Real Estate Development, Leadership, and Scaling in a High-Cost Market | Mauricio Mejia Interview

Mauricio Mejia (00:00)
Yeah, it’s a young

man’s game until it’s not. then, ⁓ you know, ⁓ it like everything, right? ⁓ It has its course. So I decided that, you know, being a millionaire wasn’t enough. I wanted more. And that’s when I really started to think bigger. And, you know, I want to play in the Billionaires Club. that’s really where the mindset started to grow. And being here in Silicon Valley,

Cody Crabb (00:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (00:26)
You’re surrounded with more millionaires and billionaires than anywhere else in the world. And the mindset is different.

Cody Crabb (00:30)
Hmm.

Hello and welcome back to the real estate pros podcast. I am Cody Crabb with investor fuel today. Joining me is Mauricio Mejia. He’s the owner and operator of California development group and a serial entrepreneur in many different areas. he said he started in 2005 and has worked across thousands of units, millions of square feet. ⁓ and we’re going to talk today about, ⁓ you how he manages in, such a difficult environment.

what he does to stay ahead and kind of how he got started and what advice he has for operators such as ⁓ our listeners. So Mauricio, thank you so much for joining us today.

Mauricio Mejia (02:38)
Yeah, no, thank you, man. I’m excited. Congratulations to you, by the way, on your podcast and what you’re doing. It’s always ⁓ interesting when people say when they want to start a podcast, they just don’t realize how much work it is. ⁓ Yeah, so good. I’m glad to be a guest here and I’m glad to share with the world and your universe, know, real estate, real estate development and what it takes to play in the big boy league.

Cody Crabb (02:44)
thank you.

That is the truest thing. Yeah, that is so true. Yeah ⁓

Yeah, yeah, that’s and big boy league it is indeed. I mean you’re you’re talking at like a high level here ⁓ And in one of the most difficult markets in the country, so that’s that already has me pretty interested ⁓ First you mentioned it we were chatting a little bit before and you mentioned you had a pretty unusual path You didn’t go as a kid. You’re not like I’m gonna go into real estate when you when you started out This was you were in a very different industry is that right?

Mauricio Mejia (03:08)
you

Absolutely.

absolutely. So

I grew up in Los Angeles and, you know, L.A. back in my days, in the mid-80s, early 90s, life was just very different. And, ⁓ you know…

I chose a path ⁓ of music, entertainment, when the other path of getting involved in drugs or gangs was prominent in the area that I was growing up in. And I fell in love with nightlife and became a very prominent ⁓ nightclub promoter. Then I became an operator and I’ve done thousands of shows ⁓ with many celebrities, many, I mean, you name it back in the day from the ⁓ early 90s to

2000s ⁓ I did it for… Yeah. Well, I mean, done shows with like DJ Quick. We’ve done shows with, ⁓ which was a big hip hop artist back then. We’ve done shows with, my God, after, there was like in the early 90s, ⁓ back, Tone Low, after 7. ⁓

Cody Crabb (04:16)
Okay, well we gotta hear a couple names. gotta hear some… Impress us a little bit. You gotta name drop a little bit.

huh.

⁓

Mauricio Mejia (04:39)
⁓ Next, ⁓ what other groups? mean, some of the big groups, I did a lot of stuff in the Latino market. We did Alejandra Guzman, Ananitos Verdes, Homers He. Done a lot of, was big in the Latin market. ⁓ And in concerts and clubs, I mean, it just, it was crazy. It was a fun lifestyle. Got to learn a lot and got to experience a lot to the point where from 15 years old when I started doing street promotions, ⁓

Cody Crabb (04:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (05:08)
I got accepted to San Jose State, came up to San Jose State in the Bay Area and ⁓ four years in college on my last year I decided I wanted to drop out because I was making so much money that I was like, you know what, I’m gonna go all in as an entrepreneur and ⁓ made my first million at 25 and then that’s when I really realized that I needed to pivot ⁓ or diversify what I was doing because nightlife was fun but once it becomes a job,

or something that you rely on, it’s not fun anymore. ⁓

Cody Crabb (05:41)
Yeah, that’s true with a lot of things. That’s very true. As soon as you have to do it, yeah, it starts to

be a little difficult. Well, and also, I mean, feel like that’s maybe that’s just me aging talking, but that sounds like a bit of a young man’s game.

sounds…

Mauricio Mejia (06:40)
Absolutely. You hit it right on the money. Yeah, it’s a young

man’s game until it’s not. then, ⁓ you know, ⁓ it like everything, right? ⁓ It has its course. So I decided that, you know, being a millionaire wasn’t enough. I wanted more. And that’s when I really started to think bigger. And, you know, I want to play in the Billionaires Club. that’s really where the mindset started to grow. And being here in Silicon Valley,

Cody Crabb (06:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (07:08)
You’re surrounded with more millionaires and billionaires than anywhere else in the world. And the mindset is different.

Cody Crabb (07:12)
Hmm.

Mauricio Mejia (07:14)
⁓ I live in the heart of San Jose in the downtown, which is the heart of Silicon Valley. Outside my window, if we look to my right, right now GTC is happening, which is ⁓ the largest AI convention in the world. NVIDIA, we got Apple, we got Zoom, all the headquarters are here. So there’s a lot of great.

things that are happening here and a real strong ⁓ mindset and a very high level of standards. So you gotta keep up with it if you wanna play in that universe.

Cody Crabb (07:46)
Yeah, so just out of curiosity, did any of those nightlife skills kind of transfer when you were kind of moving to real estate? Like, did any of those like, that came in handy when I was when I was searching over.

Mauricio Mejia (07:54)
⁓ 100

% people skills. You learn to read people because on a weekly basis you’re dealing with hundreds, if not thousands of people and you’re really getting to see human behavior. You get to see and understand, you get to feel people’s energy. You can tell somebody is walking in and it’s not in a good mood and you’re, you you want to try to, when they walk into the nightlife, it’s a version of escape, right? You’re creating this, you’re orchestrating a distraction for the evening.

So you get to learn a lot of people skills and you get to meet a lot of great people. ⁓ I mean, I’ve had first 12 employees of Google that walked into my venue. I’ve had major celebrities like U2, ⁓ Madonna, the Black Eyed Peas, Jamie Foxx. I mean, there’s been a lot ⁓ of great people that have walked, ⁓ you know, that I’ve met and have crossed paths with me being in entertainment industry.

Cody Crabb (08:34)
Wow.

Yeah,

yeah, I bet. And so, okay, so once you decided you’re gonna diversify, I’m curious, kind what did that first initial pivot look like? And then kind of how did that escalate into where you are today?

Mauricio Mejia (09:03)
You know, ⁓ good question by the way. ⁓ That’s one of the things that led me to write one of my books. I share with you behind the scenes. You know, I have published three books. ⁓ One of the books that I wrote was Smoke and Mirrors and that talks about me in the nightlife industry. The second book I wrote was called Decide, Commit, Execute. And in order to move in life, you have to learn to make decisions, right? Because a yes and a no is a decision.

A yes is you’re moving through the easier path, a no is, you keep going until you get a yes, right, until you figure it out. And part of that is action, right? So decide, make a decision, commit to your decision, and then execute taking action. So a lot of it is just, you know, is really sticking to what you decide you’re gonna do and then committing to it and then moving forward. And for me, diversifying from when I saw how much

money I was making in the entertainment, I got caught in the traps, Had the Ferrari, had the beautiful loft, I had a big 350 gallon saltwater fish tank with a baby shark, right? Because it’s the environment, ⁓ it’s the mindset that you have when you’re in that universe, You’re living the Hollywood life. right, and that’s not a reality, that’s a facade.

Cody Crabb (10:20)
Sure. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s like flashy, yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (10:30)
And you know, as much as I know probably the young audience out there wants to live that it’s fun until you have to maintain it. I always told people, said, yeah, it’s fun having a Ferrari, but it’s a three, it’s a 2,500 to $3,500 oil change because you know, the tire replacement, it’s a thousand dollars a tire. So you blow out a tire, it’s a thousand bucks, you know, and it just, it’s the maintenance of these toys and this lifestyle. So.

Cody Crabb (10:46)
Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (10:58)
⁓ So it’s fun while you’re getting there, but it’s not something that’s sustainable or something that you want to do forever.

Cody Crabb (11:02)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I remember

the first time I walked into someone I know had bought a massive house. It was by far the biggest one I’d ever seen. And I walk in this house and it was like, like ridiculous, like marble floors. Like it was like exactly what you’re picturing when you think like fancy house. So you walk in the door and it’s these fancy, but then the further you go in the house, as they got like to the bedrooms and the other additions and stuff, it starts just looking like a normal house. And I’m like, that’s just perfect analogy. Like,

Mauricio Mejia (11:47)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Crabb (12:07)
They just want to look fancy with people walking in the front. The deeper you go, it’s not that impressive. ⁓

Mauricio Mejia (12:11)
That’s it.

It’s part of the smoking mirrors, And then again, when you think of the big houses, right, you think of the maintenance, right? The maintenance of the homes, just the air conditioning, the electricity, I mean everything, it just starts to add up that you really think, am I working to better myself or am I working to sustain a lifestyle? So it’s part of life and it’s part of entrepreneurship and you’ll start to realize, yeah, these big billionaires, trust me, I…

Cody Crabb (12:21)
Yeah, no kidding.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (12:41)
come across them, a lot of them, their lifestyle is just, it’s a normal, you know, it’s a simple, right? As much as the world wants to fantasize and create these illusions, it’s all it is, is an illusion,

Cody Crabb (12:55)
Yeah,

it says something that that’s a pretty common thing among like the super super wealthy is that they’re like Cartoon character closet with the same outfit 50 times, you know, like it’s it says something that that’s that’s kind how they live like the I think I read the most common car driven by millionaires is Ford F-150, you know, so it’s like

Mauricio Mejia (13:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, probably. I like trucks, but you know, I do like my Chrysler

300. I’m a simple guy. like it.

Cody Crabb (13:19)
See, that’s, yeah, that’s like on

the level of like cool, but like still normal cool. Like, you know, it’s not a crazy car.

Mauricio Mejia (13:25)
Yeah, no, ⁓

I don’t have to worry if a tire blows out is 150 bucks, oil change 150 bucks, you know, I’m cool, the car is comfortable, it’s clean and it’s my third one already. mean, I’ve had the fancy toys, but that’s not important to me right now. I think if anything, it’s more growing the businesses that I’m in. I love development. I love helping others. You know, the multiple business right now I’ve shared with you, I’m in the middle of ⁓ an acquisition.

Cody Crabb (13:29)
Yeah, it’s no problem. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (13:53)
of one of my companies, a staffing company that I built. I’ve been doing that for 10 years as well. And we provide labor for big stadiums like SoFi Stadium in Southern California, the Los Angeles Coliseum. ⁓ You know, we do a lot of, we put a lot of people to work. ⁓ At one point, I had the largest staffing company for fire and water restoration, meaning when those big California fires were happening here.

we were sending the labor, the first responders to do the cleanup of ⁓ those areas. And it might end up being sexy, right? But we put a lot of people to work and we helped a lot of communities.

Cody Crabb (14:36)
Yeah, wow. Okay, well, that’s, I mean, there’s a lot there already. So.

Mauricio Mejia (14:37)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’re

already, we’re already, I mean, we can go off track real quick. I going back to real estate and real estate development, ⁓ I’ll tell you right now, man, ⁓ I’ll give you a high level of what I’m involved in right now. So ⁓ I’m here in San Jose, heart of Silicon Valley. ⁓ Our partners have about $450 million worth of investment in just dirt. The next group that’s behind us is Google.

Cody Crabb (14:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, please.

Mauricio Mejia (15:06)
Google has $350 million worth of investment just to show you the scale. Once the developments happen and they get built out, we’ll probably have about $5 billion worth of development investments in the downtown core. Google will probably have, because they’re building some real mega stuff, mean different products, they’ll probably have a between, last thing I read was probably about a $16 billion investment.

just in the downtown core. And when I say downtown core, we’re talking about a downtown that has about 100,000 people. We are the largest city, third largest city in California, San Jose is. And then we have the first one being Los Angeles. And then we’re being the third one. I believe that Sacramento or San Diego are the second one. So.

And then I’m working on another project in the city of Oakland, which is about 45 minutes north of where I’m at. and the group of people that I’m working with, they’re the ones that are purchasing the Oakland Coliseum. And that’s a, you know, a huge project that, you know, you’re talking about a $5 billion development, high density mixed use development, with, with stadiums and all kinds of entertainment goodies to be added. So, ⁓

And for people to try to understand that and put that in perspective, you guys are out in Texas, right? So there’s a lot of, like, for example, the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, right? They built all these different things around it so that it can complement that stadium. So we’re building things like that on a grand scale. So what part of Texas are you in? Okay.

Cody Crabb (16:27)
That’s right.

Well, see, I’m a transplant. I’m technically not even in Texas. The investor fuel is, I’m in Salt Lake City.

Mauricio Mejia (16:50)
I love

Salt Lake City, yeah. I’ve been up there a couple times too, yeah.

Cody Crabb (16:52)
funny that

you say that because nobody ever says that.

Mauricio Mejia (16:55)
Yeah, I mean, I

like it because it’s cool, it’s calm, but you know, I was up there, I went up to the Zion Mountains, which was so south, but then I went to Salt Lake City because we went up to some big lake up there in, I don’t know, south north, like in Utah. Yeah, Bear Lake, there you go, that one, So, but no, I like Salt Lake City, it was pretty cool going up there. I have a lot of friends up in that area, so cool.

Cody Crabb (17:02)
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s pretty neat.

Cool,

yeah, well, so as we’re kind of getting into the real estate thing, I mean, it sounds like you’ve got so many tendrils in so many areas. It seems like, ⁓ what’s your biggest bottleneck? Because, I mean, it kind of just sounds like it’s because there’s one of you only. I mean, is that what it is? Because it sounds like, I mean, how can you manage all this? What’s your biggest bottleneck right now?

Mauricio Mejia (18:25)
You know, ⁓ I gotta tell you, once you understand the different businesses that you’re in and you understand the business cycles, you start learning how to time manage yourself. And that’s something that I learned back in 2007. I was at a conference here. Mark Zuckerberg was speaking. People that don’t know who Mark Zuckerberg is, founder of Facebook. And they asked him, hey, how is it that you’re doing this without, and with all the…

all of the bugs that Facebook had at the time and it still has bugs. He says, you know what, we just do it. ⁓ We’re always continuously learning and we’re doing things and we learn to time manage ourselves. And that’s how we’re able to manage all the different levels of things that we’re doing. So I have multiple lanes. I have my staffing business, which is one lane. I got my real estate and development, which is my ⁓ second lane.

I have my entertainment, my books, my podcast, lane. That’s my creative space that allows me to bring balance to myself. And not everything requires a 40 hour a week. That’s an illusion also created by society. ⁓ like to, in one day I break it down to three days. I get up at 4.30 in the morning, I do all of my personal stuff, work out, do a version of

of meditation, meaning like when I have my headset on, I’m thinking of, you know, I’m listening and feeding my mind ⁓ either good music, positive music, or I’m listening to some, some, you know, crazy theorist or something that just is feeding my mind. don’t fall into all the noise around the world. Yeah. You know, it’s funny on one of my treadmills, which I I love treadmill day because I get to play solitaire on the, on the, or, chess on the computer while I’m walking.

Cody Crabb (20:01)
Yeah, gets you thinking. Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (20:13)
And what it’s doing is just exercising my brain, right? It’s giving me critical thinking. ⁓ And then I don’t start anything. My first appointment is not till 10 o’clock. I don’t do anything ⁓ before then. I’ll take maybe a call or two. So then I start my second day already, which is from 10 to three, which is then I do all the heavy push from that time. And then from three on is I allow myself to do other creative stuff, you know, or I balance myself.

So in one day, I’m breaking it up into three days or three chunks and it allows me to time manage and then I stay consistent with it. know, doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but consistency is always going to be key in order to be successful in anything that we want to do.

Cody Crabb (20:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s right. ⁓ It’s the old do a little bit very well ⁓ instead of trying to do a huge goal and kind of failing at it because that way, you know, can still, was just incremental progress is always gonna be better than just trying to make all the change at once for sure.

Mauricio Mejia (21:03)
Yeah.

and have a strong team. You know, I can’t do things by myself. I’m just one of many. ⁓ Just in my situation, I’m the head of the team.

but I also know how to delegate and work with others. If I try to do it all by myself, I’d go crazy. So, for example, in the real estate, there’s multiple partners, there’s different people that handle different things, and we all come together when our time is to get in the game, right? It’s ⁓ like a football team, right? There’s only one quarterback on there, and then you have multiple players, right? And you spread across the field, and you try to get to the, you try to make that touchdown, so.

And that’s just the way it works with any business. know, got to have a team podcast, right? We got to have a team that handles all of the editing and all of the nuts and bolts behind the scene. And because if we were to not only be the talent or be on the show or do the production and had to go do all the editing, we’d burn ourselves out. Yeah. Yeah. And then it’s not fun anymore. And it becomes a job.

Cody Crabb (22:14)
That’s all you’re gonna do, yeah, that’s you full time now, yeah.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (22:21)
and it doesn’t become a creative space, you know?

Cody Crabb (22:23)
Yeah, I feel you. Okay, so

you gave me a really good outline of like personally how you kind of manage so many different things at once. But on the business side, like I’m curious, there something within the real estate deals that is slowing you down right now?

Mauricio Mejia (22:39)
Yeah, money. I think that the cost of money right now, where we’re at in the universe, ⁓ what the current state of the world is, ⁓ it has a say in what we’re trying to do. ⁓ Right now, interest rates are so high, and being that we live here in California, ⁓ and we’re here specifically in Silicon Valley,

Cody Crabb (22:46)
Sure, yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (23:07)
The cost of labor is expensive. The cost of materials is expensive. So when everything is too high, the numbers then don’t pencil out. So sometimes you have to sit and wait until that moment, the right moment, right? It’s kind of like a surfer, right? He goes out into the ocean and he waits to that wave, right? And then maybe he gets one or two waves a day. Maybe he doesn’t get any waves, but you have to, it’s a waiting game.

Sometimes people ⁓ suffer because they can’t weather the weight and then there’s others that can weather it because they’re properly ⁓ positioned. And luckily for us, we’re positioned well, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

Cody Crabb (23:52)
Yeah, well, and out of curiosity, like what has changed

⁓ compared to like a couple of years ago? I mean, you said this is the snapshot of today’s economy. Like what is it that has changed in your view that that’s that’s making things a little more pressured and stuff?

Mauricio Mejia (24:06)
Well, it’s

a ripple effect. COVID, you know, if you think about it, we just celebrated the sixth year anniversary of COVID this past weekend. Being here in Santa Clara, yes. Yeah, no, no, no. ⁓

Cody Crabb (24:14)
Wow, wow, I didn’t know that. That’s kind of wild actually. Sorry, I didn’t mean to react like that. just, that seems six

years ago. That seems impossible.

Mauricio Mejia (24:21)
I’m going blow your mind even more. So ⁓ Friday the 13th, just passed. ⁓ Six years ago was Friday the 13th when we had COVID in 2020. So March 13th, our governor here gets on the horn and says that state of California is going to go into shelter in place. On Sunday, ⁓ on March 15, ⁓ Santa Clara County, the county that I live in,

Cody Crabb (24:27)
huh.

Mauricio Mejia (24:50)
announces that effective midnight Santa Clara County is going to be the first county in the entire United States that’s going to shelter in place. And by Monday, March 16th, ⁓ yesterday, ⁓ we were in shelter in place. So it was pretty eerie feeling. And then of course, a couple of days later, the entire country started shutting down.

At that time, I remember we were we had just filed in February of 2020 we had filed our SEC forms for one of my companies to go public So we were we were excited because we were thinking, you know How big of a yacht are we gonna buy and you know the toys and stuff, right? Cuz we’re bit we’re gonna be playing in the Billionaire’s Club and then of course when the world shut down a lot of things happen, so

Cody Crabb (25:38)
Yeah, that’s not great.

Mauricio Mejia (25:40)
moving right along, there was a lot of developments that were supposed to go vertical in 2020, 21, 22, but when the world shuts down, the delays, the ripple effects start to ripple.

Cody Crabb (25:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like we’re hitting like the end, the tail end of the ripple still right now, yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (25:58)
Well, we’re hitting the tail, then now we’re going, now we got an instability again in the world. So it’s like, at what point, when does this nonsense stop? Right? we can’t, without going into politics, because that’s not where we want to go. ⁓ You know, it’s being, for me, it’s about humanity. It’s about doing the right things and keeping things going. But we got to also remember that there’s people that are playing

Cody Crabb (26:02)
There’s always gonna be something.

Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (26:26)
whole different level, global games, know, mean, ⁓ they’re in different universes, they’re talking about different things and, you know, these wars are driven by other situations, other interests, but everyone, there’s an effect, a ripple effect that ⁓ travels and impacts, you know, everyone in a different way. Some people are making a lot of money right now during chaos, and during chaos,

there’s a lot of people that are not. And then when there’s no chaos, there’s a lot of people making money. ⁓ And the people that are normally making money when there’s chaos are not making money. So it’s kind of a, it’s a pendulum. You know, so we want to try to stay in the middle and it just seems that we had a four year break and then now we’re back at it. And now we just got to see what happens.

Cody Crabb (27:05)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Are you passing now on deals that you maybe would have taken a few years ago because of that? ⁓

Mauricio Mejia (27:20)
Absolutely. Yeah, there’s

a lot of deals that a lot of great deals that are coming but because of the positioning we just we you know, we have to complete what we started and and that’s important you have to you have to complete things that ⁓ Needed to get completed. You can’t jump around you could but then again you’re then you’re creating more layers of management more responsibilities and And then you you’re also you’re just running you’re thinning yourself out, you know you

You can’t be a jack of all trades and win all of them. gotta be, you can be jack of trades and win some, but it just depends, you know? Yeah.

Cody Crabb (27:56)
Yeah, yeah, I feel that. ⁓

All right, so out of curiosity, like if capital dropped or suddenly stuff got easier for you money-wise, how much more could you actually scale then? Because it sounds like you’ve, I mean, maybe I’m just not very imaginative.

Mauricio Mejia (28:10)
I

would not be, I’m capped. There’s only a, mean, between the two different projects that I’m involved in or the different groups that I’m involved in, my bandwidth is capped out. When I was younger, I wanted to have, I wanted to conquer the world and I remember I had so many teams that I remember that I would start.

Cody Crabb (28:13)
gotcha.

Sure, yeah, sure, sure sounds like it, yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (28:34)
try to juggle and keep everything in the air. And when you start dropping balls and you start making mistakes and then you start feeling the ripple effects of your mistakes, then you start wondering, I’m like, damn, what am I, I need to shed some of this and I need to realign and focus myself on what is the best use of my time. And that’s really what it comes down to is what’s gonna be the best use of my time so that I can be the best ⁓ contributor to my team.

Cody Crabb (29:02)
Yeah. And I really like that you were like to framing yourself as a contributor to your team instead of a like they work for me kind of thing. Like that’s, think it’s important to view it that way. ⁓

Mauricio Mejia (29:14)
Yeah, nobody,

I always tell people, you don’t work for me. And even when I hear people call me boss or, I work for him, I say, no, no, no, let me, because words are powerful. I tell people you work with me, not for me. ⁓ If you want to work for me, I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I want you to work with me because I rather have teammates than to have people that are just subservient. I’m not, that’s not who I, we don’t grow that way. I mean, there, and again, some people it’s my habit, but I want.

Cody Crabb (29:25)
Yeah.

Mauricio Mejia (29:42)
I want everyone to be a team leader and a self-starter, not have to be managed all the time. I don’t mind directing and guiding, but if I gotta be on top of you managing you, then I become a manager. Then I’m not a leader.

Cody Crabb (29:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, you don’t want to be manager. Yeah, I hear that. ⁓ This has been so great. ⁓ We’ve had so many great little stories and nuggets there that have been really helpful to me. ⁓ Hearing how you’re able to kind of navigate the scale and timing and everything, ⁓ there’s just a couple more questions as we finish out here. ⁓ So one of the things I always ask is if… ⁓

Mauricio Mejia (30:17)
Yeah.

Cody Crabb (30:22)
You know, if you were in front of an audience, let’s say you’re in front of it. Well, you are right now actually in front of an audience of a real estate investors. ⁓ and you had a mic for just like 10 seconds and you had like one little quick thing to share with them that they could, that they could, ⁓ do that or not do that would really move the needle for them. What would be that thing? I’m handing you the mic right now. Go.

Mauricio Mejia (30:44)
Yeah, well first and foremost, don’t give up on what your dream is. Keep focused on your goal ⁓ and just know that it’s not easy and if it was easy, everybody would be doing what we’re doing, period.

Cody Crabb (30:59)
Okay, great,

perfect, that’s so good. It’s going in my little notebook ⁓ of those quotes. ⁓ Mauricio, thanks so much for joining us. If people wanna get in touch with you or learn more, where can they go? mean, you mentioned a podcast, you mentioned some books, we’d love to hear about those.

Mauricio Mejia (31:13)
Yeah, mean, well, the simplest way ⁓ is you can Google me Mauricio Mejia San Jose ⁓ and it will give you everything ⁓ about me. I’ve always been a very public person. I’m on all social medias. I’m on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. I have a YouTube channel, a podcast channel that people want to listen to some of the entrepreneurs that I’ve interviewed as well. ⁓

they can check it out. definitely want to have you on there as well. We can talk about what does it take to build a podcast because I get that a lot like, Mauricio, I want to do a podcast. I’m like, Yeah, right. I’m on there when you tell them

Cody Crabb (31:45)
There you go, yeah.

Yeah, listen

to this episode. Tell me you still want to do podcast. Yeah, exactly.

Mauricio Mejia (31:53)
Yeah, or

you then when you tell them the cost, right, because the cost it takes, takes, you got to invest, people got to invest in themselves, period. That’s, know, we’re we are a brand, and then our companies are a brand. And it takes time, energy and money. And people just have a misunderstanding of that. And if anything, I could tell the people that are coming and watching this is, you know, invest in yourself and, and stay focused and never give up. Just keep going.

Cody Crabb (31:57)
Yeah.

Fantastic, that is some great advice. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your perspective. ⁓ Listeners, if you got some value from this, which I know you did, please go ahead and make sure you’re subscribed to get more of these. We’ve got more conversations like this coming up and we’ll see you on the next episode of Real Estate Pros. Take care.