Help Living your Purpose

John Harcar (00:01.065)
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host here, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Lidia Hicks. And what we’re going to talk about is really helping live and find your purpose through your business. And remember guys, you know, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, real estate entrepreneurs, service providers, I mean, two to five X their business by being able to provide tools and resources that help you build a business you want to build to live the life you dreamed of. So Lydia, welcome to the show.

Lidia Hicks (00:29.784)
Thank you so much, I’m glad to be here.

John Harcar (00:31.931)
Awesome. And I’m super excited to talk about living your purpose. It’s something that, you know, I myself am passionate about as well as finding kind of what’s your why type of thing. But before we get into all that and really dive into the weeds, take a few minutes and tell our listeners about yourself, you know, where you’re from, how you got here, et cetera.

Lidia Hicks (00:53.262)
55 years ago and I moved to Spain after college. I was 28 at that time. I lived there for seven years. I’m a trained as an engineer in Romania. When I moved to Spain, I discovered a whole entire

area that interests me, was a social mediator. Spain at that time had an invasion of immigrants and they wanted to be able to include them and not create issues. So I studied social mediation and I absolutely loved it. I think it’s my skill, my number one skill that I’m using in my own business, learning to find what people need.

John Harcar (01:32.107)
Okay. Okay.

Lidia Hicks (01:36.812)
beyond what they think they need, right? And seven years later, I met my husband over the internet, actually in a church, online church, that was 20 years ago. And I moved to America to marry him. We raised three children together and they had one together. And about 14 years ago, actually no, 16, I read this book, Pleased Up for Dad.

John Harcar (01:39.307)
Sure.

John Harcar (01:46.345)
Okay.

John Harcar (02:04.767)
Good old Robert.

Lidia Hicks (02:05.518)
And that’s how it all started. And I thought, wow. So I was teaching at that time at Florida State College, mathematics and Spanish. And I absolutely loved teaching. I’ve taught thousands of students. And my purpose was not to teach mathematics or Spanish, but actually to change their lives. And they were asking me.

John Harcar (02:24.267)
Mm.

Lidia Hicks (02:25.902)
I was telling them, I don’t teach mathematics, I don’t teach anything. They said, but what do you teach? I teach you. It’s about you, because I want to see how you learn and what you need. And there’s no time for this, but I had a lot of success with my students. I absolutely loved them. But I thought, I want to move in the next quadrant, but I had no idea what to do. So long story short, I…

got into a different passion which was health and I ended up opening a holistic center which I like very much but then I became a mother.

John Harcar (02:57.738)
okay.

Lidia Hicks (03:06.03)
This is unique, it’s not gonna come back. I quit everything and I just dedicated to being a foot and model.

John Harcar (03:12.905)
Wow. So you dropped all the things you were doing and said motherhood is my is my now. Awesome.

Lidia Hicks (03:20.078)
Yes. My son is 14 now. So about two years ago when I realized that he wants to become independent and I wanted to give him that space, I thought, okay, what dreams do I have? I went back to the book and I said, okay, what now? Now 14 years later, I need to to speed through these steps. I don’t have time, right? 10 years or 20 years. I mean, how do you know?

John Harcar (03:44.221)
Right? Yeah, yeah, you gotta gotta accelerate it.

Lidia Hicks (03:47.79)
Yeah, so being an educator, I know that the only way to shorten any experience is to have a mentor. So I started shopping for mentors, right? And to be honest, I love them all. So I signed them up with all 13, 14, 15 maybe mentorships, about $85,000 in a year and a half.

John Harcar (03:57.055)
Yes.

John Harcar (04:09.163)
Were these mentorships, what were they teaching you? Like what specific?

Lidia Hicks (04:12.642)
Yeah, one of them was how to be a broker, how to find money, how to do creative financing, for instance, how to buy and sell, we sell the finance, how to buy without money, how to do fixing flips, how to write a book, know, all kinds of things, mostly related to real estate. But then I realized one thing, there’s one thing in common.

John Harcar (04:15.71)
Okay.

John Harcar (04:30.345)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Lidia Hicks (04:39.416)
that every entrepreneur has, which is money. Everybody needs money. And I thought that if someone has experience in money, they don’t need money anymore.

John Harcar (04:53.579)
you

Lidia Hicks (04:53.87)
They love to use other people’s money. Exactly, they have their own investments with their own money and then they want to use other people’s money for their own projects. So I thought, okay, this is it. I can bring money to people. I don’t have to invest my money. I don’t know anything about face-inflation. I don’t know anything about renters and being landlords. Why not just learn how to bring money? And that’s what I did. So I fully focused on that, night and day, and I realized that…

John Harcar (04:56.841)
Yeah.

Lidia Hicks (05:23.992)
People that have a broker, and actually Robert talks about this, you need to have as an investor a person for everything, a person to go to. Your realtor, your CPA, your tax prep, your life coach, your broker, your mentor, everything. You need to have one person because it’s very dynamic and there’s no way you could learn where to find the money or the best way.

John Harcar (05:32.512)
Yes.

John Harcar (05:36.563)
your business coach, your life coach. mean, all of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Lidia Hicks (05:51.56)
or how much you need without someone that will teach you. So that’s why I consult people.

John Harcar (05:54.687)
Sure.

John Harcar (05:58.155)
Do you think your background in teaching and I mean, you seem to have a more analytical type of brain, right? Or analytical stuff. Do you think that helped the guidance to the money part then, you know, maybe more of the visionary type of owner that is looking to just grow and add everything in, you know?

Lidia Hicks (06:18.158)
You know, I didn’t really start this business two years ago. I started when I was born practically, you because I have good skills with people, I connect with people, I care about people, I love people, and I want to know what they want to, what they need, where they want to go, and why.

John Harcar (06:28.979)
you

Lidia Hicks (06:43.374)
It’s all about also purpose. So when I was a teacher, I used my skills as a teacher, I used my skills as a mediator, I used all of these skills to bring in money. So I just transfer my skill into just something else.

John Harcar (06:57.031)
Okay. And then, so now what type of business do you have? Like what’s your main focus or how are you helping folks?

Lidia Hicks (07:04.558)
Yes, so I’m a consultant broker and I’m saying that because I’m not just a broker, I’m not just bringing a loan. Many times people come to me for a fix and flip and actually I guide them towards doing a grant of construction. Okay? Or sometimes they come with some numbers and I tell them this is not a good investment and this is why. And I teach them don’t fall in love with the deal, fall in love with the numbers, you know? And they listen to me.

John Harcar (07:06.539)
Okay.

John Harcar (07:24.777)
Right.

John Harcar (07:29.481)
Yes. Why is that? Why is that so important?

Lidia Hicks (07:34.028)
Because it takes one failed project to win a lot of people, to mess up the relationship with the lender, to lose friendships, maybe people that give you money, and to discourage you and never invest again. And it wasn’t your fault, it was the fact that you didn’t see the deal, the project, from all the angles. Me, I’m not emotionally connected, so I can look at the deal and I know if it’s good or not.

John Harcar (07:51.508)
Right.

John Harcar (07:57.375)
Yeah.

John Harcar (08:02.784)
Mm-hmm.

Lidia Hicks (08:03.446)
And the people that trust my judgment and they verify it, they’re very grateful.

John Harcar (08:11.583)
How did you learn to underwrite property?

Lidia Hicks (08:15.96)
from all these courses. it? Yeah. So for instance, let me give an example of why a fix and flip can fail. They don’t look, they assume that they will sell the property at the price, but they don’t know if it’s gonna happen. We don’t know what happened with the market, right? And if the market goes down and they have to reduce the price,

John Harcar (08:17.245)
Mm Okay.

John Harcar (08:26.315)
Okay, cool.

Lidia Hicks (08:41.336)
They may not make any profit. They have to pay closing costs twice when they buy and when they sell. They have to pay holding costs. They have to pay a lot of things. And they all think that in this amount of months, I’m going to sell every single month above that, wherever they want to sell, that’s out of pocket. And they think, it’s okay, I’m just going to hold it. But wait a second, let’s analyze if you can hold it before you buy it.

John Harcar (09:00.149)
Yeah, it comes out of the profits.

John Harcar (09:08.531)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Lidia Hicks (09:08.814)
because the rent has to service. The loan has to serve the principal interest, taxes and insurance and association. Some deals from the beginning they don’t service. So because of this, don’t buy a fixed inflip that you cannot hold.

John Harcar (09:20.768)
Right.

John Harcar (09:24.715)
Right. Yeah. And that’s too, you know, that kind of goes to like, you know, if someone’s trying to buy short term rental, right? Make sure it can also be it pencils out as a long term. Have multiple exit strategies to, you know, see why a cover your, know what you know what I mean? So. In your business, are you are you a fully lender or what do you like? How do you classify, you know, what your business does?

Lidia Hicks (09:52.234)
I work with over a thousand lenders. there are three parts of my business, actually four. One, I help people, any kind of business owners, to get funding for their business. It can be a brand new LLC, literally just made today. You get the documents today, we can find funding for you to grow your business. It doesn’t matter if it’s real estate or anything else.

John Harcar (09:55.039)
Okay.

Okay.

John Harcar (10:17.099)
Okay, so if I wanted to start a dog grooming business hypothetically, that’s because my wife and my daughter want to do that. But anyway, so if I wanted to do that and I have an LLC called I groom dogs LLC, I can come to you and I can get funding to be able to open up a shop or do buy mobile vans to do all this stuff. That’s or do you help them like build business credit to be able to get that?

Lidia Hicks (10:40.92)
Yes, if they’re credit ready, then they can go to funding. If they are not, I have a solution for that too. I work for every single problem, I found a solution and I have the person for it. I just refer them to their person, they will work on the credit, optimize it, come back to funding. Then as they grow their business, come back for more funding.

John Harcar (10:59.883)
Okay. Got it.

Lidia Hicks (11:04.653)
And once they have two years of making money, then they go to a different kind of funding.

John Harcar (11:10.805)
Got it. Okay, so that’s one part of your business.

Lidia Hicks (11:14.478)
Then residential, fixed inflips, DSCR loans, all of the residential one to five units. I work with 200 something lenders. I have about 20 very special and I specialize in finding the most, how to say, out of the box lenders, not the 80-20. 100 % financing, for instance.

John Harcar (11:21.599)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (11:36.093)
Right, I love it. I love it, yeah.

Lidia Hicks (11:40.714)
or defer payments, you defer everything all the way to the end. And by the way, about deferred payments, the solution for a real estate investor is not to have money so you don’t have to borrow money. No matter how much money you have, that money, it will limit you. So don’t think about, don’t want to pay interest. No, no, you want to pay interest because otherwise you will always have a job. You will never scale your business, right?

John Harcar (11:58.292)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (12:02.965)
Yeah.

John Harcar (12:06.283)
That is correct. That is correct.

Lidia Hicks (12:08.27)
You only scale with other people’s money, Robert did it and many others and it works. So if you have money, then use it to pay the down payment of several of them or even better, as you, as an investor get more more experience, they will qualify for 100%. Actually, I have someone that qualifies in 400 % from day one. It’s just that the numbers have to work, right? For instance, we can close in a week.

John Harcar (12:26.165)
Sure.

John Harcar (12:32.425)
Mm-hmm.

Lidia Hicks (12:36.718)
A week causing is like cash, right? In 22 states. We can also do a delayed purchase. Let’s say someone finds a deal, they pay cash for it, they can come back. Now we can give them 75 % back in the rehab. Then if they are interested, Yes, so that’s the first part of the, the second part with the residential. Then we move to commercial.

John Harcar (12:38.589)
Yeah, yeah, that’s fast.

John Harcar (12:51.339)
Got it. OK. OK, so that’s second part, right?

John Harcar (12:59.25)
Okay.

Lidia Hicks (13:01.514)
Any building that is commercial, multi-family, restaurants, warehouses, all of that. I work with a platform that will, we have 700 plus lenders, any kind of lenders. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, insurance, life insurance, believe it or not, they also are lenders, Hard money, banks, credit unions, all of these are in a platform. And when I…

John Harcar (13:21.318)
Mm-hmm. heck yeah.

Lidia Hicks (13:28.984)
put an application in, I have instant match within 24 hours, I can bring my clients six quotes. That will take a lot of weeks of submitting documents and calling the banks to get that. I get six quotes.

John Harcar (13:36.949)
Wow.

John Harcar (13:41.076)
Mm-hmm.

Is this a proprietary software you have you use or?

Lidia Hicks (13:46.87)
I belong to, for that part, I belong to a company that created this software. It is a live platform. It’s not just a software. Everybody, all the lenders, it’s just a click of a button and I communicate with them. And then the fourth part is for people who have a lot of experience.

John Harcar (13:54.397)
Okay, got it.

John Harcar (14:02.557)
Sweet, very nice. OK.

Lidia Hicks (14:09.92)
and they create the most amazing things you can imagine. Big resorts, golf courses, medical facilities, mixed use with lots of condos, anything you can imagine. Hotels, those people are rewarded with 100 % financing. Can imagine? And there two ways. It is financing, like debt, with only 4 % a year, which is unheard of, right?

John Harcar (14:17.131)
Mmm.

John Harcar (14:22.761)
Right.

John Harcar (14:29.445)
Awesome. That is awesome. That is awesome.

John Harcar (14:38.782)
Hmm

Lidia Hicks (14:39.378)
or is 100 % funding with equity for 9.51. So they never have to pay anything back, they just pay their duty. But those are done with international funds, private funds, and logical. It’s only for people that have lot of experience and proven.

John Harcar (14:48.053)
Wow.

John Harcar (14:56.303)
Sure, sure, sure, sure. Now, are you doing these in every state? Is there, you know, are you limited or some states you don’t do?

Lidia Hicks (15:04.078)
Most of the states, sometimes Wisconsin has some problems, the quotas unfortunately are not very easy except the ground up construction. But most of the states, yes, we’ll find a way, we’ll find some money. It may not be the same exact, you know, loan. Like for instance, the first part, which is the business funding, you don’t have any restriction with the states. And actually people can, an old family, that a mother, father, and an adult son,

John Harcar (15:17.375)
Okay.

Lidia Hicks (15:34.146)
They got funding, the first type of funding, business funding, and now we have a connection with a company that allows our clients to write checks and send wires using business credit cards. So, every time we find a problem, you know.

John Harcar (15:53.355)
There’s always a solution that you come up with. Yeah, sure.

Lidia Hicks (15:54.37)
There has to be solution, right? So I looked for it and I found it. So now they can send, they can buy houses with their money, sending wire, you know, transfer to, to title. Yeah.

John Harcar (16:06.059)
That’s very cool. Why do you do all this? You know, I know we talked about helping people live their purpose. I mean, why? What’s your why? What’s your purpose? Why are you?

Lidia Hicks (16:16.418)
because I want to my purpose. I’m an orphan child. My parents died when I was a little girl. And I was blessed to meet some people that really live their purpose, like teachers, especially teachers. And they treated me differently and they gave me a chance in my country to be an orphan child.

John Harcar (16:24.203)
I’m sorry.

Lidia Hicks (16:40.718)
you don’t have any future, know, and yes, I, yet I did, right? I was the first in my family to actually go to college. And it was, it’s not easy in my country. It’s a lot of, you know, competition.

John Harcar (16:42.677)
Yeah.

Good for you.

John Harcar (16:51.635)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lidia Hicks (16:56.076)
So I want to give back and I love to see people’s changing their lives. I want to take them, not just give them a loan, but take them from first quadrant or the second, most of them are in the second, right? You think they have a business, but they really have a, they’re self-employed, right? And I want to take them to the fourth. And I want them to be able to live a legacy. I become friends with them and I ask them.

John Harcar (17:08.585)
Right, right.

Lidia Hicks (17:19.266)
I know about their kids, I know about their dreams, you know, and I help them dream again. People stop dreaming, they’re just doing, and I want them to be human beings, not human doings, right? It’s a mix. So, I wanna change lives. That’s

John Harcar (17:21.067)
That’s cool. That’s awesome.

John Harcar (17:29.413)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

John Harcar (17:36.937)
What kind of advice would you give to someone that might be reaching out to you to start a business, to talk about getting loans and money? mean, what are some things that you would say, or maybe steps to finding your purpose?

Lidia Hicks (17:51.406)
believe that our purpose is connected to two things. Things that we love to do has to be an extension of us and things that we hate seeing in the world. You know, if you see a problem then you have to fix it, right? Whatever your call, for instance my calling beside my business is to help a lot of children that are orphans get an education.

and I’m sponsoring right now a child that doesn’t have a dad and he is now in college. I’m excited. So the same thing. So you have to see what you want to fix in this world and what you like to do. What skills do you have and just put them together and then call me. I’ll give you the money so you can make it happen.

John Harcar (18:20.971)
That’s awesome.

John Harcar (18:26.111)
Very cool.

John Harcar (18:35.4)
Okay.

John Harcar (18:38.857)
Sweet. What sets you apart as a lender from all the other lenders out there? mean, obviously we know there’s a lot of programs, lot of lenders. What sets you apart?

Lidia Hicks (18:47.596)
Me, the way I talk to people, I adjust to them. We talk 10 o’clock at night sometimes, early in the morning. I’m very personal. I jump on the Zoom. I am not just about the numbers. I’m a human being, not just a human being. And I talk to them. I tell them honestly if it’s a good deal, if it’s not a good deal. And just develop a relationship. And people love that. For me, they are not a lone number.

John Harcar (19:03.658)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (19:17.205)
Sure.

Lidia Hicks (19:17.89)
They are them, this person with these needs and yeah.

John Harcar (19:22.239)
Yeah, and I think that escaped us a lot, or escaped our society a lot. Obviously as more tech comes along, the connection with people kind of dimmers maybe, or dims a little bit. We don’t have that full one-on-one and that really big connection. What are some trends you might be seeing in the lending world or in the rates or whatever going on here in the next maybe one to five years?

Lidia Hicks (19:46.38)
We really hope that rates are going down, but they are not at this moment. They are not, no? But I do see lenders willing to finance a little bit more, like to cover a higher leverage. Like I told you, we even have 100%, right? But the numbers have to work, definitely. And if I can say something, you don’t have to choose me, but choose someone, a broker.

John Harcar (20:03.701)
Right. Yeah.

Lidia Hicks (20:14.05)
that is knowledgeable, presentable and gives you a lot of options. know, saves to be somebody that really knows the market. It’s a lot of work to get to know the market and I never stop. I learn every single day, I connect every single day and I always choose the best for my bar work. It doesn’t matter.

John Harcar (20:32.287)
Good. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, I mean, guys, I know we all always hear about talk about the why and all that type of stuff. And it’s very important to find your purpose. know, if you guys didn’t pick up some nuggets from, you know, from this episode, rewatch it. I mean, it really is. There are a lot of great things that Lydia talked about.

Lydia, for those that might have listened and maybe are in the need for funding or maybe just kind of want to talk about more about finding purpose, how do they reach out to you? How do they connect with you?

Lidia Hicks (21:08.896)
I have a website, it’s called HLCS.Services. stands for Homeland Creative Solutions. So HLCS.Services. And also my email is info at HLCS.Services.

John Harcar (21:27.327)
Okay, perfect. And I think I have your LinkedIn on here. So I’ll put that as well into the, yeah, I’ll put that in the one, the show notes and they can reach out to you that way.

Lidia Hicks (21:33.1)
Yes, that’s how we met. And I do want to say something. Some people may listen to this, and that’s another passion that I have, especially women. It’s open to anybody, but especially women, because I believe that a mother has to continue to be a mother, to be home as much as possible, but also to do something to create income, to find purpose, and to be useful, and all of that. I have a free program.

John Harcar (21:43.859)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lidia Hicks (21:59.544)
that I’m training, my training costs so much. I got into debts for that, right? It’s not easy to pay 20,000, 30,000 for a course, right? So I want to personally train not a lot of people, a few people, That they really want to get to double into lending or connecting or, but they don’t want to, they don’t know what it is. They don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for a course. They will never pay me one penny.

John Harcar (22:06.891)
Sure.

John Harcar (22:20.062)
Okay.

John Harcar (22:28.075)
Wow.

Lidia Hicks (22:28.138)
I teach them and then we co-broker. Right now I have team of ten people. They became my family, you know. And yeah, so if they feel like, hey, I have the skills, I have the love for people and I love…

John Harcar (22:35.061)
That’s awesome.

Lidia Hicks (22:43.982)
then I will have them find their place into this world.

John Harcar (22:48.543)
That’s an awesome give, guys. If you’re into it and you’re listening to it and you want to be that person, reach out to her. Once again, we’ll have all the contact information in the show notes so you’ll able to reach out easily. And Lydia, once again, thank you very much for sharing all that. And I hope everyone enjoyed the show. We’ll look forward to seeing you on the next one. Cheers. Yes, thank you, Lydia, for being our guest. All right, bye-bye.

Lidia Hicks (23:09.602)
and thank you for doing this.