better. Yeah, I mean, you know, Instagram is M. Umansky18. And my website for the company is theagencyre.com. There you go. So what motivated you on to write this book? Well, I just wanted to create something. What motivated me? A lot of things motivated me. I have 2,500 people that work for me. I have 2,000 salespeople that work for me. And every day they come in and we talk about motivating them and making them better salespeople. And then, you know, when you're doing that, you ultimately become a little bit of a psychologist. And so all of a sudden, part of that motivation not only becomes, you know, at work, but also, you know, like how to, you know, balance work life, how to, you know, do things better,

all of those types of things. And, you know, one of the things that I realized was that I have kind of very simple philosophies about life. And they resonate with people. And so I said, you know, I really want to, you know, give back, you know, put, you know, my memoirs, my experiences, whatever you want to call them, you know, on a book. And hopefully, you know, inspire people, you know, not necessarily teach them how to do something. This is not a how-to book. I did not want to write, you know, the seven steps to success. I didn't want to buy, you know, the five steps to be. You know, I was talking about not wanting to create a book that was the seven steps to success or anything like that, but rather, you but rather teaching people to be insightful about their own experiences and hopefully learn through

some of my experiences. So I go on and I tell some really fun stories with some really fun people, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, selling the Playboy Mansion, all kinds of really fun ways of doing it, but then I just simplify it. And once it gets simplified, I then give a lesson that I learned because of that story that happened. And I just hope that somebody is going to learn a little bit, take a couple of those mantras. Every chapter at the end of the chapter has a mantra. And then I just hope that the people reading it learn a little something and they have some insights. And it's been great. I've had amazing reviews, Chris. Amazing reviews so far. So I'm really excited.

I've seen those. They're awesome. You know, you mentioned about being a CEO and the psychologist aspect of it. I never knew owning companies that I would have to become a CEO or a psychiatrist to all my employees, especially my sales employees.

It's quite eye-opening. You're like, why do I have to solve all these fucking problems? It's pretty crazy, right? Well, and it also depends. You're a psychiatrist at the office. It also depends, I think, what business you're in, right? I run a sales organization, right?

So, you know, my business is service and sales, right? Sales, marketing, and servicing. When you're dealing with that, you're dealing with a bunch of salespeople. You're inevitably going to be a psychologist. That's just part of life. There you go. And you do have a lot of business motivational stuff in here though you you have like at the end of every chapter tell us about what you've packed in there well at the end of every chapter i just decided to put some mantras and the reason for that is just to kind of simplify and you know kind of give the idea

of at the end of the story at the end the chapter, at the end of what you've read, to let you know what I've learned from that story and kind of just simplify it so that if you ever want to go back to the book and just read the mantras and remember what some of those things were all about, not have to read the entire book again, that was kind of the idea of the mantras. And I like the book it reads a lot like uh swim with the sharks with uh i forget his first name harvey uh very quick very easy read a lot of simple lessons but but unique stories and everything else you know you you've been a uh was it 20 how many years was it been 27 years you've been a real estate mogul i think it was yeah Yeah, plus or minus.

I think since 1996. Yeah. So whatever. Where are we right now? 20, 23, 2023. So, yeah. It goes fast. Luxury property business.

What was it like selling the Playboy Mansion? I mean, all that shag and 70s motif. It was so much fun, man. I mean, I love to do every every you know the as many tours as i can of that house i did them all um you know people just love to see everything right the shag the scooby-doo uh you know look um you know the grotto the pool uh it just it's it's an iconic house right and it was just so much fun and obviously look the people that were seeing that house are people that could afford you know 100 million plus so you know the buyer on the

other side was also fun to show it to yeah i owned an acting and modeling agency in utah for a lot of years and my girls would go to the parties down there and they would come back and tell me about the motif and i'm just like geez can does he have any money he can get that upgraded it literally looked like there was one room that literally looked like the back of the Scooby-Doo van. You got to love it. Shag. Shag needs to make a comeback. Maybe you can do that in the luxury market.

So you talk about a memoir. Tell us a little about you growing up and what shaped you and made you. Yeah, I think a little bit of everything. I think it starts from from uh you know being born with a terminal blood disease um and then you know ultimately just surviving it surviving it kind of by luck right not because of any other uh medical situation you just either you know back then you know neutropenia was something you either survived or didn't now there's medicines that can keep you alive a lot longer. But, you know, to me, it all kind of just starts there, you know, with the luck of living and the love of life.

And from that, I ended up with a lot of love from my parents, from, you know, a whole bunch of different people that just gave me so much confidence, so much love. My grandparents, my grandpa in particular, my mom, my dad. And so that just kind of started to shape me, you know. And then to add on top of that, we moved to Los Angeles from Mexico City, and my mother decided to become a psychologist. And so she started to go to school when I was probably around eight years old, plus or minus. And she ended up, you know, getting not only her doctorate degree in psychology,

but ultimately I think three postdoctorate degrees in psychology. Wow. So my entire life, I grew up with a woman that was studying psychology, right? A mom, right? And you can imagine what that's like, right? But because of that, I also got a lot of insight. I learned a lot about the human behavior, the way that people think, and all of that stuff innately as a young kid. And not something that I had to go wait until I was 25 to learn, but rather started to learn it and understand how to read a room, which I talk about in the book, understand how to read people, which I talk about in the book, which is so important for sales. And all of that just came early in my life, right? I didn't realize it was coming back then. It was just one of those things that I ultimately picked up on later in my life. I mean, when I was

a kid, all I cared about was sports. But then I realized certain aspects and innate aspects, and they're not innate because they were taught, right? They were just taught when I was a young kid. And so, yeah, really fun way to grow up. Understanding psychology really makes them the greatest salesman that I've ever worked with. You know, being able to understand human nature, how people sell, what motivates them. And it's a real big aspect, just whether we're just dealing with other people or trying to sell to them. I think everyone's selling. That's my opinion as a salesman.

I think everyone's always selling. They're selling each other. They're selling themselves. They're like, does this person like me? Am I being interesting? I'm doing it right now. So what do you think about that? I think we're selling all day long in any industry that you're in.

I mean, at the end of the day, you're selling something. You're either selling a gadget or a service or a SaaS model. Whatever it is that you're selling, you're selling something, right? And not only in business, but also in life, I think you're always kind of selling yourself. You know, you want people to like you. You want friends. You're selling, right?

It's a way of selling, right? And so, yeah, I think that we're just natural-born salespeople. There you go. I always sell that I'm an asshole and people shouldn't like me, and for some reason they do. So it's that reverse psychology of sales is working for me. That's what I love, the attraction, my friend. Positive and negative, they attract.

There you go. So you've got some beautiful photos of your journey through life and your family history and everything. You know, you've studied psychology. You're surrounded by women. You have four daughters. You have a beautiful wife of many years. I think, what is it, 27 years?

27 years, yeah. 27 years. That's where I had the 27 from. I got that number right. I know that number. There you go. It's interesting watching. And then you're on the set of uh beverly housewives uh there uh

how do you handle does the psychology lesson you know from your mother uh help you with all manage all that estrogen yeah yeah i mean i guess i just i was just meant to be around women and girls you know it's uh i'm so lucky i got you know three of them that are not working with me at the company you know we're uh we're doing that and uh i just feel so lucky. I got three of them that are now working with me at the company. We're doing that, and I just feel so lucky and blessed to have that, Chris. But with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, I just let it go, man. It's not my show. It's my wife's show. It's all about the girls. It's a bunch of drama. And I'm just kind of the nice, supportive husband in the background, just letting all that shit go down. And, uh, and, and, and I,

you know, my wife's always right. Let's be clear. It doesn't matter. Um, she's always right. Okay. Um, and that's just the best way to go through the real housewives of Beverly Hills. Yeah. Anytime one of my married guys calls me and he's like, Hey, the wife's doing this. And I'll be like, Hey, you have two choices here, buddy. You want to be right. Or you want to be happy. You can only choose one. Yep. Happy wife, happy life. Happy wife, happy life. So tell us about the, let's get a plug in here for the Beverly Housewives. How, what season is it in and how's it going and how's it looking for the future?

Yeah, so the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, they're now in season 13, which is pretty amazing. And then we're also, you know, just started filming season two for Buying Beverly Hills, which is on Netflix. And that's a show that is about our company, you know, with me, with my three daughters, with my two daughters, I should say, sorry.

And it's just, you know, a ton of fun to do. So that's more, you know, more of a business show than the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. There you go. Anytime I watch it, I'm like, I wonder if they'll take a check. No, I'm just kidding. We'll take a check.

I just don't want to make that a rubber. Yeah, probably. I've seen those houses. They're beautiful and elegant. But it's extraordinary. The luxury real estate market, homes in LA. I mean, just a great thing. Now with your agency, do you guys do homes around the nation or the world, or you just focus on the market of California? Yeah. Thanks for that question. No, we are around the globe. Uh, we currently have, uh, I think 85 offices around the globe. Um, we service, uh, primarily obviously

the U S and we're headquartered out of Los Angeles and Manhattan, New York. And then, you know, we're starting to build, you know, the in-between cities. And then we also service Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and now just starting to, you know, to open up offices in Europe, which is really exciting with our offices in Amsterdam, Portugal, and growing. Oh, and we have one in Mallorca in Spain right now. There you go. Are you in that place no one's really heard of, Dubai? You in Dubai yet?

We're not in Dubai yet, but don't be shocked that next time we talk, I'll tell you we're there. Yeah, they have some expensive stuff over there right here. We've had some people on the show. Well, and the real estate there is flying off the shelves. You can't keep it on the shelves. It's unbelievable. And the tax situation is pretty over there right here. We've had some people on the shelves. Well, and the real estate there is flying off the shelves. You can't keep it on the shelves. It's unbelievable. And the tax situation is pretty good too over here.

Well, it's definitely not good in California, Chris. Where do you live? I'm up in Utah right now, but normally Las Vegas. Got it. Yeah. So you like good tax states. Yeah. I don't like paying state tax.

I'm kind of against that. I lived in California for three years. I went back. i grew up there but uh after after a while i'm like you know i can buy a mansion in fucking vegas for what it costs to live in an old state tax alone yeah yeah the state tax alone is like whatever so yeah i i like vegas plus you know 24 hours of everything you want when you're seeing vegas is fantastic we have an office in Vegas, and we love it there. We handle a couple of different developments. Ascaya is one of them, and I'm sure you're familiar with that. We have a great office in Vegas.

Yeah, it's a beautiful town, and it just gets more beautiful, although I'm not happy with the real estate going up, but it is what it is. I guess you just have to roll with it. There's no choice. Yeah, plus I'm a Raiders fan, so it was like a dream come true. Oh, my lucky you yeah now if i could just get them to win a game and i wouldn't have to hide all the sharp knives on sundays uh what else have we touched on in your book that you shared yeah i mean you've

written a lot of great uh segments in here where people can get these really great bite-sized chewy business knowledge information yeah i mean, I have a bunch of concepts. They're all philosophies. They start off with the standard of Napoleon Bonaparte, the great general, used to say to his staff, and I have little things that just trigger me, and from there I do everything, right? But he used to say to his staff before he would prepare for battle,

dress me slow because I'm in a hurry, right? What does that mean? Right? Like, don't make mistakes. Back when he would get, you know, that was a complicated dressing, you know, in order to put on that, you know, general's outfit. Right? And so the idea is let's not make mistakes.

Let's get it done right the first time. Let's do it right. Let's get to the end faster rather than making a whole bunch of mistakes. Right? Think about that, you know, and just like you're a salesman, you're late for an appointment, you know you're running late, you're speeding, you run through a red light, you get stopped by a police officer and you're later, right?

You made a mistake, right? Like rather than just getting there, right? Especially if you didn't pay those warrants. Especially when you didn't pay those warrants, right? You know, or God forbid, you know, you're late to get home to your wife and, you know, you're speeding and you had a couple of drinks. Now you're really late. Or if you stopped at the mistress's house, yeah, you're going to be in trouble.

So I live by that philosophy and I talk a lot about that in the book. But I refer to that in terms of making decisions in business, right? Because in business, we have to make a lot of decisions. We have to make them fast. So I try to not procrastinate. So I take my time, you know, procrastinate, you know. So I take my time, I make a decision, and then I live by another Kabbalistic philosophy,

which is called certainty versus doubt. You know, once you make a decision, have 100% certainty in your decision and just go for it. Never doubt yourself because when you start doubting, you start going back and forth. You don't do anything, right? So I'm slow to make a decision, but once I make it, we're in. We're 100% in and we have 100% certainty, right? certainty right so that's one you know philosophy that i talk about that's really important i see a lot of people that would come to me and they go hey chris i want to start my own business and i'm

like okay great do it and they're like well you know i'm waiting till the time's right and you know and then years go by and they're like if you start that business yet i don't know we're just waiting for everything to be perfect. You're like, dude, you just have to do it. It's never perfect, right? And when I talk about that, too, in terms of starting businesses and, you know, trying to start businesses that you're passionate about, right? Because a lot of the times people are also they just don't have the passion. And so my whole point is, like, you know, have passion because if you have passion, work's not work.

Work's fun. Right? whole point is like you know have passion because if you have passion works not work works fun right like i mean i can tell you one of the things i talk about in my book is you know i get home every day and my wife says how was your day and i'm like it was amazing and she's like fuck man like how can every day of your life be amazing like that doesn't work right and i'm like well i'm pat i love what i'm doing it is amazing like even on the bad days when you're solving something, it can still be amazing. Bad doesn't have to be bad. Bad can be good. Yeah, when you do what you love, it changes the game.

Because it's so hard to be an entrepreneur. It's 24-7. You live it, you breathe it, you dream it. It's hard. It's very hard, but it's also very satisfying. And when you are an entrepreneur, it really doesn't become hard because, again, it's part of who you are, right? It's part of your DNA. I mean, I can tell you there is no way I could retire and go play golf five days a week or ski five days a week.

I'd go bananas. There's no way I could do that. I'd lose my brain. So that doesn't mean you shouldn't have balance and still figure out when to go hang out with your friends and when to go play golf and when to go do what you love to do. In my case, it's golf and skiing and traveling. So it's just everybody has something different that they're passionate about, fishing, whatever it is.

What are some other axioms you want to tease out? I mean, what else do I talk about? Work-life balance I think is super what else do i talk about work-life balance i think is super important we definitely touch the work-life balance um you know we talk about a concept that i was taught very early by my grandfather uh you know it's 24 hours in a day right there's eight hours for sleep eight hours for work eight hours for play right like if you're just able to kind of keep that balance and the sleep part like you know you should sleep eight hours for play right like if you're just able to kind of keep that balance and the sleep part like you know you should sleep eight hours right seven sleeping and life thing what is that what is that again yeah note to self find out what this life part is about yeah exactly so

just a lot of that kind of stuff you know and um yeah yeah well i love the stuff, you know, and yeah. Yeah. Well, I love the book because, you know, what I've written about in my book is the CEO toolbox. And every CEO and business owner, entrepreneur, I seem to find that we have these toolboxes, these axioms that we always go back to. Sometimes we get off the basics. And so I love the book because it gives you a lot of the toolbox that you use and exposes you on how you use it for your success. 100%. And again, the idea is just

to hopefully just let people start learning for themselves and have insights. I'm just trying to get people to have insight about themselves because if you can start self-analyzing, you can become a way better human being. Yeah. But that's really hard to do.

To be able to step outside of yourself and look at yourself and actually do a self-analysis is really hard for people to do how important then would you say is i mean that's self-accountability too right being so i'll tell you what happens on that um and it's a perfect example i just kind of thought about this right now but like uh you know i'm on two reality shows. I've had a lot of co-stars on reality television. I've had a lot of husbands, a lot of wives, a lot of friends, a lot of all that stuff, right? I've been doing it now for 13 years, over 300 episodes. It's a lot, right? But I can tell you that most people, when they look at themselves on television and they watch

themselves, they actually reflect and learn something about themselves that they didn't know they had. And that's what I mean by taking yourself out of your own body and being able to look back, right? Most people, most of us don't have the ability to be on reality television and have a camera on you 24 seven so that you can actually go watch yourself and find out what you like about yourself or what you don't like about yourself, right? So the whole idea is to be able to step outside of yourself and look back and have a self-analysis you know what what do you do every day uh is it stuff that you're happy about are you going to sleep happy you know about what you did that day or are you just you know hiding

something are you tricking yourself because we all have the ability to trick ourselves i can tell you about four years ago five years ago uh i weighed um you know 242 pounds. I was on a boat. I was on a yacht with my wife. I look at her and I go, not bad for a 45-year-old. She goes, not bad. You're fat as fuck. I'm like, what are you talking about?

I literally walked into the room. I looked at the mirror. I looked at myself. I'm like, fuck, I am fat as fuck but i was tricking myself okay um and so until somebody tells you that until you do that self-analysis right um you're just tricking yourself definitely and you lost the weight did you drop the weight down i dropped the weight yeah all the way down good for you man good for you losing weight is hard to do so i i commend anybody who does it and it's it's a it's a bit of a challenge especially we get in our older ages you know i did the same

thing you did uh where you see yourself on tv and you learn from your issues but mine was on cops i was getting arrested no i wasn't that's a joke people but i thought it was funny but no i used to anytime i used to get depressed about life i used to watch the show cops and, and then I'd be like, I'd get done after an hour or two, and I'd be like, wow, my life is fucking amazing. I love my life. I feel really good about myself right now, yeah.

That's my self-motivational book. Watch Cops, and you'll feel better at the end of the day. Unless you're the guy on it. There you go. I love it, I love it. It's been wonderful to have you. Anything more you want to tease out of the book, or tell people to encourage them to go buy the book guys i encourage you go read the deal maker listen to

an audio read it it's great i've had some amazing reviews um and let me know how you like about it i know we've already started to change some people's lives and uh i hope that this helps you guys out so uh i hope you get something out of it because that's the only reason I did it. There you go. Awesome sauce. Give us your.com so people can find you guys on the interwebs. Again, the agency, R-E dot com, company, the agency, and myself is M. Umansky18 on Instagram.

M. Umansky18 on Instagram. There you go. Thank you very much. We certainly appreciate you coming on the show, Mauricio. Mr. Voss, it was a pleasure to hang out with you, man. Thank you for having me. Thank you as well. And thanks, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com,

YouTube.com, LinkedIn, and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.