The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Miguel Coradine & Vanessa Mendoza Joined Michael Urpí & Xavier Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Miguel Coradine, Vice President of Craddock Sirius Insurance, and Vanessa Mendoza, Personal & Commercial Producer at Craddock Sirius Insurance, joined Michael Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Today and Manana. I'm Michael, very happy to be joined by Xavier here today. Good morning Michael,, and welcome to Today and Manana. I'm Michael. I'm very happy to be joined by Xavier here today. Good morning, Michael. How are you? I'm doing good. How about yourself? Fantastic.

Yeah. As you know, it's sunny, so a sunny day makes me happy. I know, but I can't trust these sunny days because, you know, yesterday I looked and I was like, oh, 2% chance of rain. You know, maybe when I get back home, I'll try to take a swim. So I forget it. It's like in the afternoon, pouring thunderstorm. Yeah, and none of that.

It just felt like it was, because even at work, it was just, I'm walking, I'm looking out the window. It's like, it felt like it was sunny everywhere except for where we were. It's just like pouring and pouring. We drove home, we're still pouring. It's like...

Well, and then it had that moment. I don't know if you ever noticed, there's like a thunderstorm or rain, whichever, right? But it feels like the cloud's breaking right on top of you because it's like, it's sunny, and you're like, oh, the sun's out.

And then it's like dumping rain, and I'm like, it's pouring. You know, like, it's like, do I go out? I mean, it's like, but it was like, usually, maybe that lasts for five minutes. It felt like it lasted like for half an hour. No, no, exactly.

That's what I mean. It took a lot longer than typical. So I don't trust these sunny days anymore. It's at this point. Well, in the morning it's sunny. Well, in the morning. So yeah, I know, but I don't trust them. It's like nine o'clock in the sky

and then like three hours later you see them black coming at you. You're like, what the heck? Virginia. That's Virginia. I know, I know. It truly is. But as always, we are happy to be presented

by Emergent Financial Services powered by Cratic Series Insurance Matisse Young Realty and Faba Forward Adelante the premier Latino networking group in Virginia

and don't forget to like and share and if you want you can even subscribe subscribe man we did all the hard part already we nailed that that's my hard part we came back and we didn't miss a beat

that's right you ready to kind of just jump into our two wonderful guests we got two great guests here with us sitting next to us we have Miguel and Vanessa Mendoza from

Serious Insurance and it'd be nice to chat with them Vanessa is little that I guess brand-new and we can you know we can only ask Miguel about how long she's been with the with them working with them and then we'll ask Vanessa a little bit about her history her story which is a interesting story and then as we mentioned Well, don't spoil it all. You're kind of spoiling all the questions we're going to ask. Let's just introduce them and then ask them. Okay, you introduce them. Well, we are very happy to be joined by Miguel Corredin from Kayak Series Insurance, as well as Vanessa Mendoza.

Thank you both for coming on. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Javier. It's always a pleasure being in the show. We're so grateful for being here and telling all these great stories and great advice always for our customers, future customers, or people, especially in the entrepreneur world, which is an extreme export, I would say. That's a wonderful way to phrase it, considering the Olympics is on. Another Olympics sport, yeah.

It's tough, but thank you for having us today. Thank you for coming on. It's a pleasure. So, Miguel, I don't know if you want to introduce Vanessa to us, and then we can ask Vanessa some questions. And I know you want me to ask them in Spanish since she's here just a few months, right? Of course, yeah. Well, Vanessa Mendoza, she's our new team member.

She's amazing. She's fabulous. She's done a great job for being less than a year. She's got eight months months right eight months so far uh you know and it feels like we have her quite a few more years to us you know so we are grateful to have her in our team uh she's still learning a lot of things you In the insurance world, this is like another universe. It's so much to learn every day. Even us who has more

experience, I guess you can never learn enough. It's always something to learn. It's not just that. There's changes. Every time you look around, there's something new, either some rule or regulation or some new type of insurance product or financial product or whatever it may be.

And so you have to stay on top of that, really, as insurance agents or financial advisors to say what's new, what's going on, what can we then provide to our customers that might help them out. Yeah, you're 100% correct on that one. You know, the world is changing. So certainly technology, anything, everything is just changing all the time. It's like the stock market, you know? It changes every day.

Something new is coming up. It's interesting you say about technology right because um as we were traveling i realized that so many people do everything through their phone like even now the the passports right in some cases people had all their passport information on their phone so when you got up you could just go to a kiosk and just put your phone in there then it takes your picture and if everything matches you're off and going as opposed to taking your passport, you bring it to the agent. So, I mean, the world is, you know, technology changes.

And so even as that happens, we as, you know, advisors or, you know, agents or whatever it may be, have to change with it because a lot of our customers, especially on the younger side, they want to look at their phone and say, okay, what's the return on my portfolio or what's happening? And it's like, really? Wow, you got that on your phone? I know. It's kind of scary, too. With Bex, the question, what's the next step?

I want to have a chip inside our brain here, like a scan, like a, like a, like a barcodeson. But, but you know, I mean, uh,

weird things are coming in the near future. You know, hopefully, hopefully, you know, we don't go that too extreme on, on that, but,

um, I agree. But let me, so let me, let me, um, um, I know we have Vanessa Mendoza here and I'll ask her a few questions in Spanish

because, like I said, Vanessa just came here to the United States, what, about less than a year ago, right? And she's from Venezuela, so I'd love to invite her to ask, you know, I'll ask her a couple of questions. Buenos dias, Vanessa. Como esta? Buenos dias, Javier. Muy bien, gracias. Muchas gracias por venir y estamos hablando diciendo que usted hace poco que vino de Venezuela. Así es. Y quizás nos puede dar un poco sobre su trayecto de Venezuela aquí, como pasó, que es lo que hacía en Venezuela y como es que conoció a Miguel, al gran Miguel.

Ok, buenos días. Gracias por la invitación, por el espacio. Bueno, amigos. Y bien, conocí a Miguel haciéndome su cliente inicialmente y después tuve la oportunidad de aplicar y gracias a Dios súper complacida y agradecida de ser parte de su equipo, de la agencia. Bueno, llegué directamente de Venezuela, he tenido la oportunidad, ya había tenido la oportunidad de desarrollarme en el área de seguros en mi país. Ah, está bien, está bien. Sí, allí viene un poco de la afinidad con el trabajo acá. Y bueno, apoyando a la agencia, creciendo, como dice Miguel, la carrera de seguro es una universidad donde todos los días se aprende algo distinto. Tratamos de apoyar a nuestros clientes en satisfacer de la mejor manera las necesidades que ellos tienen en el área de seguros.

Y bueno. las necesidades que ellos tienen en el área de seguros. Dígame, en Venezuela, ¿los tipos de seguros que hay allí son similares aquí o es diferente las clases de seguros? Sí, los productos son básicamente los mismos, seguros personales, de propiedades. Cambia un poco la regulación, pero como el sentido es el mismo de las condiciones con las que se manejan las pólizas en el área de seguros.

Así que por lo menos en ese espacio ya tenía un poco de experiencia. Sí, correcto. Porque yo decía en poco tiempo que Miguel me dijo tantas buenas cosas y usted, digo, es increíble que alguien aprenda tan rápidamente todo lo seguro, pero ahora veo que ya tenía la experiencia por lo menos de la escuela. Sí, claro. Bueno, aquí tuve que prepararme para obtener mi primera licencia.

Estuve varios meses estudiando. Pero bueno, gracias a Dios ya la obtengo. ¿Y el examen era en inglés o en español? En inglés. Así que tuvo que aprender inglés. Y estudiar en inglés. Estudiar en inglés y después tomar el examen en inglés. Así es.

150 preguntas. Lo mejor de todo todo Javier y Michael es que ella lo pasó en la primera en la primera vez y eso es verdad que muy muy aplaudible porque es un examen difícil

no es un examen fácil es más, hay personas que son nativos acá hablan inglés y le han tomado varias veces pasarlo. Así que estamos muy orgullosos de Vanessa porque no todo el tiempo se pasa un examen de este tipo, así con todas estas preguntas y todo este contenido que pareciera otro idioma en la primera vez. Así que quería resaltar eso porque no es fácil este examen. experience in insurance in Venezuela. But she came here, she met Miguel, and they were looking for an agent, so she applied.

And she took the exam, which is in English, right? Remember, Vanessa doesn't speak English, didn't read English at that point. So she had to learn English, take the exam, and she passed it the first time, which is amazing because, like Miguel said, there are people that literally live here, take the exam, and she passed it the first time, which is amazing because like Miguel said, there are people that literally live here speaking the language and it takes them two or three times before they can pass that exam. So, you know, that's a pretty amazing story just right there, the desire to surpass, you know, all those obstacles that one may have just because of language barriers or whatever it may be. So, muy bien hecho, muy bien hecho. superar todos esos obstáculos que uno puede tener solo por las barreras de lenguaje

o lo que sea. Muy bien hecho. Pero también tengo entendido que también en otra parte de Vanessa es que le gusta, tiene una parte artística, ¿no? Quizás me puede decir un poco

de lo que le gusta hacer. Yo diría artística y muy rica también. Sabrosa. Sabrosa, esa. Sabrosa. Sí, bueno, como conversábamos antes del programa, a la par de mi desarrollo profesional pues estuve desarrollando lo que para mí era como un liberar un poco de las presiones laborales

y estuve desarrollándome en el área de la repostería artística la cual más allá se convirtió en pues en otra profesión y en mi sustento por muchos años en mi país. Bueno, es algo que me encanta hacer, desarrollar postres y todo lo que es el área artística, los cakes artísticos y sabrosos sobre todo.

Es una de mis favoritas palabras en español, postre. En inglés también. En inglés también. Yo lo primero que hago cuando voy a un país diferente, miro a ver qué clase de postres tienen y trato de probar los postres de allí para ver si me gustan. Naturalmente, siempre los postres cubanos son mis favoritos, pero bueno, siempre trato.

Cubanos, digo, quizás son iguales en muchos lugares. El flan, naturalmente, es uno de mis favoritos, pero casi todo el mundo hace flan. No tan bueno como los cubanos, pero lo hacen. ¿Te gustan los postres que son muy dulces? Dulces, sí. Con merengue. El merengue, me encanta el merengue. El papao. El papao, sí. Es un italiano. ¿Probaste los de

Sicilia? Sí, Sicilia tiene un dulce que parece es un pastel flojo donde ponen ron y con azúcar. Es una almíbar de ron y azúcar. I really like it.

Ya me gusta. Sí, sí. Y lo comes así y es exquisito. Es mi favorito dulce de Sicilia. Y Sicilia tiene un montón de postres buenos, pero ese es mi favorito. Ese. Ok. Qué bueno. Ya lo probaremos cuando of good desserts, but that's my favorite. Okay, that's good. We'll try it when we go there.

No doubt, no doubt. But well, like Vanessa was saying, while she was in Venezuela, one of the things that she did to relieve the pressure of her job, and then obviously I understand that after COVID and after what happened in Venezuela back then, you know, the insurance business was really struggling. So she started, you know, baking cakes and decorating them. So very artistically, and she did that for about 10 years. So she not only has a very mathematical and business mind for insurance,

but also she has that other side where it's artistic. And as everybody knows in this show already, what touches my heart is cakes and sweets and anything that has sugar. And if it's got a little rum in it, I'll take it with two. Yeah, we know why Miguel was so happy Vanessa was there. All those cakes. He was like, oh, Rico. I guess my question is.

Did you notice that? Yeah, just a little bit. So when people buy insurance from Vanessa, do they also get a cake? Yeah. That's in the works. That's in the works, yeah. The hook, you know, so we can. So tell me, it's interesting that we talked about Vanessa, right, her background.

And I realize we've never actually, you know, learned about your background because I know you were born in Colombia, but, you know, you weren't raised in Colombia, right? Yeah, that's true. Well, you know, I mean, most people think I'm from Venezuela because I have the Venezuelan accent and all that. Although I think I kind of lost a lot of it because I've been here for so many years. But yeah, you're right.

I mean, I was born in Colombia in 1979. Okay. At the time, I think Colombia, you know, was going through really a hard time. Ironically, everything at that time was beautiful in Venezuela. Back then in Colombia, it was the opposite. I say ironically because right now Venezuela is going through a really scary and tough situation, socially, economically, and everything,

any sense that you want to see it. But back then, in Colombia, it was all about the narcos and all bombings over there, I guess. And then my mom, she decided to move on to Venezuela. And that's why I was, I guess it probably was anywhere between 84, 85. I think that's when we arrived in Venezuela. And ever since, you know, I've been living my life in Venezuela until I was about 20, 21 years old. That's when I moved to the States. Oh.

So I came here, you know, ironically, you know, I came here to study English, which, you know, that was the first goal. I accomplished that. And then I went to the university. The goal was to, you know, get my bachelor's degree, which I did. But the main goal was to come back bachelor's degree, which I did, but the main goal was to come back to Venezuela. But little did we know what was going to happen after that. Speaker 1.: Miguel, when you got to the US, did you come straight to Charlottesville?

Miguel Cervantes- No, no, no. That's a good question. When I first came to the United States, I went to Tampa, Florida. I didn't want to go, I guess at the time, my mom didn't want to take me to Miami, where most people go, just because nobody speaks English there. So I guess the main idea, you know, was to learn English, which all I knew how to say was, hi, how are you? My name is Miguel, and that's it. I didn't know a word of English. So, you know, it was tough at the beginning, you know, coming here, learning a new culture, language, you know, everything. It wasn't easy.

I guess the first few months it was nice, everything was new, but after six months I think reality, you know, sets in, and, you know, and it was even harder when I have to go to the university, because, you know, I have to, you know, I think you, I think I knew how, I think I thought I knew a little bit of English until I went to the, straight to the university, and then it hits me right there. The first, The first year was really tough for me. I was about to drop out, you know, but, you know, thanks to my mom, you know, she kept, you know, like, she was resilient, you know, and I, by nature, you know, I'm a, you know, I'm a fighter, you know, I'm a doer, like, you know, whatever it takes, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to do it, I'm gonna

have to make it, you know. So after the first two years, you know, whatever it takes, I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to make it, you know. So after the first two years, you know, things got better in the university. And, you know, I was able to graduate in 2004. Fantastic. So just two quick questions. First of all, when you left Colombia to go to Venezuela, did your mother know anybody in Venezuela? No, nobody. She just said, boom, we're going know anybody in Venezuela? No, nobody. She just said, boom, we're going to Venezuela.

That's correct, yeah. And I'm very, you know, I want to, I've always been proud of my mom, because, you know, it was just my mom and I. She did everything that she could at the time, you know, to raise me. It was really, really, I can't imagine some days she was probably really, really tough for her. So, you know, I want to say that my mom, she's my hero. She's, I'm really proud of her. I'm really proud of single women that, you know, have to raise their sons alone.

It's, you know, I lived through that. So I know how difficult this could be, especially going to another country, not knowing anybody, not having a job, not having nothing. You know, it is hard. It was hard. But, you know, life is always beautiful because, you know, God put angels in your life,

whether it's for one day, a few weeks, a few months, or years. So there is always, and I believe, you know, always angels, not in the form of angels, but in the form of people, good people, that they come to your life and, you know, accomplish a purpose and for for better or worse and then you know you start you know making you know your life you know so now when you came to America did your mom come with you or did you stay in Venezuela no it was my it was just me. Just you?

Yeah. Is your mom still in Venezuela? She had to stay there because at the time she had like a photo shop at the time. She has her own business and she just couldn't leave. And that was another hard time for me because it was the first time that I was actually going away from home. Yeah. You know, but, you know, it is what it is, you know. You either do it and make it happen or, you know, or don't.

And how did you get into the insurance business? Ah, you know, well, that's fine. You know, in 2004, I graduated. I think I came here at the time, Charlottesville. I got to know, well, I knew a friend from home already. His name was Carlos Teran. Good family, good people. We knew even from Venezuela.

And at the time, you know, he was working for a newspaper, like a Latino newspaper in the time. So that's how, you know, I transitioned from, you know, Tampa to Virginia. Move on to that, you know, the newspaper business, if you want to call it that way. And then I then spent like maybe two years there and went to another local newspaper business in town, in Charlottesville. I guess everybody knows it's Civil Weekly. So I spent quite a few years there. And then is when I realized, you know, after seven or eight years that I, you know, needed to have a big change in my life. And then, you know, we just had the opportunity to work in an insurance company.

And that's how I became, you know, an agent. But I think it wasn't enough for me because I think I wanted more, you know. And then after so many years working in the insurance, I decided to start my own agency, which is what I said before. It is, you know, going on yourself. It is a really, it is one of the most difficult things you can do in your life because it's not easy, you know. It is, like we said before, it's an extreme export, you know. You got to wear many hats. That's right. At the beginning. And it's an extreme export. You've got to wear many hats at the beginning. And it's not for everybody.

The high pressure you have to keep here is a lot, at least for the first few years. Because you don't have an employer who is paying you every two weeks. If you don't move, you don't get paid. Right. So I have, you move, you don't get paid. So I have, you know, everything was depending on me. But, you know, after having some jobs, some difficult jobs prior to getting into insurance, or even, you know, during my, you know, insurance, you know,

experience in the first few years, it gave me that push that I needed to do my own thing. And here we are. So it is always, if you dream it, you can make it possible. I remember once, early on when we started the show and we were talking about dreams. And you said something that I will never forget, right? And you said, dream big. Don't just dream small. Dream big, right?

Because the feeling is, especially when you have your own business and you want to start your own business, right? There's so many challenges. especially when you have your own business and when you want to start your own business, right? There's so many challenges. And, you know, things don't always go the way you think they're going to go. And as you said, you no longer have somebody paying you on a weekly basis or biweekly basis. You have to get clients in order for them to pay, right? And you want to dream big because when you dream big, then you push yourself to do more,

to really challenge yourself to say, yes, I can do this, yes, I can do that. And I know that you said that once, and you said it actually in Spanish. But I didn't know your history, and it's a very interesting history, but you can see where your spirit comes. I mean, obviously, your mom right off the bat said, we can't survive in Colombia.

We've got to move, right? So right then and there, there's an entrepreneurial spirit of saying, we've got to move. We've got to create a new life for ourselves. She did that. You learn from that. Now you come to America where it's more challenging because at least from Colombia to Venezuela, the language is the same. Maybe the accent is a little different, but the language is the same. Then you come here, it's like, I'm learning English.

It might seem easy, but it's like it's English and Spanish. They're not really very compatible at first. Yeah, and I'm not sure people realize the difficulty that Miguel and Vanessa had to go through because, I mean, it's not just that they're taking school, taking exams in another language. I mean, imagine putting yourself in a situation where you're just going to France and it's like, yeah, here's a test that you have to pass and it's like,

and it's all in French. It's like, it's mind-boggling. I can't even fathom understanding anything. So it's truly incredible. You must be there with the dictionary of every other word. Oh, okay. That's what that means. But it's not just dictionary.

It's also conjugations, too. I mean, it's not really that simple. I mean, let's be honest. When you're trying to answer a question on an exam, I mean, even sometimes in English, when I speak English, I'm like, what is the question trying to ask me here? Because it's like they're always trying to trick me. I know they're trying to trick me.

And I can't even imagine trying to take an exam in a language I'm not comfortable in with questions that are trying to trick me and then being able to get the right answer. I probably would have just been serving room B every time. You know, I just say, okay, hopefully the B shows up 70% of the time. Yeah, you know, and that's correct. You know, it's so many things that you have to get out of your comfort zone. Because dreaming big is not enough. You have to get out of your comfort zone. And for that, I got a big thanks to my wife, Carolina. Because before I even started my own business, you know, we, she was the one to, you know, to push me a little further, you know, so that I can see the bigger vision, you know.

And we, you know, we say the business or the idea was born at the beach. One day we were talking, and then, you know, my wife was like, you know, I believe in you, like, you can do this. We just, you know, we've got to put some action on it, you know, and then, yeah, we made it happen, you know, because it's not just me. You know, my wife is a big contributor of that, and without her, I probably wouldn't be here, you know, because it's not just me. You know, my wife is a big contributor of that. And without her, I probably wouldn't be here, you know. Is she listening to the show? Is this what's happening?

I hope she's listening to the show. But, you know, it is so many things, you know. But, you know, Dream Big is one of them, definitely. Then, you know, get out of your comfort zone. You know, I have to. I had to. I had a really well-paying job, almost $60,000 before. And, you know, these are the decisions you've got to make in your life.

You want to go to the next level. You have to be willing to sacrifice, you know, whatever it is you need to sacrifice to move on to the next level. And, you know, one day I'm here with this, you know, nice salary. The next day I'm done. Yeah. You know, and then you have maybe two or three months worth of savings that you don't know if that's going to be enough you know you don't even know if you're going to make it which is the scary part you know but you know i guess in in in my mind you know i'm always all or nothing you know and that's you know how you want to think about it. You want to visualize, dream big, see the results before they happen.

Because if you don't do that, then that means you don't believe in yourself. And if you don't believe in yourself, it is hard for you to make it. So you have to believe in yourself before you even make it. It is very important, that step. It's interesting. When I worked for a different firm, they would have people that would inspire you and talk to you. One of the things that I remember well also was that they mentioned when you set goals. They said, set goals, and you don't want to set goals

that are very easy to achieve, right, because they're small. And you don't want to set goals that are so difficult to achieve, right, because then it's like you never achieved them. But you've got to set goals that are, you know, they challenge you to work a little more, work a little harder, or like you said, get out of that comfort zone, right? And I always remember that, that they will make you write down what are your goals for the next quarter, right? And at first, it's like, you know, I put my goals in, and it's like, I remember my boss saying, I think

you did that in about a month, so I think you need to really push a little harder, because at first it's like, I don't want to fail my goals, right? But then, little by little, I realized that yes, because then once you achieve your goal, you sit back and say, okay, I did it. Right. But when you have your own business, it doesn't work that way.

No, you got to you got to get those goals, but you got to keep pushing more and more because, you know, in like you said, somebody's not paying your paycheck for whatever can happen so that you have to push yourself a little harder to say, you know, I have to work a little harder every single day because, you know, this is my business, right? And this business can disappear like this, you know? That's true. That's wrong. Like, I mean, everything is fine when you're uncomfortable because I think that's a good sign. But the moment in your business or whether it's not a business in your life. If something is too comfortable, something might be wrong. You probably want to shake yourself a little bit and get out of your comfort zone and see what's going on. Because I think that's when true change

happens. So to become successful, it doesn't happen in the greatest moments in your life. Success, I believe, it happens in the greatest moments in your life. Success, I believe, it happens in the worst moments in your life when you have to make a decision that either is going to change your life for better or for worse. And that's when true change, I think, happens. Very well said. Jimenez, una pregunta.

Ahora que está aquí en los Estados Unidos, el inglés, ¿usted sabía hablar un poquito en inglés en Venezuela o ha tenido que aprender cuando vino aquí? Sí, bueno, me ha tocado aprender acá. Sin duda. Entiendo, entiendo, bueno, creo que a la mayoría de las personas les sucede así. Entiendo más de, yo creo que es por un tema de miedo, que a uno le cuesta soltarse. Sí. Pero bueno, es una de las metas y esa fue una de las razones porque es la que también,

así como Miguel, escogí que este fuese mi lugar donde llegar, Virginia, Charlottesville, para ayudarme mejor con el idioma, porque definitivamente ya llegar a este país, pues te debes adaptar, obviamente, adecuarte a lo que es su idioma, a sus costumbres, y es una de las primeras metas más importantes para mí. Estamos trabajando en eso.

Entonces, cuando estamos hablando aquí, entienda, pero empezar a hablar es lo más difícil. Así siempre el problema de las lenguas es hablar es siempre lo más difícil. I tell Vanessa, like I tell my kids, you know, I always tell my kids, you know, you got to face your fears.

Yeah. There's no shortcut, you know, one at a time. Yeah. One at a time. I feel like in life, one way or another, you have to face them. It's either now or later on, but you can't avoid it. No, no. There's like a famous Chinese proverb, you know, one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.

So it's kind of like that funny thing. That's a good one. You either have to face it now or if you still try to avoid it, you're still going to have to face it. That's a good one. One way or another. Yeah, because fears don't go away. I mean, they'll always be there. I mean, I guess people fool themselves by thinking the fear is gone.

But as soon as that situation happens that is provoking the fear, fear just comes right back, like a shadow from the darkness. And it's, oh, here I am. But that's where you've got to make, you know, do I face this fear, and, you know, believe it or not, you know, sometimes you are, it's more the fear factor than the challenge of, you know, overcoming that fear, and once people realize, you know, that it wasn't that bad, you know, they can say, oh, wow, well, let's move on to the next one. Because everybody has fears, you know. We're not gods.

You have fears. You have fears. I have fears. Vanessa has fears. It may be different from mine, but at the end of the day, a fear is a fear. Right. But that is, you know, that is the boundary. That's the limit.

That's, you know, what separates you from, you know, being a successful person in anything that you want to do or not. Yeah. And other than that, sometimes, I mean, you push yourself. You reach that moment where you say to yourself, I really don't want to do this. I don't want to talk to that person or whatever it may be. But you have to, right? And you push yourself. And the beautiful thing is after you do it, you're re-energized because you realize I just did something that was very difficult that I didn't want to do.

You did it. You accomplished it. And now it's like I can go forward. I can now do other things that I didn't think I could do because of that. I think it's a relief once you move on. But like I tell my kids and sometimes people, some of these fears, as insignificant as they could be, it can create a big, you know, hole. I mean, a big, I want to say, you know, challenge for people.

You know, I tell my kids, you know, go with the fear. Grab the fear with your hands. Here we go. We'll go together. We'll move on. We'll get over you. And then we'll move on to the next fear. That's how we do it, one at a time.

Yeah. One at a time. That's the way it is. Yeah, beautifully said. Well, Miguel, Vanessa, it was un placer to have you both on today. Thank you so much for sharing your stories. It was really great.

Thank you so much. Thank you. And, yeah, it's always a pleasure being here. Normalmente, y mucha su here. And good luck. Thank you. I know it's hard to work with Miguel, but someone has to do it, right? Someone has to

start the cakes, right? Well, next time we can have Vanessa on. She could bring some post-fades. She comes with a cake and some pastels. I don't know if they're going to make it here. We'll only invite Vanessa then.

Thank you for having us. No, thank you both for coming. Thank you so much. As we transition here, I know you had some finance topics you wanted to talk about. So, yeah, I mean, I think the first one was about the stock market. I know it had – it's been, what, maybe up like 12% so far this year. I mean, it's been pretty great. And I know you had some thoughts about that, like on the future of the stock market going forward.

Yeah, so it wasn't – yeah, so, you know, when you – sometimes you've got to dig deep, right? And so you've heard people say, you know, the stock market's doing really well, everything's doing well. And then once in a while you take a step back and say, how well is the whole stock market doing, right? And so what we did was we took a look at the S&P 500, right? And we said, what has fueled the S&P 500 this year? And when you look at it, basically, you know, the magnificent seven, those seven stocks, right, have really been the ones that have generated most of the returns of the S&P 500. So think of the S&P 500 is up, I think it was up through the end of July, I think about 16.5%. I know I wrote it down somewhere, right?

So that's a great, I mean, that's really a great year, right? So, I mean, if it stays that way. That would be a great two years. Yeah, so, I mean, so from that perspective, that's a great year. But when you look at the top seven stocks of the S&P 500, they generated 61% of that return. So what does that mean? So if you take away those seven stocks from the S&P 500, the return of the S&P 500 is 8.2, 8.3%, something like that. That's an enormous amount, right? If you take, NVIDIA is the one that really also was fueled, right? I mean, that was about 30% of the S&P 500, right?

So if you take away NVIDIA, I think that was about 12.5% that the index would have been up, right? So because when you look at it, you say, well, wait a minute, small stocks are struggling. They're generating about 12.2%. Growth stocks have done very well. Well, have they? Not really. It's just that those seven stocks are all kind of growth stocks, so they fuel the growth market. And so what I did was I said, okay, over before – these stocks are in the top 10 of the S&P 500.

So we went back and we looked at how often does that happen? How often to get to the top 10, obviously, you have to have great returns, right? Because you're moving from somewhere in the S&P 500. Excuse me for interrupting. Is NVIDIA now in the top 10? Yes. Oh, it is. Okay. Oh, yeah, big time.

Yes. Yeah. So in order to become big enough to be the top 10 stocks of the S&P 500, it means that you have to have very good returns. And what they've shown is that three years prior to becoming the top 10 in the S&P 500, your return is about 25% greater than everybody else, right? And thereafter, that's what the challenge becomes, right? Because nobody can grow at that clip forever, right? And thereafter, so like the 10 years after you become the top 10, the amount that you grow decreases substantially over time, you know, and quite large versus the S&P 500. So the reason I say this is that because people sometimes fall in love with, yes, you know, these are the seven stocks. And the problem is that sometimes the moms and the pops out there is like, all right, Nvidia, what is it, the Meta, what else is it, Tesla?

And they go and buy it. Well, the game is literally over by that time, right? Because once you hit the top 10, it doesn't mean that they can't grow, but they're not growing to the same magnitude as they did. And here's a perfect example. For example, I went back and I said, you know, let me think of a stock that was a top 10 and is no longer a top 10, even though it's at the top 20. Exxon. So Exxon, from the year, from September 30, 2002 to December 31, 2007, had an annual return of 25%, right? 25%, that's huge, right? From 2007 to today, to the end of this month, its annual return is 5%. So you can see how it just catapulted to the top.

And that's probably below the average stock market, right? Oh, absolutely. The average stock market, the S&P 500 during that time period was about 10.4%. So it's half. So again, so the issue is we always talk about diversification, right? And the important thing about diversification is that if you diversify, you will have in your portfolio these stocks, right? And it's important to have them.

But the idea of saying, you know, these are the stocks that I want to own in my portfolio because they've done so well. This is not the time to be saying, I want these stocks. And I'm not saying that NVIDIA can't go up another, you know, I mean, it's up over 100% this year, right, 130, 140, I don't know exactly the number, right? So it's had an outrageous year. And that doesn't mean it can't continue to go up.

But sooner or later, these companies cannot continue to generate those kind of projective growth that we've had, right, over the last three to five years. It can't continue on over the next 10 years. So you have to make sure that if you want to participate in stocks, you really have to have a well-diversified portfolio. And I say that from the perspective that a lot of people, and we see that all the time, they come and they have like 12 mutual funds or 12 ETFs, right? And I say, why do we have these 12 ETFs? I don't know.

It's really, you know, that's kind of what the computer generated. And you start to dig deep and you see like every single one or the majority of these ETFs have two or three or all of these seven stocks. So you now have a portfolio where you don't have a market waiting in these stocks. You are way overweight in these particular stocks. So yeah, so it's done well, but you can't continue like that because whatever goes up can also come down. And back in 2022, when the market was down, these stocks got crushed. So they were down more than the stock market. So just as much as they can go up and do very well, they can also crash very easily. So, you know, I just, I kind of did that because I wanted to get a feel for,

all right, what happens once you become such a big stock, you are a big piece of that index and you live and die by those stocks, those stocks, whether you like it or not. But the important thing is just make sure that the balance of your portfolio isn't heavily weighted in those particular stocks by saying, oh, I like that mutual fund also. I like that ETF also. Well, take a look what's in there. Yes. Make sure. We've seen clients actually get a little confused by that because they think they have a diversified portfolio because they say, well, I have different ETFs and mutual funds.

But as you pointed out, sometimes you look at exactly what these ETFs and mutual funds are invested in, you realize it's all the same thing. So in reality, you're hardly diversified at all. Yeah. It just only looks like that on the surface. Yeah. And I remember, I mean, one particular client came in and, yeah, he gave us what his portfolio looked like. After we did the study, we realized that three of his stocks represented almost 45% of his portfolio. I said, here we are.

He said, that doesn't make any sense. Exactly. The point is each one of these ETFs owns that stock in a large part. The problem is there are different types of ETFs. There are index-based ETFs, which means that if there's the S&P 500, they will own the same percentage of each particular stock that's in the S&P 500. So you have an index weighting, right, which is a market weight, let's call it, right? And then there are ETFs that say, no, we can do a better job. But to do a better job, you have to basically make one large decision. Do I want NVIDIA in my portfolio?

Do I want Apple in my portfolio? Do I want Tesla in my portfolio? Do I want, you know, Mayda in my portfolio? Those are big decisions because if you say no, you're making a big bet against the market. So what do they do? They all put them in their portfolio. So they put them in their portfolio, but since they don't then have the rest of the 494 stocks that would comprise the S&P 500, they might have like 50.

Those four stocks now represent about 40%, 50% of that ETF. That's a huge weighting. So, again, it may do very well, but from a total perspective of your old portfolio, you have to be careful what you have because going forward, if you don't diversify, your returns are going to be like the X line. You're going to be getting 5%, 6% return when the markets are up 10%. So that's what I tell people. It's like, you really have to think about that. And you can't fall in love with a handful of stocks and say, these are it. These are the ones that are really going to do well because over time, once they've

done their big jump, there's a good chance that they're not going to be the best performance going forward. That's interesting. I did not know that. It's one of those things that I like looking at and once in a while when I see that, I say, let me dig deep a little here because

NVIDIA is the one that forced me to do that because as I said, let me dig deep a little here because I mean, NVIDIA is the one that forced me to do that because as I said, this thing is just going through the roof. I mean, it is a trillion dollar company, right? And I'm saying, how can it continue to grow at this pace? Can it, right? And I said, let me see what impact this had.

And so I went there, I did the Magnificent 7, the Top 5, and you know, the numbers are just outrageous. Like I said, you just, you take out NVIDIA, that's the S&P there, I did the Magnificent 7, the top five, and, you know, the numbers are just outrageous. Like I said, you just, you take out NVIDIA, that's the S&P 500, it's a 12.5% return, which is the same as small caps. So in reality, it's like, it's not like the S&P has done a great job. It's just these stocks, this one stock. Well, I mean, it's still gone up. Yes, sure.

Just not quite as, I mean, obviously NVIDIA has pushed it. Yeah. But my point is, if there's 500 stocks in the S&P 500 and NVIDIA is one of them, and it itself cost the index to go from 12.5 to 16, the other 499 stocks were no better than small cap stocks is what I'm saying. I understand. Again, that's what I'm saying. It's good to have a diversification for that reason, right, because there's no reason why, whether it be next year or the year after,

small caps may do very, very well. And then if you're not in them, you're not going to perform. You're not going to participate in that run-up in whatever sector that is. But anyway, it's just one of those things that I was looking at, and I said probably something. I mean, obviously's just one of those things that I was looking at and I said, probably something I mean, it was more for us to discuss, but I didn't get a chance to discuss it with your two brothers because

they're having... We didn't need their input anyway, to be honest. But anyway, that was my two cents worth. That was your two cents worth. Well, no, thank you for that. You even had all the numbers. I didn't even see you get those numbers that morning. You must have been. This morning I was actually, because I said I need to get these numbers in.

Yeah, I know. You wanted to come out with all the facts. Like I said, then I was trying to remember. You know, let me go back in history. What stock, and then just Exxon came to my head, because I remember it well. And so I said, let me see when it kind of catapulted to the top, because at one time Exxon was the biggest. Are you trying to warn people off from NVIDIA now? No, no, not at all.

I mean, it's people's choices. And, you know, we always talk about this, right? In other words, if it's for your retirement account, I think diversification is very important. If you have money on the side that you want to gamble with, and that's what I call gambling, right? In other words, gambling means, like, I'm just going to buy something because I think it's going to go up or somebody tell me it's going to go up. That's not resource-based, right? In other words, gambling means like I'm just going to buy something because I think it's going to go up or somebody tell me it's going to go up. That's not resource-based, right? It's just like

somebody tells you something, say, okay, let me try it, right? How many times have we had that? Somebody says, yeah, I know this small company. They're really good. They do this. They do that. It's just like going to double this year. You say, okay, I'll throw a couple of thousand dollars. Before you know it, the thing went to zero. It's like, oh, well, there goes

that, right? So all I'm saying is that you just have to, you can't sit here and say, wow, NVIDIA is really good. It went up. My God, that's great. Maynard is doing great. Tesla. You can't say these are the stocks I want to buy now because these stocks already have done extremely

well. And whether they're going to continue in that same trajectory, the chances are pretty small that it's just not going to happen. I'm not saying it won't and it can't, right? I'm just saying that if you want to just gamble some money, by all means, right? But if you are thinking about your retirement portfolio or your investment portfolio, you've got to sit back and say, is that where I want to go? Interesting. Thank you for that, Pops. You're welcome. That was very informative. Thank you.

So I guess it's time to end the show. Is there anything else you want to talk about? No, I think we're almost done here. So there's other things, but we'll wait for next week. I mean, we could just go an extra hour. I don't know if Jerry might sleep. And I could.

That's why I wasn't sure, because there were other topics. I was like, I don't know. I feel like this is one more topic. We're going to hit 12 o'clock. Yeah, I could keep going on some of these things, absolutely. No, but it was good to learn. And like I said, that

kind of actually blew my mind a little bit, how once it kind of hit the top ten, the returns kind of – They begin to fail. Yeah, they begin to decrease. I mean, historically, that's been the case. And again, that doesn't mean that any one or two can't continue to have a couple of good years. But over the next ten years, the chances are they can't continue to grow at the same pace as they had in the past, right? So they begin to reduce that growth pattern.

And as a matter of fact – And I guess that's why it's important to invest in diversifying to small stocks and growth stocks before they hit that point where they're big, I guess. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And the other thing I wanted to talk – just say interesting about Exxon was that out of that 5% return, 4% was actually dividend-based. Oh, wow. So that 1% is just growth, and 4% was their dividend, which, again, is good. That's a pretty good dividend for a oil company, isn't it?

Yeah, they pay a good dividend. Exxon's always paid, I mean, once they started getting large. So companies, when they're small, they don't like to pay a dividend because they just want to, obviously, take all that money, keep it into the company, and continue to grow. Once they get to a certain point, in order to grab other investors, they begin to pay a dividend. And other investors come in because they like the dividend. Yeah. So, you know, Exxon was one of those. So I thought that was interesting, too.

Well, that was a great show today, Pops. Thank you. Oh, thank you, and thank you for Miguel and Vanessa. Yeah, we had wonderful guests. Yes, Miguel and Vanessa. You know, it's just nice to hear, you know, people's stories. Once in a while, I mean, you know, they're both in insurance, and, you know, they're wonderful, and they understand the insurance business very much.

They have great products, and I know they've discussed it in the past. But once in a while, it's nice to hear, you know, how did they become insurance agents? And so when you ask them questions, how did you even get here, and you realize their life story, you go, wow, that's a story. And the obstacles that they overcome, you know. Vanessa coming in having to take the insurance test without really knowing English very well, and she passed in the first try. I didn't want to ask Miguel how long it took him to pass it because I didn't want to.

We'll ask him next time. Put him on the spot. No, but then to hear Miguel's story too of everything his mom... Which I didn't know. I mean, I know Miguel for years and then realized that he, you know, how he went from Colombia to Venezuela

to Tampa to Charlottesville. His mom pushed him watching out for his safety to take him to Venezuela and then pushing him when he was in school. Mom's important. Hopefully mom is watching. That's why I threw that out there. She probably not watches.

I was in the kitchen one year. In the kitchen when you said that. Yeah, she wasn't paying attention. But we're also going to have a great show next week. So next week we actually have Jess Sifatsari from Painted Orange. And I think it says now the James Madison Museum of Orange. That sounds new. Yeah, I mean, we've had Jess, I think, a couple times actually on the show.

Yes, yes. You know, so I wonder if that's the new thing. But, yeah, she think, a couple times on the show. I wonder if that's the new thing. She's going to be coming on the show again. She's a great guest. That should be fun. I don't know whether it's the combinations. Alex is going to be back. He's got to be on the show.

They've missed him, I could tell. I could tell Judah's looking at me. The viewing numbers are way down. They wanted Alex. No, but yeah, it should be a great show next week. I don't know. It could be Alex. Maybe we could get Nick on the show. I don't know. He hasn't shown up for a while.

That's a challenge to get Nick in. He's good at getting guests, but getting him on the show is always different. You know, but as always, we are happy to be presented by Emerging Financial Services, powered by Craddock Series Insurance, Matisse Young Realty, Faba.

A big thank you, as always, to Jerry for having us here in this beautiful studio. Of course, a big thanks to Judah for, like Alex likes to say, make us all look good. Thank you, of course, to all our viewers who really, if they weren't here, it wouldn't be possible. I do apologize, too, in advance.

Xavier and I are not... Well, I'm not on Facebook, and neither one of us is tech-savvy, so there could have been viewer questions. I do apologize, because whenever Xavier and I do the show, I don't know who's watching. I don't know who's asking questions. So I do apologize in advance. But Alex is usually really good at that,

so when he's on the show, he can do it. who's asking questions. So I do apologize in advance. But Alex is usually really good at that. So when he's on the show, he can do it. Well, usually, and also Nick in the background will send us a text if somebody, but he's... Yeah, but I usually don't read his text anyway. Because then after the show, I'm like, is this guy on the show? I'm like, oops. But thank you to all the viewers with your questions

and watching the show and all your likes as well. I'm giving them a shout out because, you know, I won't see your name still after the show and all your likes as well. I'm giving them a shout out because I won't see your name until after the show, but thank you. We look forward to seeing you next week, but until that time, hasta mañana. Thank you.