Ricardo Torres – From Military Discipline to Multi-Business Domination – Why Most People Stay Stuck (And How to Break Out)

I did really, really well there, and then I got fired.

And man, let me tell you, that was a big kick in the mouth.

I see your business, it looks very lucrative, I wanna buy your business.

And he looked at me and he said, yeah, I'll sell it.

I bought a job is what I bought with that and I didn't realize it.

being in the proximity of the people that you want to be in.

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Today, I am really excited.

I have Ricardo Torres joining me Ricardo is an Air Force Guard Major.

It's his primary career and he also runs numerous businesses.

He has a lot of experience as a real estate investor in multifamily properties.

He's owned a few different dry cleaners, some luxury cleaning companies.

He just has his fingers in a lot of different things.

So I think you guys are really going to enjoy this conversation with Ricardo Torres.

So welcome.

Awesome, Erick.

Thank you very much for having me, brother.

It's a pleasure to be on the show.

Yes, yes, and this is it's taken some work to get this together.

We tried this once before and had some technical issues and have had to reschedule because of uh illnesses and a number of different things.

So I'm I'm really excited that we can make this happen.

And I think you have a lot of information, a lot of content that our listeners are going to enjoy.

So we'll we'll dive right in.

Awesome.

you.

Well, we like to start every show just getting to know you a little bit about where you came from and maybe some of the experiences that led to you being the person that you are

with the risk taking personality and parts of your personality that really have helped you thrive.

So can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and what things were like growing up?

Yeah, I grew up in a military family.

My mom and dad started their journey in New Mexico where my mom is from.

My dad's from Puerto Rico.

He joined the Air Force.

So look, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

You know what I mean?

I followed in his footsteps and in one of my brother's footsteps.

Born in New Mexico, youngest of three boys, we're all about five or six years apart.

We grew up playing a lot of sports.

So acceptance of failure and

pushing for success was a very common theme in our family, as well as culture and just the notion that family's close and we do whatever it takes for family.

So those were kind of some of the pillars that shaped how I kind of function as an adult, still very close relationship with my mom, dad and brothers.

And let's see.

I've traveled around a lot, so the resiliency factor I think is a really big component of what it means to bend and flex and kind of pivot, if you will.

As men, as business owners, as investors, as entrepreneurs, you have to be able to pivot when it's required and you can't be too staunch in one antiquated mindset.

especially right now in 2026, there's so much changing with AI and what's happening on the war front with Iran.

It's very, very important that we have a lens that we look at things through that we can continuously clean is how I like to call it.

Clean the lens, clean the lens, clean the lens because every day is a new day.

So I kind of grew up all around, met friends everywhere, settled in uh kind of Florida, if you will, in my high school years, I met my wife.

in, Florida, I actually met her in the seventh grade.

were 12 years old and, lo and behold, man, I always had this notion, this idea that I wanted to go do something with business.

wanted to be a CEO or a leader of some sort.

And so I always enjoyed being at the head of the table.

And, you know, my first opportunity, my first crack at that was I worked at city group right out of high school, uh, taking, uh, you know, I was a debt collector.

I collected on, bad debt.

That was my first kind of glimpse into sales experience because it is a sales tactic to get the debt or to get it paid despite somebody running up that bill and not wanting to

pay it at a later time.

So yeah, that's kind of a little bit of me, man.

And that was all well before the Air Force even presented itself to me.

I was in my early 20s.

I had this kind of...

experience that allowed for me to scale up at the company I was working for, Citigroup, and I went through management, team lead management, and uh I had a blast doing that.

That eventually fizzled out.

I don't get a chance to tell a lot of people this, but I started off at Citigroup.

I did really, really well there, and then I got fired.

And man, let me tell you, that was a big kick in the mouth.

You know, Mike, Mike Tyson talks about this all the time is everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth.

Then what are you going to do with your plan?

So, for me, that was one of my biggest pivots.

and that was something that was an attention to detail thing.

had wired out too much money that went to a customer and the money ended up bouncing.

But in the process of us, we should have waited a longer period of time.

that

customer received money.

They were part of a Nigerian scam.

I signed off on sending it back to him too early.

It was an attention to detail thing.

And that was kind of the bedrock for what my career would look like.

I immediately got hit in the mouth and needed to pivot.

And so I decided I wanted to go back to college.

And that was where Chapter 2 would begin for me after kind of a failed career in what I thought was going to be management for a Fortune 500 company.

Okay.

And you said back to college.

Did you start some college education following high school?

did a little bit.

went to Pima Community College out of high school uh in Tucson, Arizona.

I went from Florida to Tucson to live with my parents.

And it just wasn't the right fit for me at the time.

I wanted to make too much money.

I was like, look, I need to be making more money than this.

I don't know what I'm doing in this literature class.

It's not for me right now.

So yeah.

So I went back in my mid-20s to University of South Florida in Tampa.

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Yeah.

study the second time around?

So second time around, I studied international studies.

like a poly-sci type degree.

But the big premonition and like the big uncover or discovery for me there, Erick, was while I went to college, I was balancing a job at Geico working at night, taking phone

calls against Spanish Q for personal injury protection claims.

There was a lot of fraud in Florida at the time and I was doing my best to help out there.

And so I was working at night and I was going to college during the day.

And on my way back from new student orientation on day one, I saw the ROTC building and I decided, you know what, I'm just going to pop upstairs and just see if they have any like

openings.

I looked at it so in such a simplistic way.

That's not how it works at all.

But I went up and I said, Hey, you know, I just want to be a second lieutenant.

Like, can I, how do I be an officer?

And without going into too much detail, Lieutenant Haynes, the gold bar or the second lieutenant recruiter was there.

And he said, yeah, you just got to PT, know, physical training twice a week and you got to go to this leadership lab once a week.

And, and I was like, that's it?

Like, wow, sign me up.

So I signed up and, that's, that's a tenant to what I think the entrepreneurial world looks like a little bit is

If you ask too many questions, sometimes you get bogged down by what we call analysis paralysis.

And analysis paralysis is Erick or Ricardo is spending all the time in the world analyzing what this deal may look like or what this journey may entail, that you actually scare

yourself out of it.

And so oftentimes it's like the naive ones are the ones that are finding the success because they didn't ask the tough questions, they just showed up.

And in fact, I argue that nobody does it first, right?

You have to, know, through action comes clarity.

There's a wonderful quote I love and I'm paraphrasing it, but essentially it states that you only get clarity from action.

Clarity doesn't come before action, it comes from action.

And so if you have a why or a pursuit or if that's not as clear for you, just take action.

Try to add value to the workplace or to the marketplace that you're in and I think it'll help.

And so I did the same thing through ROTC.

I showed up as a cadet over the course of the next three and a half years.

I eventually commissioned in 2013 as a second lieutenant, United States Air Force.

I got my degree and the wife and I and our daughter, packed up to Columbus, Mississippi, where it would be our first duty station as a T-6 instructor pilot.

And it was there that I really kind of honed my skill set as an officer and as a leader that I believe I implement a lot of things in my civilian entrepreneurial career with now.

And so I'm very, very grateful for the experience that college gave me, number one, but more importantly, what the Air Force provided me from a discipline organization and a

leadership perspective.

And that is a bit of a bedrock to a lot of my success as an entrepreneur.

Being a pilot is such a unique job.

One, there's not many of them, and especially in the Air Force.

And two, what it does is it teases out of you things that you do and don't like.

And so you're able to bring those to the surface.

You reconcile those.

It helps you become a better planner.

It helps you become a better leader.

I always used to think that being a good pilot meant you knew physics or calculations, or you could compute complex equations.

That's not it at all.

Sure, you have to know your times tables one through 12, but you have to ultimately be decisive.

You have to have a good attitude.

You have to be a leader.

And so I've always said, if I could be a leader in the sky, I can be a leader on the ground because in the sky, you can't stop an aircraft.

You have to make a decision right there on the spot.

Right.

Um, and so that's actually helped me frame a lot of challenges in business and in life that I've, that I've encountered.

so I went through that, uh, pilot training and I graduated with my wings in 2015.

And in 2015, I wanted to go be in the big blues, what they would call it the air force.

And I wanted to go fly an F 22 Raptor.

And I was not able to do so.

In fact, I spent so much time with my peers and different students trying to help them where I could.

I've always been a proponent of if you don't know something as well as you should, put yourself in the hot seat, better understand it, and then let people poke holes in your

game so you can further strengthen and identify those chinks in your armor.

I believe that's a good philosophy for anybody who's looking to learn business or who's looking to expand their horizons is put yourself in the hot seat, much like a lobster that

overgrows its shell.

it requires pressure to get larger, to shed that and to create a new one.

And so that was a very pressure-filled year for me.

I tried to help others along the way and in doing so I helped myself more.

I was selected to become a first assignment instructor pilot or a FAPE is what we call it.

So I stayed back.

I went to pilot instructor training in San Antonio and then I went back to Mississippi and I started instructing those same students that were my peers a couple of months earlier,

which was kind of wild.

I thought, man, I'm a bit too young to be a FAPE or an IP, but nevertheless, the Air Force believed in me.

So I spent 2015 through 2019 honing my skills as an Air Force uh officer and as an instructor pilot amassing over a thousand hours flying at night in the weather, upside

down in formation.

You name it, man, we did it.

It was tremendous.

The only thing we didn't do were drop bombs or expend any weapons, but that was for later.

man, well there's a lot of information there.

I know you said when you moved you had a wife and a child then and that you met your wife at 12 years old.

Did you guys stay together from 12 years old or?

no.

We were always excellent friends throughout that period of time, but we split up a couple of times from high school through our early twenties.

But, you know, when there's love, it comes back.

And it's like that old adage of, you know, let the bird, let the bird fly away.

If it comes back, it loves you.

I guess it's true for us.

So we're 19 years later going strong and

She's my rock support system.

was having a great conversation with her this morning on just opening up about what it looks like to find success and then to have somebody who supports you in what that

successful journey looks like.

I'm very, very grateful and indebted to her for all of what she's given me in a very selfless way.

man, that's awesome.

That's wonderful to hear.

And I know I want to dive mostly into your businesses and the leadership advice you might have for us, but I know in your Air Force career, you've gotten to operate some pretty

interesting aircraft and have quite a distinguished career with the Air Force.

Do you mind giving us a brief summary?

Maybe what were your favorite platforms that you got to fly?

Yeah.

Great question.

I started off flying the T six as an instructor pilot.

The T six is a, it's a Texan two.

it's a turboprop aircraft, 1100 shaft horsepower.

It's a two seater student sits in the front instructor pilot sits in the rear cockpit.

It's like a Mazda Miata.

So there's no hard points.

There's yeah, there's no hard points on this thing.

It doesn't drop any bombs.

It doesn't shoot a gun.

but it is really fun to fly and it's like easy to start, easy to shut down.

Um, it's perfect for a new student pilot.

So I got about a thousand hours in that.

Um, and, I moved on to the eight 10 warthog, a 10 C, a 10 Charlie.

is absolutely phenomenal.

Um, the eight 10 is a close air support, essentially a killing machine.

And that is only a single, that's a single seat fighter.

It's a fourth generation aircraft, a fighter aircraft.

That was absolutely tremendous.

Um, the eight 10 is built for loitering in adversarial territory.

with a lot of fuel that allows for you to expend, whether it's guns, missiles, whatever is gonna be the appropriate weapon solution for what's taking place in that threat

environment.

And so I had a blast flying that I transitioned to the EC 130 Compass Call, which is considered ISR intelligence surveillance reconnaissance.

It's actually what President Trump was talking about.

He said something about a discombobulator the other day on the news.

um And that's what the aircraft does.

It discombobulates the enemies from an unclassed perspective, electronics, if you will.

um And so I had a blast flying that.

flew the T-38 Talon for a little bit.

That has a

a small uh debut in Top Gun, the original Top Gun.

It's the MiG that they're flying against.

It's a black aircraft.

It looks like an F5, T38.

Anyways, I've had a blast.

I broke the speed of sound in that aircraft.

so, man, it's just been so much fun.

I guess my most favorite would be the A10, because it's only me in there.

No one's telling you what to do.

That's kind of nice.

but the T6 is probably a number two because it's so nimble, man.

You can just turn on a dime, do loops, spareroles, Cuban eights, you name it.

It's just a fun platform to fly.

And that is where, you you have to learn attention to detail.

You have to learn what it means to be an expert as a tactician in your aircraft.

So I simply took that mentality and I said, I'm going to apply this to business and I want to see if it works.

And sure enough, it works.

Works pretty well.

well, that's a great segue.

We learned about you growing up a little bit, starting a career that ultimately didn't work out, going back to school.

so you're serving in the Air Force, working your way up as an instructor.

How in the world do you get into luxury cleaning, dry cleaning, property investments as uh an Air Force pilot?

Yeah, it was 2019.

My business partner and I were established captains in the Air Force at the time.

We wanted to make more money.

We wanted to try to increase the velocity of our capital, quite frankly, is where the genesis of this begins.

And so we explored different avenues.

The first avenue we explored, we thought we would buy one single family home every year.

And then at the end of 20 years, we would own 20

Houses in our portfolio and we'd split that equity and we'd be well off, right?

Well that didn't that didn't last very long um We actually did a lot of due diligence on single-family homes went into contract fell out of contract for multiple reasons Along the

way we met someone who said you guys need to think bigger and so You'll notice I do this a lot Erick at it points in this in the conversation that you and I are having I'm

I'm flagging a moment that was remarkable enough for me to look back and to say that was a moment where I pivoted or that was a moment that I consider a checkpoint of progress.

And this was another checkpoint of progress.

And that is surround yourself with the people who are going to push you to make you better.

Proximity to success is huge.

If there is someone who is doing what you want to be doing in life, hang out with them.

Take them to lunch.

buy him dinner, buy him a beer, buy him a coffee, learn from them.

By the way, to the listeners who want to learn and to level up, you have to put your money where your mouth is.

Take someone out to lunch.

Try to add value.

Don't just take, take, take.

You hear this a lot, man.

Hey, can I take 30 minutes of your time?

You should actually go into a deal and be somewhat offended if you can't reciprocate in some way, shape, form.

And the least of which should be to say something to the effect of, what are you working on?

How can I help you with what you're doing?

They may need some level of assistance, right?

So to the listeners, please implement that.

It's gonna go a long way.

And then don't just learn, but execute, right?

There's analysis and then there's time and there's execution.

And that little trifecta is gonna equal success.

So anyways, I started to surround myself with people who were telling me, need to think bigger, you need to think bigger.

And I said, well, how big, why?

I was liquid at $120,000 at the time.

My business partner was as well, he's a good friend.

And so together we had $240,000 and we were able to afford a 14 unit apartment complex in Tucson, Arizona.

It was in the hood actually.

It was probably not the best buy in retrospect, but it worked out for us.

We bought this man in 2020.

COVID was about to hit and we didn't know much about commercial multifamily investments.

I mean, I knew what net operating income divided by the cap rate was and that that gave you the value of an apartment complex of an asset.

I knew that there was a bit of financial arbitrage that we could take advantage of and that meant we could invest money, renovate a unit, rent it for a higher price and that

that would go towards our bottom line, our net operating income.

And I knew that if the cap rates continued to compress over time, I would make more money on this deal.

And so for me, we went in in a very simplistic mindset, the same simplistic mindset that I went into being an officer with, and that was that I would just PT twice a week and go to

lead lab once a week.

It was just kind of, I was so naive with it.

And I think to myself, now, what am I being naive about now?

But that's side conversation for another day.

And so we bought this apartment complex for 970,000.

We put 240 down, so we were about 75 % leveraged in the deal, local credit union.

And we started to get to work.

We didn't have any money after that, man.

We had to figure out how we were going to turn these units and renovate them.

And we spent a lot of time and effort.

I painted inside, I put new blinds up.

We figured out what that looked like, but we were able to take the rents from around 625 bucks a month to around $900 because of these unit turns.

And so that delta of almost $300 per month.

on two units equated to 600 per month or 7,200 per year.

And over a 6 % cap rate, we were seeing a nice little increase.

And so I had this moment of like, aha, like this is a really good industry.

I want to double down here.

And so here is kind of how this unfolded on me though.

We bought this apartment complex, strictly a JV deal, joint venture deal, 50-50 on equity, but we were illiquid again afterwards.

And like many of your listeners and like many folks out there, you can be equity rich, but cash poor, right?

And that's a tough feeling, you know, like I read Creative Cash by Bill Hamm and one of the chapters talks about like you have a 401k or your retirement, like can you prove it to

me?

you, not don't prove it to me.

Obviously people know they have money in their account, but can you buy a candy bar with it?

And it's like, I can't actually buy a candy bar with it.

Okay.

Well, can you take me to Disney world with it?

No, I can't.

It's say it's being saved for 40 or 50 years later, you know, and that's like, Oh, that kind of sucks.

Right.

So these are some of the things that are swirling through my mind at this time.

And, so I figured out, so COVID hit the air force didn't really know what to do with us all the time.

There was like an a shift to B shift to C shift.

I had more time on my hands than usual.

So I read a lot of books.

picked up,

you know, different podcasts, Bigger Pockets is where it started and it eventually evolved into other more concentrated podcasts, ultimately, best ever real estate syndication

podcast by Joe Farrellis and Rod Cleave, you name it, I was listening to him.

But I learned how to syndicate and I learned how to raise capital for deals.

And that um is a, I'll go back to another progress checkpoint in my entrepreneurial journey and that is leveraging other people's money.

to essentially build yourself a platform that is gonna allow you to grow.

Up until now, I had never perceived that concept as something that was viable or realistic for me.

And so because we were in liquid, but because we knew we added value to the marketplace by being able to underwrite a good deal, I knew I had something.

I knew I had an opportunity.

And so to make a long story short, I uh met...

and became friends with other people who were moving in the industry.

I became a member of My First Million and Multifamily, a Facebook page that had tens of thousands of members making moves.

I befriended a lot of operators, general partners who were running multifamily assets that were doing what I had been doing, but for many years.

And I met brokers and bankers and I learned how to syndicate some deals.

And within a year of that, Erick, we had syndicated two more apartment complexes.

raised the capital for him.

And so now we were operating three different apartment complexes.

We syndicated two of those.

The first one, that 14 unit, I ended up selling.

I 1031 exchanged that for a nice profit into a 25 unit in South Carolina, which is where my business partner was located.

I still being in Tucson, after having syndicated these three deals, we had some

some capital built up.

So lo and behold, man, you know, I, I go to work every day at the Air Force Base in Tucson Davis, Monthan Air Force Base.

And I see this little laundry mat man, they called the happy laundry drive up and

forward and back and at night it's popping in the morning it's popping man and so one day lo and behold man I walk in and and and I say hey look I know closed mouths don't get fed

right I'm like look my name is Ricardo I fly right across the street I'm in my flight suit this this older gentleman's like looking me up and down like what are doing man you in a

costume or what you know so so I just say point-blank hey

I see your business, it looks very lucrative, I wanna buy your business.

And uh he wasn't expecting that, nor was I his response.

And he looked at me and he said, that was a long pause, he said, yeah, I'll sell it.

And I thought, my gosh, I didn't realize that someone could reciprocate in the manner that you wanted.

And so I'll come up for air now.

That was the first point for me, man, that was an inflection point.

that I went from being a professional W-2 military officer to owning apartments to then making what I thought was a significant pivot to something that was uncharted territory in

buying a laundromat.

And so lo and behold, man, six months later, I owned the Happy Laundry.

I structured an SBA deal, 7A loan with the majority of it being allocated to real estate and the minority to the business.

So I enjoyed a 25 year amortization.

So for anybody who's looking at SBA loans, I'm happy to expand on that at a later time with them on 7A versus 504.

So we structured this deal and...

this is how I got my start in the textile industry.

I bought the Happy Laundry and so, you know, if over a period of time you get to know me, Erick, you'll know that I'll try to go deep and try to go wide in an industry that I work

in, that is in terms of subject matter expertise, as well as the people that are around me.

So I try to make friends and build those connections with a lot of folks over time.

And so after having owned the Happy Laundry, I did that.

I went to expos, conferences, I met different people.

And that's how I became privy to Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

It was a pocket listing for a luxury dry cleaner based out of Las Vegas, Nevada.

22, 23 employees doing a couple million in revenue.

And I knew that it catered to the affluent.

And I wanted to capitalize on that because of my lessons learned in both real estate and in business.

I knew that I was in an asset class with that apartment complex that was in the hood that I talked to you about.

And I had issues with that.

I had issues because I had a big turnover rate with tenants.

The eviction was high, bad debt was not appropriate.

And then the laundromat was also the same while I was adding value to the marketplace.

of all Ravi Kant talks about this all the time, you add value and that's your path to wealth in some way, or form.

And value is interpreted in terms of convenience, time save, ease, whatever that may look like.

And I was adding value to the local marketplace, but I wasn't doing it at the scale that I needed to be at.

And so for me, I was able to put myself in a predicament to set my site.

If I were a rifleman or a sniper, I set my site more precise and more accurate.

And that was buy a business that is catering from a luxury perspective to the affluent and the price elasticity will be there and you'll do better because of it.

And so that was kind of how we ran into the opportunity for Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

Okay.

And I know it was quite a journey figuring that industry out with the Happy Cleaners.

Do you still own that business?

No, I sold the Happy Laundry, it was too small.

My mom worked for me, she did wash, dry, fold, she blew that up, she blew it up in a really good way.

We renovated the place.

But, you know, this is something that I'll tell the listeners, like you gotta cut ties.

If something's not working, or if it's taking too much of your time, you gotta cut ties, And for me, the Happy Laundry was a very small business.

It was doing 17,000 a month in revenue.

So we were sub 240 a year.

I bought a job is what I bought with that and I didn't realize it.

It was too much.

And really I bought the job for my mom and I paid her whatever she wanted to make.

So that was also not a good economic deal, but it was a great family deal because it's my mom, I'll do whatever for her.

But very important to note for folks aspiring to want to buy a business or buy a bigger business, you need to establish a business acumen.

and you need to earn your stripes in some way, or form, especially if you're looking for financing from a bank.

If it were not for the Happy Laundry, I would have never been approved that loan for Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

If it were not for the Happy Laundry and the textile industry, I would have never had the lens that I had going into Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

And so I'm very grateful.

I'm a big like glasses, very fool type of guy.

So.

when I look at something, I'm looking at it from a perspective of learning growth and what I got out of it that is gonna help me at the next level.

so, going into an industry that you don't know of is sometimes very challenging, but it's not something that is uncommon.

You look at Chipotle, for example, in Starbucks, right?

So Starbucks headhunted the CEO of Chipotle because of sales growth.

Starbucks implements new CEO and he knew nothing about coffee.

mean, maybe he did, but I don't think he did, not on that level.

So many other industries demonstrate and utilize similar techniques and practices.

I knew if I was going to go in, I wasn't going to be the one steaming or pressing or spotting or taking oil stains out.

I knew I was going to be the one who was the visionary, who had a strategic mind that I would use to grow the business.

So I went in with that mindset, unlike the happy laundry where I was like, I'll help wash dry fold.

I'll paint the walls.

I was still too knuckleheaded.

And when I went into Tiffany Couture Cleaners, I went in with clear standardized expectations and guidance, which allowed for me to hit the ground running immediately from

an expectation management perspective.

And that was to install a general manager who was the leader who would report to me.

and I would have a funnel through one person that would then cascade out to the rest of the employees.

And so this whole journey took me from Air Force learning of attention to detail, being precise as a tactician to buying real estate, ultimately a business, learning it was too

small, learning the real estate was situated in the wrong class asset neighborhoods.

to getting more precise over a period of time to finally buying the business that I wanted.

And so when we went in, we were extremely excited.

We bought Tiffany Couture in 2023.

So it's been about three years now and the business has grown 25 % since we originally purchased.

We're very excited about the growth.

80 % of our business is route pickup and delivery.

We cater to the rich and famous in Las Vegas.

We do Absinthe, Cirque du Soleil, Ka, Magic Mike, Donny Osmond, Deedee Von Teese, you name it.

These beautiful, these awesome shows.

We have a retail presence with 103 retail stores.

So Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Brioni.

These stores that require that their employees wear a uniform.

Well, we're in Nevada, if you require that your employee wears a uniform,

you're obligated to launder that uniform.

So for us, we capitalize on that because those stores have really high-end garments.

Their clothing is extremely nice.

They're not gonna mess that up with a washer and dryer in the back.

So they come to Tiffany Couture.

So our business is very well established.

It's been around since 1970.

There's no one client that takes up more than three and a half percent of revenue.

We have contracted revenue, very consistent.

It's not seasonal like a lot of dry cleaners.

So these are a couple of really positive attributes of the business that continue to exist and succeed to this day.

When you first bought it, was there a learning curve getting that?

spun up and running that or was it a pretty seamless transition?

Were you able to step in smoothly as the old owner stepped out?

Yeah, that's a great question.

There was definitely a learning curve as there is with most businesses that you're not used to.

For us personally, we went in with this massive action mentality.

um Not only that, but what mitigated that learning curve was there was a lot of employees that had a sound knowledge base that understood the inner workings of the business.

They simply needed leadership.

They needed some guidance.

Not that the old owners...

Not that they were void of that, but that they simply were looking for someone with that vision, someone that would continue to keep things going and frankly for us to try to take

it to the next level.

I still do not, I don't know all of the chemicals behind dry cleaning.

There's a bunch of interesting pieces that we have where we get an Oscar de la Renta dress, man, that's extremely expensive.

My head dry cleaner is responsible for taking care of it.

And he does a bang up job.

He does a phenomenal job of it as well as the rest of the team.

So, you know, the inner workings of a small business imply that the owner should be as involved as possible.

But when the business gets a little larger, you can freely step away in a calculated manner and still, you know, right the ship, if you will, and navigate the ship without

needing to know exactly the inner workings of the engine on that ship, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, I know I've talked to a few roofers that know very little about roofing, but they know how to run a business and they hire people that are great roofers, so.

Yeah, absolutely.

I can attest to it and it makes a lot of sense.

so I think I heard in there, correct me if I'm reading too much into this, but you have a history of kind of buying and selling both real estate and business, but it sounds like

with your current holdings, you're pretty satisfied and have more of a long-term outlook.

You're not looking to turn those anytime soon.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, kind of accurate.

I'm always open to a deal.

um

You're never going to say it's not for sale.

uh

Like, you know, if somebody came up to me in my, I have this beautiful home.

We live on three and a half acres in Florida.

We love it.

My wife's like, it's not for sale.

I'm like, I know it's not for sale, but like, if somebody came up to me with a stupid offer, I'll have a, I may respond and if they want to go with the deal, we may have a

deal.

You know what I mean?

So, so yeah, it's not for sale.

However, I'll entertain opportunities.

Here's what I will say.

And I know you have a little bit of experience with this as well, Erick.

You know, there's a lot of buzzwords that are, that are, that are flying around right now.

Private equity is one of them.

And, I'm getting smarter over time, by the folks I associate myself with, as well as books, podcasts.

I'm part of the blue collar millionaire network as an advisor.

and member success coordinator.

And there's a lot of members in this group that have successfully sold to private equity.

And as you know, there's triggers that they have.

Your EBITDA needs to be likely higher than X number.

Your financials need to be airtight.

You need to have the owner who is likely not the owner operator unless they want to structure the deal that way.

And these are...

a lot of attributes that I share with Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

I live in Tampa.

I'm an absentee owner.

Tiffany is a profitable business, best in class, part of America's best cleaners, know, green business bureau certified.

So when a private equity firm or when PE looks for a business, I think in my mind, they're establishing a grade or a scorecard, if you will, to that business.

And I'm very proud to say we have a high grade.

I would say we're a B plus or an A minus, probably closer to an A minus.

We're just a little smaller than I think what they're looking for right now.

So to answer your question appropriately, we're in a bullish stance.

We're growing.

I'm interested in what opportunities for growth look like for additional drop stores, as well as route development and route growth.

Because even if I don't sell to private equity,

I still want to have a more successful business, right?

And I think that's the stance that any entrepreneur should maintain is that set yourself up so that way you could sell if you wanted to.

But if you don't sell, you still have a cashflow in business that is positively impacting the local community.

And so for me, that's kind of where my mind is at right now with the potential of a disposition for Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

Yeah, yeah, that's the best place to be.

As a contractor, I used to say I loved jobs where I was excited if I got it and excited if I didn't.

You know, those jobs that are, oh no, those jobs that are a little bit of a pain, you're not really excited about executing the work, but you give them a price that reflects that.

it's so like, hey, if they go for it, we're getting paid enough to make it worth it.

And if they don't, we don't have to deal with it.

I love it.

It makes absolute sense.

Yeah.

So, yeah, we've been talking about you kind of leveled up both in real estate and in business ownership.

I know we didn't go into a lot of detail, but I know there were some struggles with the happy cleaners that that wasn't necessarily a pleasant process.

And it sounds like you've really leveled up on the real estate side as well.

What lessons did you learn or maybe what metrics do you really look for or pay attention to now?

to find great deals that are things you want to hold for a long time versus the stepping stones you took to get there.

Yeah, this is a great question and it's by box criteria is very important for a potential business owner to identify before they go into a deal.

For me personally, I'll break this up into two categories, real estate and then business.

First off, real estate is going to appreciate in value over a long period of time.

It's going to perform plus or minus within what the S &P 500 may do.

In addition to that, I like to look at real estate from four perspectives, four quadrants that have tremendous benefits to the owner of real estate.

Number one, the tax implications for real estate are great if you take advantage of them appropriately with your CPA.

You can reduce your taxable income, you can write off a lot.

And what that does is that's a tax shelter for a business owner in many respects.

So quadrant number one is tax implications.

Quadrant number two is cash flow.

So with real estate, you have the opportunity to charge rent.

And when you charge rent, if you charge rent greater than what your debt service is or your mortgage, you're gonna cash flow.

Now that's a very oversimplified way of explaining it, but that's a true statement, right?

So first category, tax implications, second, cash flow, third, amortization pay down.

So unlike rent, when you pay...

There's a portion of your payment that goes towards principal.

There's a person that goes towards interest.

That principal pay down is amortization gain over a period of time.

You owe less debt on that.

Um, and, and so, um, that's one of the things that really excites me about the industry.

And then the fourth, uh, the fourth quadrant is equity.

Your equity will go up over a period of time, whether it's 2 % per year, uh, two and a half, 3 % per year for even doing nothing in many respects.

So from a

From a real estate perspective, those are the benefits.

Buy box criteria are gonna vary depending on what asset class you're buying.

If you're buying commercial multifamily, you're gonna wanna buy in a region that has cap rates that are likely not too high, in my opinion.

The lower the cap rate, the less risky the deal is.

The higher, the more risky, but there's a potential that some stuff could happen there and that you could end up capitalizing on that.

Number two, the building.

The building age, I'm finding it more and more difficult for a deal to pencil in from an underwriting perspective if you own a building that is older than 1975.

The cost to rebuild it is gonna be difficult.

In addition to that, the insurance is likely going to be higher.

Also, you don't fetch the same fervor or interest from a tenant perspective.

And so it's just challenging, man.

It really is challenging to do that.

The economy has to be doing certain things.

The buy box for business is more exciting for me though.

Buy box criteria for a business, I like to look at it in this perspective.

Number one, anything sub $1 million in revenue per year, you're likely buying a job.

It just, there's not as much meat on the bone for a business owner.

Now,

There could be a potential, you're at 750,000 in revenue with a potential lockdown of two to three contracts.

But even then I would make the subsequent argument that if you gain those two to three contracts, now you have a large preponderance of your revenue that's coming in from a

small sample size.

And that in and of itself is a single point of failure.

So I like to see a business that is doing more than $1 million in revenue.

I like to see a business that has been around for over 10 years.

And so most businesses are gonna fail within the first three to five years.

And so a business that outlasts that statistic demonstrates some level of resiliency and strength.

You're not selling a faddish item that attaches to the back of a phone.

You're not subcontracting something that is waning in desire over a period of time.

You're doing something that should be based on needs based.

Adam Coffey talks about this in Private Equity Playbook and in Empire Builder, two of his really good books that I recommend listeners pick up.

And that is buy a business or start a business that is needs-based.

Think about, now I'm going to sound like a little bit of a hypocrite in saying this because I own a dry cleaner and dry cleaners are not needs-based.

This I know.

There's a big asterisk with the dry cleaner that I own that I could get into at a later time, but that is price elasticity and the luxury catering.

That is a really good business and industry, especially in Las Vegas.

But HVAC, plumbing, welding, electricity, glass, concrete, you know it from kind of the GC world and stuff.

Like those are needs-based businesses, man.

If a huge asteroid hits my roof tomorrow and leaves a gaping hole in it, I'm not gonna leave that there.

I gotta get it fixed, you know?

Conversely, if there's a very,

you know, expensive pool that I want in the backyard, but I can't afford it right now or a recession hits.

I'm not going to proceed with that gun night or that, that, that shot create.

Right.

So, so picking a needs base.

So over 10 years in business, over a million in revenue needs based industry, preferably blue collar has an opportunity to capitalize with an AI plugin and it's not disrupted by

AI from a AI takes it over perspective.

You remember a couple of years ago, everybody was talking about coding and stuff like you need to know C plus plus or Python and stuff.

Now it's like, I just opened up chat GPT and it does it all for me.

Right.

Um, so blue collar industries are going to be very key.

And then I will look for a business that has meat on the bone finally, as it relates to, can I reposition this?

Does it demonstrate strength and profitability with antiquated systems?

If it has antiquated systems, a case in point, man,

When I moved here to Florida, unfortunately my HVAC died out on me like day three.

And it was like July, dude, it was so hot.

And I was like, this is not good.

It's pretty necessary in Florida.

Number one, it's needs-based.

But number two, I identified in dealing with this local HVAC company that like, they were so antiquated, man.

Like I got a phone call the day before from the office manager saying, someone will be out Ricardo from.

8 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

or in that window and I was like, okay, can you have them text me?

She's like, we don't text.

I was like, okay.

I was like, how do I pay you?

She's like, well, we can invoice you via, we'll send you a PDF email.

You can send us a check.

I think she even said fax, man.

It was weird.

I was like,

what's going on here?

Great reviews on Google, but antiquated systems.

Yeah, right.

don't do business that way all the time anymore?

do, yeah, yeah,

I'm behind the power curve here.

So that's a great example of a business that I can buy and I can say, look, they're not on Service Titan or Housecall Pro or Jobber.

I'm going to implement a new point of sale or a CRM.

I'm going to immediately eliminate antiquated procedures.

I'm going to offer both ACH and credit card with a transparent view on a merchant fee.

And the technicians, not only will they text on the way there, but they will take before and after pictures.

And we will keep an accurate representation of what that client demographic looks like, a picture of the home address.

So we can nurture that client over a period of time from SMS or a marketing campaign or automations through go high level, right?

So many business owners are missing out on low hanging fruit.

in their business and in their industry because of their record keeping and their data understanding and distribution, they're losing out on potential opportunities.

For an HVAC, I have three ACs in my house.

For an HVAC company to come out, and I've been talking to HVAC business owners and entrepreneurs in Tampa recently, you know,

There's a lot of, different industries out there that you know, Erick, some of them are like one and done, right?

HVAC is kind of a one and done on the surface.

You buy an HVAC, you buy an AC and you don't need them again for 15 years, hopefully.

Well, it doesn't have to be that way for a business owner.

A business owner can go out and say, I serviced Ricardo's old AC on one side of the house.

His other two ACs are actually probably gonna die in the next three to four years.

Let me go take a quick glimpse of how old they are.

Let me get him an idea.

Tell him that Freon is limited and a couple of things.

Let me help him by putting one of those mesh nets over his air conditioning unit so the leaves don't fall in it.

And now I show a little bit of goodwill.

I have his email address.

I'm going to nurture him, but I'm not going to hit him over the head and bother him every 25 days with an email because I don't want him to hit unsubscribe, right?

So these are tools that business owners are not all using.

Another one is AI after hours text.

Dude, you know, I use Housecall Pro for one of my companies, the carpet monkeys, and you'd be surprised people spill a wine or oil or a dog will make a mess.

And some people stay up really late at night, right?

Till midnight, some two, three AM where they work the swing shift.

We get a lot of text messages at like one AM for some reason, like one to two AM.

Hey, how much do you guys charge for carpet cleaning?

my dog just made a big mess.

So we have an AI text that immediately responds and you can go deep on this.

We can just say, hey, Erick, thanks for reaching out.

We're currently closed, but we'll have an agent get to you ASAP tomorrow morning.

Number one, that shows like a response.

Cause people in many cases, they want immediate service, man.

And there's no reason as to why we couldn't automate what that immediate service looks like.

You can even go,

go further and we've built out the AI text to ask Erick the appropriate questions.

Absolutely happy to help.

Is this a condo?

Is it a single family home?

Are you in a high rise?

And the AI algorithm and what it asks.

but it's the process of deducing exactly what Erick needs to give him a quote.

um That can be done via text with this new generation.

so anyways, I could talk to him blue in the face about what I think are opportunities that business owners can capitalize on.

But the final piece in the buy box criteria is they have to have some sort of systems that I can reposition and change to make it more sophisticated and ultimately justify a higher

price point.

Well, you mentioned kind of stepping out of your W2 job earlier and focusing more on entrepreneurship.

Is there another lesson that you wish you would have learned earlier?

Um,

yeah, to think bigger.

you know, I was so, I spent a lot of my time at a very, very small laundromat when I had the means to do something larger.

I didn't do something larger for fear that that larger thing would fail.

And, and fear is a real thing.

And I just spoke about it a moment ago.

And, and, look, the sooner you can, this all boils down to action.

It all boils down to taking action as soon as you possibly can.

because the more action you take early on, the more you accelerate the timeline or the events in the timeline can happen at a sooner rate, putting you in a position where you've

already experienced and you have those lessons learned.

And so the first piece was the W-2, which I couldn't control.

I was on a military contract.

The second piece was thinking larger sooner.

I should have bypassed the laundry mat for something slightly larger.

And I try to look at it from that lens now, Erick, as I approach new deals.

Again, you can't just bite off more than you can chew.

You have to be able to chew it or have a reasonable expectation that you have a team who can do it, right?

However, if you're doing it the appropriate way, then don't be afraid to think big because your 24 hours in a day, your effort, your precision, your approach can be applied to

something that makes $5 a day.

It can be applied to something that makes 50.

5,000 or 500,000.

And so long as you trust in your system, so long as you trust in your movements and your actions, the larger side of that is gonna have a greater impact and as a result, you'll be

more successful.

Good advice there.

Yeah, interesting.

And I know you've bought a few existing businesses, the Happy Dry Cleaners, Tiffany Couture.

You mentioned Carpet Monkeys and other business that you own.

Would you ever consider starting something from scratch or are you pretty firmly in the buying existing camp?

This is a great question.

And like most entrepreneurs, we're squirrels and we're like always distracted, right?

Always.

So there's a great book I actually recommend.

It's called, Buy Then Build by Walker Dybal.

It's tremendous, man.

It was probably the book that I learned the most about how to value a small business.

Buy Then Build's premise is don't buy, excuse me, don't start up your own business, buy an existing business.

And what that does, Erick, is that mitigates you and your risk in the deal in a couple of ways.

Number one, if I start up a business that is going to offer HVAC services, I am incurring a lot of risk upfront.

Number one, because I don't have any contracted or, expected revenue out the gates.

So my time is being traded for nothing.

Ultimately later on down the line, hopefully I'm building something.

So human capital translates into actual capital.

um Number two, finding employees and help with no pay is not happening.

So you have to bootstrap things yourself.

The benefit is you don't have a lot of debt, but I rebuttal that with you do need to go into a little bit of debt to do some of this stuff.

Case in point, you need a truck, you need a uniform, likely a wrap, equipment to maintain an HVAC unit.

And then, by the way, you need to front the cash and the capital to buy that HVAC knowing you may not get paid until a net 30 or a net 60 term, right?

If it's B2B, if it's residential, then hopefully you get paid within a couple of days, right?

So, and then, by the way, you need a little bit of inventory.

there's still a financial investment with a startup that a lot of folks don't talk about.

I like to buy a business.

that I can buy at a fair multiple of EBITDA or seller discretionary earnings, and then I ride the wave of their success that they've had over the years.

And then I could pay down debt over a period of time.

Ultimately, Ricardo as a business operator is gonna end up succeeding more by taking a business and supercharging its revenue and its profits.

And ultimately I capture that delta of where they were previously to where I take it from an equity perspective.

And that helps me justify the debt that I incur because of it.

um So I like that.

Here's where I will do a startup and I'm actually working on something right now.

It's a digital marketing agency um Yeah, so when you are exchanging a service a Remote online service.

I'm a business operator who knows the ins and outs of how to run a business I also have experience working as an employee in business flying airplanes and real estate so I bring

a unique perspective to the table as a

and I call myself a partner with one of my clients who would use my services for digital marketing.

I will start up a digital marketing agency and we're going to find a lot of success with it because there it's a little different.

It's almost considered a bolt on to what you're currently doing and you're not going to incur a whole lot of debt because of that.

You simply incur the exchange of your human capital for time.

So that is one instance that I would justify starting something versus building it, but

ah or excuse me, starting it up versus buying an existing business.

But when we're talking brick and mortar and we're talking exchange for product over a period of time, I am in the buy a business camp, not start it yourself.

Okay, great.

And I know you mentioned that you're uh an admin for the Blue Collar Millionaires Group and you silver roll there.

You also do some business coaching, don't you?

Yeah.

Man, I'm like, I do a lot of different things, but I love it and my life is busy, but it's great.

I am a member success coordinator for uh Blue Collar Millionaire and Blue Collar Millionaire is a 290,000 member group on Facebook.

It's tremendous, man.

It's owners, operators, entrepreneurs, people thinking about buying their business, people who've already exited their business.

A lot of really solid players in the group who are offering advice, who are receiving advice, who are providing tangible tips, experiences and lessons that really are going to

help you guide your path to your success as an entrepreneur.

So in that capacity, I provide small business consulting to any number of the members.

Honestly, man, there's two groups.

There's the free group, which is all 290,000 members.

And then I'm in the boardroom elite.

which is a paid group coaching and mastermind that is full of business owners that are doing anywhere from 1 million to 25 million in revenue that are ultimately scaling their

business to try to get it to either continue to be successful or successful on a higher level and or like you and I talked about earlier, sell to private equity perhaps.

So for the larger BCM group, I'm providing the coaching to a lot of business owners.

We're likely rolling out a potential war room here soon, which is a three month sprint to valuing and buying your first business or streamlining your current business from like how

to look at your P and L, what cashflow actually means to you, how much runway do you have left ahead of you?

I find that a lot of business owners are messing up on a couple of things, Erick, and we want to get after helping them and adding value to them.

Number one, they don't know what their cashflow looks like.

They can't predict cashflow.

They're using the old school version of looking at their Bank of America checking account to determine if they have enough for payroll in two weeks, which look, we've all been

there at some point, but it's kind of dangerous.

And when you look at it that way and you don't have a predictable view of what April, May and June of 2026 look like, then you're setting yourself up for a little bit of failure

because you're that close away that close to

potential catastrophe and missing payroll.

We tie in what a line of credit looks like and how you could potentially get help with that.

But ultimately, that's one of the issues.

The second one is businesses with sub one million, the owner is the operator and in many respects has an issue with letting go of the business for really good reasons.

They can't let go of that business, right?

And so we and I teach owners how to separate themselves from the business by implementing

standard operating procedures and clear guidance and expectations for what your number two looks like.

Now, that is a non-starter if the business financials are not taken care of.

The business financials predictability and sufficient cash flow are the fuel to solving step number two.

And then step number three, most business owners and the number three issue, most business owners do not have a predictable lead generation, lead conversion.

and a nurturing system in place.

Whether that is you don't have a point of sale or a CRM system, or you do and you're not capitalizing on using it appropriately.

And we talked about a couple of those things today.

Automation as it relates to nurturing those clients that have done X amount of money with you over a period of time or greater.

Case in point in the carpet cleaning industry, if I get into your house three times, Erick, to clean your carpets,

There's zero reason as to why I shouldn't be your exclusive carpet cleaner for the rest of your tenure living where you live, right?

One, carpet cleaning, you have a 20 % chance of coming back.

Two, carpet cleanings, you have a 40 % chance of coming back.

Three, you have an 80 % chance of coming back because up until that point, we've done as much good as possible and you clearly like our quality and service, right?

So I coach business owners both in the BCM world as well as independently through Vectored Equity, my company.

And look, man, I'm just trying to add value.

I try to help business owners as best as I can.

I find that the issue that a lot of owners are having is in front of them, but they just can't put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

And I find a lot of fulfillment in helping them do that.

Yeah,

yeah, that's awesome.

know, like we mentioned, this is kind of a follow up call.

We had some technical issues the first time and you had some great input when we chatted earlier.

If we can salvage some of that video, maybe we'll plug it in here.

But that was a key value you have is to always have a value add.

Even if you're meeting with someone to kind of pick their brain, try to learn from them to find a way that you can add value to them.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, that's a great point.

And um I do that regularly here in Tampa or when I'm traveling.

You never know when an opportunity is going to arise.

And for me, I don't know if you, did you ever see the movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey?

I don't know.

It's, a,

you're probably like me.

just fall, I fall asleep on movies.

My wife gets.

at me sometimes and I'm like, I'm not asleep.

Yes Man's premise was that he lived this very disgruntled negative life and he never said yes to anything and he missed out.

He didn't have opportunities.

He didn't have a girlfriend.

He didn't have friends.

He didn't do anything funny.

Just, you know, kind of very mundane, just kind of boring life.

I can't remember how, but he was asked or vowed or promised to say yes.

to everything for 60 days.

And his life absolutely turned around, man, in such a great way.

He started saying yes to things that took him places, that he would meet people, and he kept saying yes, and he kept saying yes, and it was so fulfilling.

So here's what I'm getting at with this.

When I meet somebody, I try to identify what their need is.

And if I, without blowing smoke, because that's not me, I'm a straight shooter.

If I don't know it, I don't know it, man.

And I don't claim to be an expert at many things, but...

I do have some experience at a few things and I'm audacious and confident enough to clearly communicate my thoughts.

If there's a need and I can help you fulfill that need from a value added perspective, it's a win-win for both of us.

Here's why.

It's a win for the recipient of the value that they're receiving because they could potentially use something and tangibly execute on that.

And it's a win for me because I have somebody in my circle

that took some of my advice, implemented it and found value in it.

So now we have symbiosis.

There's an ecosystem that exists amongst us.

And so if they need something or if they have an opportunity, hopefully they'll think of Ricardo in the future.

And I can plug in any number of services that I think are gonna add value over a period of time.

And a good entrepreneur knows to strike a balance between fair price, fair value.

and consistency over a period of time.

And that's a lot of what I, what I try to do.

I do it in and out of the blue collar millionaire network, but I really do think that there is something there and that goes back to what you and I had chatted about earlier.

And that was surrounding yourself with the right people.

know, you show me your five closest friends.

I'll show you your future and proximity as I've talked about is huge, huge, huge

being in the proximity of the people that you want to be in.

Um, ask yourself the question.

Is the person I'm talking to living the lifestyle that I want, or is the person I'm speaking to achieving the goals that I want to achieve?

And if the answer to that is yes, and that you admire that person in some way, or form, then hang out with them, spend time with them, learn from them.

Because there's going to be a lot of value there.

Now, if you answer no to those questions, then move on, go hang out with somebody else.

And that's how that's been a lot of the, I think me leveling up as I've done that.

and I've not been afraid to pivot and I've really hung out with really high caliber people that have pushed me to be better in myself and I'm very grateful to them for that.

Wonderful.

Well, if some of our listeners are interested in engaging with you with your coaching services or something like that is the the blue-collar millionaires group is that going to

be the West's best way to get in touch with you or what avenues do they have?

find me on LinkedIn or Facebook, Ricardo Torres.

And if you need more Ricardo Torres, Tiffany Couture cleaners, you could put in any number of combo.

You can't miss my bald head.

Look, I'm very happy to help any of the listeners out, Erick.

I'd love to have you on our podcast as well so we can talk a little bit more and kind of flip the script.

you know, we're a really big group.

but we're a very personalized, authentic group as well.

So I try to live that out.

So if somebody has any questions, uh comments, concerns, or if you just want to chat with me, find me on Facebook or LinkedIn.

I'll get you my calendar.

We'll get you on the calendar.

We'll set up a time to chat and we'll go over what's working and what's not working for you.

And hopefully we can help out.

Awesome.

Well, I would love to come on your show and uh chat about roofing for anybody willing to listen and uh my business experience there.

And I know for me personally that the Blue Collar Millionaire Group has been a great benefit.

There's so many people that are so willing to help provide advice, just bounce ideas off of them.

And a big part of this podcast is letting entrepreneurs, business leaders know you're not alone because I think that that leadership

It's often lonely at the top and when you step into leadership you deal with problems.

Nobody else understands or faces and so Connecting with people that you can share frustrations.

You can get advice You can just bounce ideas off of them It's a great value and for a free Facebook group or a nominal fee to be part of one of the more elite groups I think it's a

great thing and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Yeah, hundred percent, Erick.

And you know, there are a lot of roofers out there.

Like you talked about, we talk a lot about adjacent verticals and how to capture those and what they look like to increase your revenue.

And there's so many opportunities that exist out there, man.

Whether I'm talking to a landscaper who is doing Christmas lights in the, in the winter now to bolster their revenue, right?

There's a lot of money there as well.

Or if I'm talking to somebody doing irrigation who is now offering French drains or some other number of

design work, right?

Hardscaping.

There's so much that exists out there.

And for me personally, you know, that was the reason I bought the carpet monkeys was to cross pollinate and offer to my dry cleaning clients carpets and tile and, and grout and

stone.

And so these are the things we're talking about.

If any of this resonates with you as a listener, reach out again, you got an ally in me who's willing to talk till I'm blue in the face.

So take advantage.

Awesome.

Well, I know we're a little bit limited on time here coming up against a bumper here, but I wanted to dive in a little bit maybe more to the the insight you can provide less on

strategy and more on kind of the emotions of a leader.

You've lived a lot of life, had a strong language but somewhat failed career, a job you got fired from.

you know, returning to college as a older than average student, Air Force career, owning businesses, you've taken a lot of risk and dove into a lot of businesses.

At what point in that journey were you most afraid?

Great question.

I'm not naturally uh a fearful guy.

I think if there was any fear that I had, it was probably before I actually got fired.

It was fear of the unknown.

And when I got fired, that fear came to fruition.

You know, like we worry a lot about what we don't know.

And then sometimes if somebody solves that for us, we learn it wasn't that bad.

And so it's like, you know, being afraid of fighting and then one day somebody just punches you, you fall down, you get back up and you're like, that wasn't that bad.

So this is why I speak.

positively about my experience at Citigroup and when they terminated my employment, it was the best thing that happened to me.

I know a lot of people say that and uh sometimes it sounds cliche, but in my case, I learned how to fail early and I romanticized what failure looked like.

I like failure now.

I lean forward with it.

I welcome it.

Why?

Because failure is just a word, another word for a lesson learned.

If you take the word failure and you just replace it with a lesson learned, it romanticizes that.

A lot of people don't want to fail because of how they're perceived, how they look.

I don't care about any of that.

Why?

If you zoom out far enough on us, Erick, we're pretty inconsequential.

You know, it's pretty trivial, man.

You know, we're not getting out alive.

You know, and I am a man of faith, but at the same time, I recognize that my destiny is

I control how I move and how I function.

so to more appropriately answer your question, the fear that I had was more pronounced before that turning point in my career.

Afterwards, the perception of that fear changed and now I welcome it.

And the sooner you welcome it, the sooner you fail forward and learn from those lessons, you actually turn the concept of the definition on its head.

And now you're like, bring it on now.

you can get calculated.

Robert Kiyosaki talks about this all the time.

He talks about it in a rich dad, poor dad.

said, don't take risk, manage risk.

And it's a very important element.

You're not just willy nilly just doing stuff.

You need to think through this and you need to have a plan.

And then that plan needs to be refined over a period of time.

And that fear factor will then go down when you have a more refined plan.

Absolutely.

Good advice there.

Do you have an opinion that you once held strongly and because of your life experiences you've changed your mind about?

One opinion

that I used to have that I have completely changed now was that I wanted to do a lot of things on my own and I didn't want to go into it with partners.

That was a self-limiting feeling and behavior more than anything.

It wasn't that I didn't want to share equity.

It was that I didn't want to share the consequences of a bad decision.

But we're all grownups.

We're all adults and I'm not engaging in business unless you are an adult.

So we know those risks and we're just open and transparent about those risks.

So for me, I used to maintain the idea that I would do it on my own and I would definitely find, I would find success before I brought anybody in, but that's the opposite.

It shouldn't be that way.

If you do it on your own and you find success, then you may not need to bring anybody in.

But if you bring somebody in, you can mitigate a little bit of your risk.

And now you have superpowers, right?

I work really well with people.

If you ask me to go get into trigonometry and calculus, I'm probably not going to do the best with that.

So I will get somebody who's strong in that department and I demonstrate strength in the department that they're insufficient or weakened and together we're stronger, right?

This concept of I'd rather have 10 % of a watermelon than 100 % of a grape is true.

It's very real.

Jeff Bezos doesn't own all of Amazon, right?

And people...

People think that he does.

gave away, he raised capital in exchange for the equity that he gave to his mom and dad, his sister, his friends.

think 70 people or something like that are original owners of Amazon, right?

So that was something that has changed over a period of time.

I very much welcome it now.

And it's part of an abundance mentality.

That is to say, there's enough meat on the bone.

There's enough food at the table for all of us.

And when there's not, we can create more.

Wonderful.

before we wrap up and let you get going to your next engagement, a question I ask of every guest.

You alluded to it just a moment ago, but are you a person of a particular faith tradition?

if so, how does that affect your leadership?

How you conduct yourself in business, your path as you've built your businesses?

Yeah, no, it's great.

Christian man, raised Catholic, I believe in Jesus Christ.

For me, what that has done is given me a bit of a moral compass that I use, that I fall back on to try to do the right thing, even when no one is looking, to try to be kind to

others and to be respectful and to treat everyone as if they have value to give to you, because they do.

And for me personally, I was raised in this manner and my mom and dad and my brothers harped on this a lot.

And that is your level of respect for other people is going to go a very long way.

And so I don't half step when it comes to that.

I've taught my daughters the same thing.

My wife and I teach our kids very similar principles and practices.

And that is how you do anything is how you do everything.

And so I try to be a man of my word.

I try to

hold myself accountable to being the best version of myself, not to compete with other people, but simply to compete with the version of who Ricardo was yesterday.

And so my spirituality has allowed for me to sharpen what that moral compass looks like, to treat everybody kindly, with love, with compassion, respect, not to be confused with

the elimination of consequences.

There are consequences for actions, and we do need rule and order, and I'm also a very big proponent of that, but...

Yeah, I would say in that sense, Erick, it's really kind of not only lit my path, but allowed for me to know where my guardrails are at at all times.

And it's worked out thus far.

Yeah,

that's great.

And sometimes that rule and order comes in the form of a 10.

Awesome.

You'd swift consequences in store there.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much.

I want to be respectful of your time here.

I really appreciate you making, you've made a lot of time to facilitate this.

And I know we're just, we're just barely scratching the surface of the value that you bring.

I hope our listeners engage with you.

I know you run your own podcast.

You're on the blue collar millionaires.

You really do offer a lot of value in a lot of places.

So I hope they engage with you there.

And I hope we get an opportunity to speak again, whether it's on your show or having you back here.

You just have a lot of knowledge and a lot of value, and I really appreciate you taking the time.

Well, listen, Erick, thank you so much.

The pleasure is mine.

I appreciate your patience with me over the last couple of weeks.

And like I said, I'm here if you need anything or if your listeners need anything, very happy to try to help out and to dive in and see what we're working with.

Awesome.

Well, thank you very much.

And thank you guys for joining us here on From the Ground Up Show.

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Keep grinding.