Episode 64 - Self-Improvement, Design Passion, and Authentic Connections with Rosa Santiago Zimmerman
Episode #64 | Rosa Santiago Zimmerman | Self-Improvement, Design Passion, and Authentic Connections
In this episode of The Curious Builder, host Mark Williams chats with the dynamic Rosa Santiago Zimmerman about the power of continual self-improvement, the significance of nurturing authentic relationships, and the transformative potential of the design industry. They dive into Rosa's inspiring journey from a fitness mogul to a flourishing design expert, emphasizing the importance of passion, authenticity, and community representation. It's a warm and insightful conversation packed with practical advice and heartfelt anecdotes.
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About Rosa Santiago Zimmerman
Rosa Santiago Zimmerman leads the design and build firm of RSZ Design + Development, and creatively directs Rosa's REAL Reelz, a reality docuseries that gives an authentic look at the exciting yet sometimes challenging processes of home renovation. Born and raised in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and fluent in English and Spanish, she is using her skills to create a bilingual children's series that'll educate kids about the building and design industries.
Her significant projects, such as the commercial design for The Driving Club at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, highlight her natural creative abilities. Rosa's commitment to her craft and community is reflected in her personal mantra, tattooed on her right wrist, of intention, gratitude, and grit, principles she brings to every aspect of her work.
Upcoming projects include an animated series and multimedia publications designed to engage and educate both children and adults and a mini-subdivision of custom-homes settled in spectacular 10-acre parcels 30-minutes from the beautiful beaches of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
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So today on the curious builder podcast, we had Rosa Santiago, zoom in from Florida on and wow, what a ride buckle up, you're in for some serious enthusiasm. I think my top takeaway was just Rose's perspective on really more life and how you balance your personal goals in life with your business. And one of the things that I'll take away from this episode is averaging your top five, whether it's your personal relationships, whether it's your work, relationships, really getting really sharp with the top five in your life. And if we are the average of the top five people that we spend our time with, the only way to level up ourselves is to level up the people around us, or to find people that inspire you and to be a part of their group. So without further ado, we're going to talk to Rosa Santiago Zimmerman with RS Z design and development.
Unknown Speaker 0:51
Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Rosa Santiago Zimmerman from Rs Z design and development out of Florida. Welcome, Rosa. Hi, Mark. How are you? Good morning, when was the F minus ds
Unknown Speaker 1:07
which I was waiting? No, I am so excited to have you on. So this will be the first time we actually announced to our audience that the curious builder is going to go Espanyol. And
Unknown Speaker 1:19
what we're going to do here is you just happen to be the first person in the door. And as we were chatting before you came online, you're the first of a lot of things. So I know you've got the personality and the pizzazz to handle it. So we're gonna do this first interview in English, because that's the only language I speak poorly. And then delicous Cruz, who has been on the podcast previously, is going to do a separate episode completely in Spanish. And what I really wanted to do is, you know, celebrate so many people that we work with in the Latino community that speak Spanish. And I really want to help them also have an educational resource to do the same things that we're doing for our English audience, for the curious builder, so I want to thank you for this opportunity. And for reaching out to me, I mean, you actually reached out to me, maybe we'll start there, I think just a couple of weeks ago, I think it was your Rizza one of your team members reached out to me and thought you'd be a good fit. Why don't we start a little bit of why you reached out to me, and let's talk a little bit about your business? Well, you know, we'll give credit where credit is due that is that is that is that is supposed to mean, and she's the one that keeps me, you know, whatever I need to be. And so she actually sent you guys to me and said, Hey, I think this is a great match. This is a place where you definitely need to, you know, kind of create a collaboration with them and see what we can do together. Because at the end of the day, it's about education, right. And it's about letting people know, as you and I kind of discussed briefly before the we went on air that, you know, it's about leveling everybody up, letting people know that we're human letting people know that we all share similar experiences. And you know, I tend to see social media as a place where sometimes we only see the glory. But beyond all that glory, there is a lot of failure, there's a lot of scraping of the knees, and falling down and beating yourself up. And so I just found, you know, some of your podcasts when she sent them. To me, I was just like, wow, this is a really good place that our industry really needs. And especially, you know, the industry from a design perspective, because we're all about beauty and appearances. And sometimes we tend to translate that a little bit into our personal lives. And
Unknown Speaker 3:38
a lot of the times it's all smoke and mirrors. Yeah, I mean, I mean, you're 100% Right. I mean, you know that you have Instagram and you know, Facebook or websites, I think the website tends to be more professional, I think Instagram, one thing I really enjoy about Instagram, depending on how people choose to leverage their voice is certainly the majority of it is usually the pretty things. But I do think that especially if you end up celebrating your team or your own personality, I think your clientele and just your peers, get to know who you are as a human being and as a person. And I think I know, I gravitate towards people that are real and authentic. And, you know, I can take one look at you. And when I was researching you a little bit before we, you know, had this interview and just you know, seeing some of your YouTube reels like your personality, you know, just oozes out of you. And you know, it's even like when I had Bella kiss on, you know, one of the first things I recognized about her was just how authentic and how easy and relatable and if anything, I might say this is actually sort of a stereotype in a good way that I have traveled a lot to Mexico and South America over the years for vacation and things like that, and I just love I just love the people and I find them so particularly engaging in here in Minnesota, you know, even though it's pretty cold I always will walk out and be like I'll say free Oh no. And it's like my limited Spanish to try to connect with my poor ciders when it's done.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
You know, it's zero degrees out. And, you know, there's so warm and such kind people. And it's, I just, I wish I could speak more Spanish so I can relate to them. So I try the best I can. And I, to your point, though, you know, building in any business owner, it's messy, it's hard. And so I, I think it's important to show people that it's not all smoke and mirrors, and it's not all perfect. And like, it's really hard, you can celebrate the successes, but I think it's okay to realize the struggles to and share in that. And I think that's what brings the community together.
Unknown Speaker 5:30
No, absolutely. You know, one of the things I always tell my clients when I'm getting ready to start a project, and we have our, you know, very real conversations, is there's no construction without destruction.
Unknown Speaker 5:43
So, yeah, and so this is gonna be really ugly before it's pretty, right. And so it's, um, you know, I've made a successful business out of being me out of being myself out of being authentic. You know, I am in an industry and I started in an industry where there's there used to be, and I'm so happy is changing, where there used to be this air of, you know,
Unknown Speaker 6:15
I don't know how big your show is, but my poop doesn't stink, right? There used to be this air. And I just couldn't fit in. When I graduated. I was like, I don't fit in. I'm, that's not me. I'm not walking around with my pinkie looking down on people, right? And so I came out of when I went into school, and we'll talk about my story. But when I went into school, I was a business woman first. So it was the great time for me to go into this education, because I was just like, Okay, I'm a business woman first, I know this. So I'm going from the angle of okay, I know business, I just need to educate myself in design, right? And so I went in there, and I said, Okay, if these many people are taking care of the 2%, that can afford them. Right? Who's taking care of the 98%.
Unknown Speaker 7:13
And so that was the market I decided I was going to go after. And I knew the struggle was going to be real. And I knew it was going to be a reeducation. And I knew it was going to be harder, because for me to go to a teacher and say, Hey, you can afford an interior designer. It was like, an anomaly, right? But it took a little obviously, that's where that's where the scraping of the nice comes in. But I was able to translate that with the authenticity that I brought to it, listen, if we can work together, I will let you if your budgets are realistic, I will let you know. And but we can work it in spaces. You know, if you get a tax refund this year, that will do this much. And then if you decide to save a little this year, we'll do this much. So I brought my industry to a group of people that would have never even stepped foot into it. And so that's why, you know, I celebrate the being a first because in the area where I was, that's what I did. And, um, and it was through that authenticity
Unknown Speaker 8:18
through the beginning, real through the fact that I also work on budget. I also live on budgets, and I also go and say okay, am I having lettuce today? Or am I having spinach? You know, we're in let's I want to talk about your business now. And you know, you've been at it for 26 years. Let's go back to the beginning. Have you always been in Florida? Like what made you said you were always a business woman? How did what led you to that? And why did you choose design?
Unknown Speaker 8:45
You know, if you asked my mother, this question she'll tell you is because my godmother, obviously who was my godmother at Mac DISM. That's the reason why I'm hoping.
Unknown Speaker 8:55
I tend to favor her a lot. She was a businesswoman. But I come from a really long line of very independent woman. And so very resourceful, you know, and I am Puerto Rican. So that's important to say, a little bit different than the woman and Central American South America.
Unknown Speaker 9:18
But I mean, the line of from my great grandmother, which is, you know, the people that I've met all the way to my mother, just very steadfast. I'm in charge here I go, what I get this door, that door doesn't really matter. There were no boundaries. And so I'm early on, I gravitated to anything where I can sell something that I can believe in.
Unknown Speaker 9:47
And it was easy for me if I believe in it. Oh, I can. I can agree with you. Yeah. 100%. And so you know, and it's funny. Daddy says to me when she met me. She says oh my god, you've done so
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Don't many things in your life and I said, Yeah, because if I'd been deep in it, then I can put my heart into it. And at the end of the day for me, that's it. If I could put my heart in it, it's a done deal, don't you, I've never thought about this way, because 100% agree with you, I think we don't, because I would find that my store, I'd be very similar to you. Like, if I believe in something I don't, I wonder if sometimes the word sell has a negative connotation to those that feel like they're being sold. And where I'm going with this is, I think, when you really believe something, especially if you believe it's better, or as good for somebody, you're not trying to sell them, you're trying to educate them, like, this has helped me, I believe in this, you should also have this in your life. And where I'm going with this is like, you know, I just happened to like, you know, sports and athletics and, and health. So it's like, well, I know running is good for your body. And if you don't like running, there's other sports. And so I don't have to sell you on how you should be a runner. But I can celebrate like what a healthy lifestyle can do for you, and try to empower you, if you want that if you want to have the same things happen in your life, then I can sort of point you to those things. But like, I'm not getting a commission, if I get somebody to like start running, or you know, take ownership of their physical well being, it's not like I'm getting paid for that. I'm just simply, I am so passionate about it, that I'm happy to talk about it. I think that translate to translate to whatever business, whether it's designed building a home, anything, would you agree with that? Absolutely. It absolutely it's, it's, you know, the way I look at it is, and I believe, I mean, deep down in my heart that we are the average of the top five people we spend the most of our time with, right? It's kind of sad, the average. So if we look at the top five people we spend the most of our time with, we are the average. So I always look at it as if I believe in it, and I can level you up
Unknown Speaker 11:59
with me, so if we change the wealth, the word sell to, I want to level you up, I want you to feel the same passion that I feel for this, I want you to be better how this is bettering me, you know, and especially probably similar personalities in regards to I'm normally not doing something that is detrimental to me, I'm normally doing something that is just allowing me to grow, right? So my circle can grow with me, I have a feeling that you're gonna relate to this next comment, I remember one time getting a coffee mug from my dad. And it's in it said, on the coffee mug, it says stop drinking coffee, your enthusiasm is scaring people. And that where I'm going with this is that because we so passionately believe in what we believe that we come off as kind of zealots, or we come off as like, Whoa, that's a lot coming at you. Which is true because we just believe that so passionately. And and I've never thought about it. But I think you're right when you are so passionate about a particular thing, whether it's your craft, a particular you know whether it's, it could be a product, I guess, but I think it's more of an experience.
Unknown Speaker 13:15
You're leveling up in some ways, I guess I've never thought about it, but you just articulated better, which is we're trying to help other people level up. But in so doing we're leveling up our own average because if it to your point, if we are the sum of the average of the people around us, and if they are getting better, we by just mathematical principles, we also are getting better, right?
Unknown Speaker 13:38
And if I if I tie it to our tagline, you know, which is was a great segue, thank you for that. Our tagline has always been creating spaces you'll love to live in. And now it's creating a world you'll love to live in.
Unknown Speaker 13:55
I mean, we don't need any more poop. In our world. We've got plenty of poop.
Unknown Speaker 14:03
Right? So we are all one at a time people like you people like me people like you know others, I'm sure in your podcast, our swim, swimming through the pool to show people there's a different way it's all about a choice. Right? You can choose everything's perspective and like we can have the same perspective for different situations. And so it's um, I just I love I was born to be in that role. And it's in business as in my personal life is in my you know, creative entertainment life. It's an all of it. I was born to be in that role to, you know, my legacy that they I am physically no longer here is I make this world a better place.
Unknown Speaker 14:59
That I mean that's
Unknown Speaker 15:00
it. Yep. Do you have out of curiosity? I mean, it's you kind of mentioned your grandmother, it sounds like in particularly, you had very strong female character roles that were very aspirational. Is that accurate? Absolutely. You know, even I go back with my great grandmother, I mean, I grew up with my great grandmother, around 13 kids, three husbands,
Unknown Speaker 15:25
buried all three,
Unknown Speaker 15:29
you know,
Unknown Speaker 15:32
a woman of the house, but you could tell that she was not a woman of the I mean, she was worried about, hey, the boys need to eat, they're coming for lunch. Here's your snack, you know, she cooks, she cleans she the domestication of that generation, right. But if there were elections, she was the one with all the kids and the grandkids and the pickup truck in the back of a truck all over the in her little dress all over the eye. And so there was just a, and then my, my grandmother became a nurse when no woman was a nurse,
Unknown Speaker 16:10
never married, she said, I don't need a man. I'm okay by myself. And and I want to make sure that I identify this not feminists, because I have a very strong opinion about the difference between the two. But just women that love themselves first,
Unknown Speaker 16:27
before saying, oh, okay, in order for me to exist, I need
Unknown Speaker 16:33
you know, an arm, a leg, a man, a chicken, whatever it may be, right? I, it doesn't matter. Sometimes I'm guessing a chicken would be more useful than a man.
Unknown Speaker 16:44
Hey,
Unknown Speaker 16:46
I just bought the best eggs this weekend? Yes, sometimes.
Unknown Speaker 16:51
No, but I mean, they just you could see it in them how they love themselves first. And the same thing with my mother, you know, my mother loved herself. And I could see that in her that she took care of her. And she used to tell us, if you don't take care of you, you cannot take care of anybody else. 100% agree, I
Unknown Speaker 17:14
100% agree with you. I think I have three small children, you know, eight, five and four, I talk about a lot. But just being a parent, and I love being a dad. That being said, you know, you I have to get up early to work out and to have quiet time. Because when the kids are up, you know, you know that time is gone. And if you you know, I don't have the answer, you know, I fail just like anyone else fails. But you know, I try to if you can't be stable, if you can't be happy with yourself, if you can't love yourself. I mean, it sounds like your grandmother loved herself. And I think that's, I think in the right context, it's okay. I mean, it's important to own that story. Like, there are times, you know, like, my wife will sometimes say, you know, I need some me time. And I think early I know, I've been married now for you know, coming up on 11 years. And I think when you're in any relationship, when people have the power to advocate for themselves, or as your spouse, you can advocate for them or in the workspace, you know, as an owner of a company, can I help advocate for my employees? And and sometimes I don't necessarily know how to do that verbally. But I think if they see me being disciplined, or having time to say, hey, you know what, I need to do this, for my mental health. Sometimes, you know, I'll go out for a walk after a difficult conversation or, you know, maybe I have a big meeting coming up, and I'm like, you know, what, I'm going to take a walk, you know, outside for a little bit. I mean, it's pretty clear, like, okay, Mark needs to get some air and outside, like, sometimes I think we say more by not saying anything at all. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't say something, I guess is where I'm going with this. And I, I just feel like it's really important to take care of yourself in a variety of different ways. And it sounds like, you know, you had some great role models in that way. Have you? Do you have children? I do I have to what ages 32 and 25? And how have you sort of conveyed the messaging that your grandmother, you know, sort of bestowed on you as a business owner now? Are they in the business? Are they have their own businesses? Or how have you sort of translated that message to the next generation? You know, both of them are self sufficient, independent and have been my son was a professional actor for many years, and did very well in the industry. Unfortunately, over the past several years, the industry has changed drastically. And he had the and to me is the self love, right? We're talking about self love. He had the self love to say this no longer serves me. This is inflicting and affecting my value system, my mental health. And so he joined the Air Force. Good for him. And so that's where he
Unknown Speaker 20:00
he's at right now. And he, he's in technical school right now. And he will be serving in the UK, which he is thrilled for, because it's his favorite place. So, you know, everything happens for a reason. And then my daughter, she is just turned 25. And she's owned her own business since the age of 21.
Unknown Speaker 20:21
She actually does three dimensional renderings,
Unknown Speaker 20:26
and on end plans for people like ourselves. So are you able to, are you able to work with her then? She's, I'm actually her number one client.
Unknown Speaker 20:36
Amazing. I love it. Yeah. But you know, she started with us exactly that way. She, she, she honestly got me out of a jam at the age of 16 years old. And I said, and she looked at me, she said, Mom, this looks like Sims. And I was just like, since then I was like, Okay, well, can you argue she was well give me a couple of days, she literally got me out of the gym. And she started self teaching. And now she's going to college. She's that she's put, she's got her business. And honey, you can make a business out of this. Just like me, there are so many designers that and you know, contractors that do not want to bother with this part of the industry. And so now she has over 50 clients worldwide, amazing. And works from home, I have a brand new granddaughter, so she has the ability to have that flexibility. And you know, at the age of 25 I love that she you know, had there was a problem. And I love the gumption and just hang a jump in and try to do it. I think a lot of times people will look on business owners, and they're like, well, oh, you had to have it all figured out. And obviously that secret message, like none of us haven't really figured out and if anything this community in this podcast has taught me is that we're all basically versions of a big hot mess. And like, that's okay, like we are all evolving. We're always changing. And we are constantly hopefully evolving. Sometimes we get better. Sometimes we get worse. Hopefully we're in our journey, we continue to level up. But I think it's important to share that story that we're not a complete work in our whole life. Hopefully, we were still being worked on. And I actually just had lunch, or I had breakfast with my brother in law. He's an aerospace engineering. And he is really impressed by his boss. And he asked me over the weekend, he wanted to have breakfast because he wanted to ask me how, what would be something he could do to impress his boss, and what is something he could ask him because he wants to be like his boss. And I said, that's super cool. I said, but you want to know what's really what would be even more aspirational, is a lot of people talk about getting better. And I guess I'll just use a sports analogy. You know, if you if you want to be really good at basketball, and you're going to ask someone about how to get good at basketball, that's great. But most people don't actually follow through and do what people even ask them. And I told his name's Kyle. So Kyle, if you want to get better at business, if you want to be like her, start reading books, start, start, start doing what you think you need to do before you even meet her. Because what will impress any business owner is someone that is already taking ownership of their own self education, and actually trying to get in Yes, awesome. It's great that you're reaching out for people for advice. And you should do that don't stop. But realize that most people tend to sort of figure it out some way. So there's no secret formula for anybody. And so like your daughter, I guess is what made me think of this is there's an issue she hopped right in is like, Hey, Mom, I got this, I'll solve it. I mean, I love that can do attitude. And I think that really speaks to basically what it is to be an entrepreneur at its core is just just figure it out. Just do it. The you know, the it factor, if you will? No, absolutely. And there is, you know, if someone comes and says, Hey, I have it all figured out, I'm sorry, then then you're not learning, right? You're not growing, none of us were going to leave or physical bodies are going to leave this existence. And we're not going to have it all figured out. And that's what is amazing about this is that as long as you're humble enough to understand, hey, I am not the best at this. But I'm going to continue to level up by looking at who is better than me. Who's doing it better. You know, I love Tony Robbins is one of my favorites. And I've been to several of his events. And one of the things that the first one I went through that stuck with me forever was Why do you want to reinvent the wheel? Just copy the wheel.
Unknown Speaker 24:33
Right? If you're doing something great, right? I want to look at what you're doing great. And I want to copy what you're doing. And then once I gained that knowledge, then I'm gonna go to the next person that's doing it greater than you are. And it's just reinventing the wheel because people think that we need to have it all figured out to start.
Unknown Speaker 24:55
Your you'll never start because none of us have it figured out. We're all
Unknown Speaker 25:00
All learning is a learning process every single day, I think the speed in which we communicate is obviously so much greater today than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, for sure. And I think, you know, a lot of people and with little kids, you know, I sometimes wonder, you know, we're still at the age where, you know, we don't let we limit their social interaction on computers and things like that to a pretty strong degree. But from a pro standpoint, you know, when you can look at Instagram and see what other people are doing across the world. It man, can you adopt ideas quickly, and you you start networking and becoming friends with people that you you know, I'm a little builder, you know, I built four homes a year in Minnesota, like, why am I talking to someone in Freeport, Florida right now. And yet, somehow, the platforms that we all engage on now allow us the, you know, the world's our oyster, you know, we could talk to anybody. And I think that is super powerful to your point about learning. And I think, you know, obviously, it's the name of the show, but continuing to be curious about other people is really just a form of, of the more curious you can be about your craft, about other people. Not only is it going to make you more successful, but you know, to your point, you're going to just be a better person and help, you know, I love your this top five, average, I mean, I'm gonna have to write down who the top five people are, I think I might be the stone because I'm thinking about, like, my parents, my wife, and my kids, they're all cooler, better than I am. So I must be I'm the one that's dragging down the average here. Hopefully, they don't drop me out of their top five, but
Unknown Speaker 26:31
nobody, it's really, it's a great exercise to do. It's really enlightening.
Unknown Speaker 26:37
You know, and it changes. That's the other part that people need to understand that, okay, you know, obviously, you're gonna cap your wife and your kids, right? That's great. But it's really, if we eliminate them, they're kind of a given, right? Your wife and your kids are kind of a given in your circle in your profession, especially if you're looking at it from a professional perspective. Who are those people?
Unknown Speaker 27:01
And, you know, I and I, even I had this conversation with my husband just yesterday, you know, we hold each other accountable into what do you bring to the table?
Unknown Speaker 27:11
Right? What do you bring to the table, this is what I bring to the table, is that balancing out, and here's the thing, there's some days that is gonna be like this, and that's okay, that's called marriage.
Unknown Speaker 27:23
There's something that's got to be like this. And that's okay, too. But it can't always be like this. And it can't always be like this. At some point, we got to be here where we go, okay, this is what I bring to the table, this is my lane, this is where I'm good at, and this is your lane, and those lanes complement each other, I think you could do you think you could take this top five approach and apply it to different parts of your life, like I mean, it could take, you know, you could obviously your personal life, which of course is going to be your family. But this could be like your friends circle, let's say non family members, this could be your business law. So like, in my case, it'd be other builder peers that I choose to engage with on a regular basis, I feel like this is a really useful tool to sort of analyze who you're spending your time with. And I think it'd be a good, good tool for now it makes me after the show want to write down and kind of create a few different categories, and then
Unknown Speaker 28:14
extend, I'll tell you to the extent that I took it, and it's so funny, because I just added yesterday, in 2015, I was going to going through what I call an ego death, right? I'm all about and we can talk about that a whole new show.
Unknown Speaker 28:30
But an ego that is when the person you are no longer serving you.
Unknown Speaker 28:36
Right, that person, whatever traits you bring to the table at that point that no longer serves you, you can see that it is time to shift your skin and mold into the new one. And so I tried this exercise, and I did it just like I said, I did it with my family. I did it with my professional people. I did it with my friends. And I even did it on Facebook.
Unknown Speaker 29:01
I went from 600 and something friends to 249
Unknown Speaker 29:08
Because one of the things I realized is that the content that was in Justin, right, taking absorbing every single day, which matters, it's a choice, right? Is that they can be my friend or they can be unfriend, or unfollow or nutty, right? I there was so much garbage.
Unknown Speaker 29:32
And so I held myself accountable to going no, if I want to grow in I'm going through this very painful ego death because it is like a death and I was mourning it.
Unknown Speaker 29:47
Right. And I was going through the hard work of
Unknown Speaker 29:54
tunneling myself out of that.
Unknown Speaker 29:57
Then I was making a choice
Unknown Speaker 30:00
To continue to allow this garbage into my world, and I didn't need that to where I wanted to be, where I wanted to be garbage didn't have a place, right? So I did, I cleaned up. And I went through friends, that were one sided friends, I went through relatives that were just sucking the life out of me, I went through professional people that just had no place in where we were going, you know, and then I had a family meeting, and I said, Hey, we all need to level up, you all I can't get rid of, but
Unknown Speaker 30:37
I stuck with you, children and husband.
Unknown Speaker 30:40
But we got to level this up, we got to find a way to be better, a better service to each other, you know, a transition, I think that's super helpful to hear. And I know, we could talk a lot about that. And we will be discussing to me right now a little bit about branding of a company, you know, a couple years ago, we went through a brand change. And, you know, I think it was it had been 10 years previously, before I had done a brand change. And my wife said, she said you are building homes that no longer reflect the brand and the company that you are today. And I wasn't aware of it. Because when you when you it's kind of like, you know, if you don't see someone for a long time, and let's say you're training for a marathon, you know, you're gonna lose weight, you're gonna probably be tan because you're outside running. And then someone who hasn't seen you for a couple years is like, whoa, hey, you, wow, if you change, but if you look every single day in the mirror, you don't recognize the change that's happening, because you're too close to it. And so I think having people in your life that can kind of give you, you know, perspective outside yourself is super valuable. Anyway, back to the business side of things. You know, she said, It's time for a brand change. And so I was super excited once I went through it and realize, wow, you're right. And I've had so many people sort of comment on that. But I think of what I guess if I was to put a bad label on it, what you're talking about is like a personal brand. Recognition, like, Hey, these are the friends that don't serve me, I have evolved as a person. And these are the people that I'm taking with me. And my wife actually has recently said that, you know, there's people in her life that take away her energy. And I think, you know, we all ebb and flow in our personal lives. And sometimes we need to be a rock for somebody else. That's a flounder. And I'm certainly thankful for those people in my life that have been a rock when I've needed their help. But if somebody is always a rock, and you're trying to swim through the ocean of life, like that's just some dead weight, you got to cut. And I know for myself, personally, that's really hard. I have a very large friend network, I suspect you do as well. And so, because
Unknown Speaker 32:33
that surprises me.
Unknown Speaker 32:35
That's right.
Unknown Speaker 32:37
Yeah. But Brent,
Unknown Speaker 32:40
by now I'm in one hand. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's right. I didn't mean to cut you? Well, no, I think that's impressive perspective that, that I would not have expected that with your personality, I would have expected you to have meaning, especially with the way you just framed it in the sense that you kind of went from 600 to 200. And, you know, kind of went through this process, I've kind of my personal, I actually don't really ever go on Facebook, but Instagram, when it first started was I'm only going to have my immediate friends on it. And I've really sort of kept people like, you know, ever go through that you scroll through Instagram, in this is not professionally because professionally, you know, anyone that wants to follow a company's like, obviously, I'm not, that's the whole point of it is to get business, your brand, but for personal, you know, I have a lot of people that will try to, you know, Friend me personally, from the workspace, and it's not that I don't want to be their friend. But it's that, you know, I can't even give enough time to my close friends that I would like to and it's a bit of a priority thing. And so I haven't done this now, after this conversation. I think this weekend, I'm gonna go through my personal Instagram. And but I bet Sure, there'll be people I don't actually know. And if I don't know him, I gotta get rid of them immediately. And then it's like, it's a little bit like, I recently partnered with a company called the neat method. Have you ever heard a neat method? Yeah. And so I'm a pretty neat person. But my wife is like OCD neat. And so I had them come in, and sort all my clothes, all my shirts, everything, the garage, the storage room, to help me sort of get rid of stuff. And I, it's kind of appreciated. The insight, I think, to what you're talking about is they'd hold up a shirt, essentially. And they say, you know, have you worn this in the last six months? And if the answer was no, goodbye. And so the point is, is like, you know, what is serving you and what is and I think you can take that same principle to business to a personal, you can apply it to almost anything, and it's super helpful. And sometimes we just need a third party, sometimes we need someone outside of our network to kind of say, hey, you know, Wake up and smell the coffee. Is this helping your business? Is this helping your personal life and if it's not, then you need then we can help you get rid of it because sometimes people feel powerless to actually make a change. And that's where I feel like, you know, peer networking groups, confidants, coaches, people that you have sort of empowered to help you can really, really help you. Absolutely. 100% All of it. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 34:57
One of the questions that I had for you moving on a little
Unknown Speaker 35:00
But is so you tell me about this Z fitness, it was the first thing on your LinkedIn. And then you had 22 years and 26 years of, you know, RSC design but what was what's the fitness? So see fitness? Like I told you if I believe in something, I can sell it right? And I let me tell you, there's so much missing from my LinkedIn. And I don't even know why this is on there. We're not exactly sure, but we'll leave it it doesn't matter. It's a it's one of those molding skins in my life, right?
Unknown Speaker 35:31
I've always been, I was an athlete, growing up, I dance for many, many, many years. And I went through a period of my life where my
Unknown Speaker 35:43
hormones were a mess. And my weight was
Unknown Speaker 35:47
I mean, I would I didn't even recognize myself. And you know, my sanity my my mental health is still thinks it's my life coach, and a brunch gym at four o'clock in the morning. That's, that's what I do. And I can relate to you getting up early before the world wakes up to do your running or be at the gym or whatever. And so I had gone through a phase where I was just like, really unhappy with my physical self. And I'm a very big look in the mirror kind of person, right? Everything I do is okay, look in the mirror first. What could you have done different? What can you change? What can before I go blaming, you know, the apples, right? It's not that apples fault.
Unknown Speaker 36:32
They didn't jump in my mouth. So, so I said, You know what? Well, I danced for many years. And I love to dance. I love to dance. Love it. I was like, and Zumba was a big craze. So I was just like, let me just get license. So I went and got my license and Zumba. I was like, why not? And a friend of mine knew that I was getting license. She was like, You should start teaching. I'll come take your class. And I was like, okay, long story short.
Unknown Speaker 37:05
I ended up with 300 Plus clients
Unknown Speaker 37:10
of Zumba. Wow, where I am having to rent a nightclub twice a week to teach it a massive nightclub with a 5000 square foot dance floor to teach this class. So we ended up opening Steve fitness IoT fitness for seven years. This was my side hustle. Besides my design hustle. This was my goodness. So I taught anywhere between 16 and 19 classes a week that grew into hit training that grew into just, you know, just a lot of great stuff. Um, but like I said, I believe the reason why I think it was so successful number one, because I believed in it, but because I was the chunky girl losing the weight with
Unknown Speaker 38:06
so my chunky monkeys out there that were unhappy as I was said, oh, boy, she can do it. I can do it. And, and,
Unknown Speaker 38:18
and see fit fitness within a six month period. We lost 1800 pounds. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 38:29
And it was just I mean, it was the best seven years. Honestly, I owned it for seven years. And I loved every transformation you know, and I am I'm a kind of I don't know if you've seen the movie Coach Carter, but I'm kind of a Coach Carter. And so I don't you know I'm not babying you you're here because you want to be here if you don't want to be your go to Target I don't care. It's your on you. Right. That's my attitude with with people in life. And so, um, it was just, I mean, we became such a tight group. A lot of those people that you see on my lathe and worked out with me. And then they we elevated there was a group called the beast mode, which was the one that went to hit training. So we used to do a Zumba class, a hit training class on a stretch class. I ended up writing a program for an NFL team for the Falcons in Atlanta,
Unknown Speaker 39:28
where they would come into my studio and do stretch rehab, especially the linebackers trying to touch their toes so that they wouldn't suffer injuries.
Unknown Speaker 39:39
And they would tell me all the time, we would rather be on the field for eight hours in Europe than need to touch our toes.
Unknown Speaker 39:46
So no, it was a beautiful time of my life. And that's you know, that was the fitness that put me in this in where I was happy and I could share my leveling up with the rest of the with the rest of the world those that wanted to be
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Part of it. I love that. I mean, it's a beautiful story very empowering, I can see why people gravitate towards it. I mean, not anytime that your leader is also in the same battle that you are, is obviously the ownership is outstanding. And people you can't fake that you can't sell that it just is. And so I can see why so many people followed how I'm now we'll talk I'd like to talk about, you know, obviously the the design what you're currently doing, because that's the main reason that you're moving on. But I've enjoyed so much just the
Unknown Speaker 40:33
personality and the life stuff. And I think people can relate to that a lot. That tell me about, you know, design. And I love you know, you had mentioned you're creating a world that you love to live in. I love the how empowering that is, how have you sort of like why is it that you can do anything? I mean, you've already demonstrated three couple things that you could already do. Why design like, what is it about design that empowers you, and has been the staying power move done for 26 years? And I suppose you know, and we'll talk a little bit later about the roses Real Reels, which is only about four and a half years old. But why don't you start first with you know, that first question? Well, you know, the size it was. So in between all of that there were several other businesses that I started again, my godmother, she just her very one, she's like, you're just gonna do businesses, that's what you're gonna do. So I had eight businesses
Unknown Speaker 41:31
in and
Unknown Speaker 41:33
the,
Unknown Speaker 41:35
in between all that one of the businesses was, my husband is in the security world, in the internet security world. And I saw a need, and I saw a need in an area and I just said, Hey, let's do this. And so I helped them get that off the ground like that. I got it off the ground, we were working with tons of government programs. And just I mean, he's very high end, he needed a specific security clearance and all this kind of stuff. And then after that it was boring. To me. The excitement of it was the startup, right? So I was there I got it going, I got all the resources good. It's women own. It's Latina own, we're all good, right? Fantastic. Get me out of here, I don't understand what you all are talking about.
Unknown Speaker 42:26
Mine.
Unknown Speaker 42:28
Still to this day, I have no idea what we sold, but does matter. Because
Unknown Speaker 42:34
I said to him, alright, this is good. We can eat, we can pay our bills, we're comfortable enough. I want to go back to school. And he looked at me and he's like, you want to go back to school for what? And I said I want to study design.
Unknown Speaker 42:50
And you know, I had already been dabbling at, you know, friend here a friend there. Let me come in, oh, my God, I'm good at this, blah, blah, blah. But I was just like, I want to go study design. And so that's where RSC interiors first started. We just rebranded three years ago to RSC design development, but RC interiors is what's honestly 27 years old. And so
Unknown Speaker 43:19
it um, it just, it was just something that was easy for me. Again, I believed in it, I could do it, I could sell it. And so I went back to school at almost 3029 28 Um, and I did it in three years. And again, it was easy for me. And
Unknown Speaker 43:44
the rest is history. Here I am. What is it about it? That is so empowering. I mean, you obviously you started, you know, eight different businesses, the one, you know, you gotta go on and you're like, Okay, I'm out. This also has staying power. What is it about design that has been able to fulfill you, and you fulfill your drive over and over and over again? You know, I think is I'm a right brain and left brain. So I think it's the ability have both the ability to be analytical and OCD and ADHD and a DD and all those magnificent skills that people put on this negative row. Right. And at the same time to be creative. And what I think I love about it the most is that just like startups, I get a brand new startup every single time. Yeah, right. I was. It's short term is short live, except during COVID. That's a different story. But
Unknown Speaker 44:47
it's short term is short lived.
Unknown Speaker 44:50
I see it from start to finish. I run it from start to finish. And just as I'm getting bored of you, there's a new one coming. I you know, that's
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Funny i Very undiagnosed ADHD but I'm pretty sure you know anyone could tell that I was noticing the other day like, I don't know if I know a single business owner that doesn't have ADHD actually, I feel like
Unknown Speaker 45:13
requisite in order to own a business. But the other part of it, I think that's what appeals to me about building and remodeling is a the people are always new and different. And well, sometimes, obviously, relationships can be
Unknown Speaker 45:27
challenging and navigating that there's also so many more recordings for every difficult one, you've got nine amazing ones. And so I think, because people are different, it makes each job different. And, you know, at least for what I do, you know, I want to really harness the personality of the people and bring it out in their home. And so nothing will give me a better compliment than for somebody to say, oh, you know that that home is so different than your last home? And I'll say, yeah, that's because to that, to me, that person, that's John's home, you know, that's Karis home, it's, you know, yes, the architect and the interior design team. And myself, obviously, we have a huge part. And you can start to recognize our handprints on it. But I'm really proud of the fact that I want to, I want to extrapolate you, my client, I want to get your personality so that his home reflects your idea, your brand, I mean, I guess talking to, you know, who is it that they are as a couple today, because sometimes we'll build for a young couple. And a lot of times we're building for older couples, and you know, the older couples have a much different goal than maybe they would as a young family. And, you know, we're meeting a couple later today, that they want to build a house that will entice their three children and their all their grandchildren to come to their house. And I said, Well, I'm your builder, because I'll let the inner child and me loose. And we'll design some pretty cool, you know, kid friendly things, whether it's a rock climbing wall, you know, ping pong, you know, foosball, and just kind of really let that part be explored. So that, you know, they always say that, you know, if you have a house that has all the things that kids want to go there, and so I really have appreciated that in a design point. So I think you're right, I think that's what leads to, it keeps scratching the itch for us that because it's every project is sort of a new, you sort of go back to this creation of, you know, original creation. And so I think, anyway, it fulfills, it doesn't get monotonous for one thing, I could not do the same thing over and over again, I would get too bored. Yeah. And that was me that that is why I think this particular, you know, industry for me has stuck is because it's a new project every single time. And it's the new different set of traits. And it's a new, different set of challenges. And so it keeps me on my toes, and it keeps me learning. And it keeps me you know, understanding the different trends and figuring out how I can challenge the things that I don't know.
Unknown Speaker 47:58
And working just with different people, and again, back to my tagline. And I honestly think that our tagline will never change because it's creating spaces you'll love to live in. I don't you know, every time my clients say to me, what do you think? Cares? I'm leaving in three months. What do you think?
Unknown Speaker 48:16
You know, and obviously, if you're wanting, you know, pink polka dots on your ceiling with mirrors in the middle of the polka dot, I'm going to say is this your forever home? And we're going to talk about the business of the business and the ROI and are you going to sell and, you know, pink polka dots might not be the prospective buyers, you know, taste and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, Mommy's home and home is home to you. And so I'm just here as a vessel to help you right? Get to where you want to be and do it tastefully.
Unknown Speaker 48:54
Talk to me a little bit about your roses reel reels. You know, I went on and I watched some of you got a full on production team I saw you know you're obviously you know, walking through a house you're explaining some details. And you know, obviously side of videographer I saw lighter, they're all it looks like you're on a movie set. Walk us a little through that. Yeah, walk us through what that is, you know where that fits into the grand scheme of your business and how how you how it's either benefited you now? Or where do you see that sort of business platform going and who are you trying to speak to through it
Unknown Speaker 49:28
you know, your audiences my audience, brushes Real Reels was a one of those bucket list items that I had been dabbling with and kind of thinking about and I'm not even though it seems like it it may come across as I'm not an impulsive person. I will sit on some things. I'm a risk taker. I'm the one that will jump without the cake. Doesn't matter. I don't need it. Lander oops. You know, but
Unknown Speaker 49:58
it's one of those but
Unknown Speaker 50:00
I am methodical about the decisions that I make. And for the longest time, you know, I've looked at our industry and I've gone okay, love this show love this show love this show. Don't really love the show. This is not realistic. This is, you know, scripted. This is not the real budget and I really need to do that. But I do that. Oh my grayling mighty that chair alone is $700 What are you talking about? You spent 10,000 You know, and so, um, I started getting and the word is dissatisfied with what I've seen. And so the other part that I started getting this dissatisfied and I know Becky's will appreciate this one her and I talk is I kept on seeing the representation of the Latinos in the background. With no name, no credits, no anything in passing on a pan shot. And I kept on going okay, well, wait a second. That's a beautiful wall. And yes, I thought of it. But I didn't know.
Unknown Speaker 51:05
There is no way these pretty nails aren't touching any of those braids.
Unknown Speaker 51:11
Not gonna happen, I may help you with one. But then after that, I'll be like, gotta go. Um, and so I said, You know what there has I started doing my research and we did our research for two years. There has never been a Latina at the front end of any design, show Home Improvement DIY. You name it. You call it ever,
Unknown Speaker 51:36
ever.
Unknown Speaker 51:38
And so I said, Well, I've done a lot of firsts. Why not? Let's do it. Let's see what happens. And so we just started recording our projects, because I wanted three different things on it. I, you know, when I when we sat down to talk about the how we were going to do it, and we said, Okay, what do I want to see? Well, you know, we're visual people. So the first thing I said is, okay, if I were to have a shell, how would I like? And I said, Well, I like Modern Family. I like the fact that we go from cams house to Gloria's house, to the other crises house to this one crisis house, and everybody's got a different story. Okay, so we'll shape it this way. And then what else do we want to see? Well, we definitely want to see the dice. I want to know their story. I want to know why they're here, where they're from, what what, why are they in this industry? How do they?
Unknown Speaker 52:36
What's your role in the team? Because when I talk about my team, that's my team. I'm sorry, anything brilliant, beautiful. And whatever that I put up here, and Victoria may draw on paper does not come to fruition unless my team that's my team put together doesn't matter. There's, it's not me, it's them. And so I wanted the story of my team. And so we started filming, we started filming our projects. And, you know, having a little bit of experience with my son's light.
Unknown Speaker 53:10
You know, we brought in a very small crew. And we just started just sharing the story of what we do. And we started sharing the story with the permission of our clients in real time. So you know,
Unknown Speaker 53:28
if you go to our YouTube right now,
Unknown Speaker 53:31
all of our episodes are actually down, we have four episodes that are out. There's a fit and a set of six that are right now in editing. But this is a span of three years. We're filming in real time. So for example, one of the projects was during COVID. Were there 18 months. So we're filming 18 months of this project. And so the joke of it is my hair color. Oh, funny.
Unknown Speaker 54:00
Are you a blonde today? How come you have no hair? Now? If you're a redhead? No, you're not brown? No, no.
Unknown Speaker 54:07
But no, that was that was the essence of roses, Real Reels. And so when we put roses real rails out there on Instagram first,
Unknown Speaker 54:17
we, you know, started with a small following. And then when the YouTube came on,
Unknown Speaker 54:23
we went from one day to the next to the following that we have now which I think is what 22,000 Something to that effect. And we realize that the majority of the people that were following us were following us out of Central American South America. Oh, wow. Even though the show is in English, but you know, it's an Spanglish, because if I'm talking to the guys and the guides are Spanish and they're Spanish, but I have a huge Romanian crew. And so you know, how little some Romanian words that they taught me. They're probably all backwards.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
I hear I'm there. But we were getting a lot of following from, you know, from those those markets. And so we have pitch the show to several major networks.
Unknown Speaker 55:15
You're not interested, they're not ready. And that's okay. Because the network's are beginning to realize that they're not very much needed anymore. As you're doing, as I'm doing.
Unknown Speaker 55:28
We've got YouTube, we got streaming services, people are going away from
Unknown Speaker 55:34
there to other places where they can be seen without
Unknown Speaker 55:41
the restrictions. Yep. without restrictions without scripts. I think going back to what we've started the podcast, which is, you know, the approachability of being authentic and just being real. And you know, I've said it many times on this show, Oregon Molitor, a good friend of mine is the first one that told that to me, but Your vibe attracts your tribe, and kind of like what you said just you know, 1015 minutes ago, which is, you know, the people that want to be there want to work with you will stay there and those that don't want and being okay with that. I think some of that comes with maturity. You know, I've been building I just celebrated our 20th year of building and don't you wish you could go back and be as confident as you are now as like a 22 year old and not that I wasn't confident clearly if we're passionate, we I'm sure I'm guessing we were both very confident, but like, confident competence and like a deep understanding of who you are. That just takes time. And I think you know, when you look at people who really understand who they are, there's something magnetic about them, that, you know, there's a reason why we look to our elders, and you know, like your grandmother, and you know, people that, you know, they'd have a real stabilizing influence, because they've, they've had a lot of experiences. And I know we love to celebrate our youth and rightly so we should celebrate our youth. There's so much in their future. There's so much joy there. There's so much hope and I love kids. I used to be a coach for 10 years as well. And so I just, I love that but that being said, like I love my Golden Oldies. I mean, my grandma's 97 And she's still, she's still kicking, she's still worth I yield. I'm like Grandma, what are you doing? She's like, what I like, and I'm like, Okay, you are your Barbie, it's your she's never gonna listen to me. I mean, when we're in COVID, she's like, people don't remember that, you know, polio was pretty bad. She goes, we had to wait for like seven years to get a polio vaccine. She's like, you know, like, the COVID vaccine happened pretty quick. And she's like, No, I was like, my point is like, talk about perspective, she's been alive for 100 years. I feel like it's so easy to get zeroed in on a small segment of time. And anyway, going back to your, I think your top five thing is going to be the most impactful thing I'm gonna take from this episode is just really realizing of who we surround herself with. As we kind of come into the end. No, I want to talk a little bit about your target clientele you had mentioned beforehand. Talk to me, you know, obviously, you know, Real Reels, you're getting a huge following in Latin America, which is wonderful. And even like, what I'm trying to do now with the curious builder is to give a voice to those that speak Spanish, and so that they can educate. And I don't want language to be a barrier to education, I don't want language to be, you know, a barrier to self education and to leveling up your business, especially in the construction field, because so many people I work with specifically, you know, Spanish is their primary language. And who is your target clientele, you sort of hinted who you thought it might be. And I want to hear who it actually is now, and I understand that maybe the demographics of people are different in Florida than they are in Minnesota. But I suspect that I guess I'd just like to hear your experience on that. Yeah, so just so you know, you know, I started my 27 years of doing this, the majority of it has been in Georgia. And I moved here to Florida from the Atlanta northern suburbs, about three years ago. And just because this was always going to be forever home for me, I'm an island girl, and I needed to get back to water, my scales were requesting it. And so
Unknown Speaker 59:07
and so I always knew that this area was going to be forever home eventually. And so, you know, but our target audience our target or target clientele, you know, is it's anyone who is in the in in need of guidance.
Unknown Speaker 59:30
You know, from a designer from a construction perspective, anyone who is wanting to build a home if you're wanting to build a museum, I'm not your girl. You know, I thrive and I and I shine where I'm building a home that I can get to know you as a person. And I can design and create for you as a person when you're too early. You know, one of the projects that
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
edits feature on roses Real Reels is the Claremont project. Well, I'm deciding for two individuals who are retired and their two babies and their two babies are 250 pound masters. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:18
So my entire the entire home 6800 square feet on 13 acres of land is designed around these babies that every single time they go like this, the drill goes that way that way that way that way. It's like, do you remember the movie Turner and Hooch? Yeah, yeah, Beethoven, you know what? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, you just dated us? Um,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:46
but yeah, so you know, that is that is my clientele. I love working with people who understand what they want. You know, a lot of a lot of people say, Oh, well, designers, you know, our, you know, builders.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:03
We want you to tell us what you want. And we can help you and guide you, I don't know what I want. Well, we need to hone that down. So having that centric ability to be able to articulate, I need this, I want this, it is important for me to have the utensils on the left and the whatever on the right, and the coffee machine here and the towels for the dogs here. And
Unknown Speaker 1:01:29
I know both centac people, and honestly, that is 99.9% of my clientele, is authentic people that live their common lives, you know what you would consider common life. And
Unknown Speaker 1:01:47
they have kids, they have dogs, they have cats, they have grandparents, they have, you know, aging parents thing. Those are the ones that give me a thrill to work with. You know, if you were to say, oh, Beyonce needs you. I'd be like, Nah, I'm good. I'd be bored.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:08
I mean, I hope Beyonce calls you after this and puts you to the test. I'm hoping not.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:16
Not not a Beyonce fan.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:21
So I hope not. No, but I mean, I just got I used to do very early in my career. That's what I used to do on I used to get the phone calls. Oh, winning Mary doing her powder back. Yeah, how much does she spend?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:35
Yep, that doesn't fulfill me, right? And I'm not at a level anymore, where it's about just paying the bills, right. And I think what you and I talked about that graduation, that evolved, that molding of skins where you get to a place and you go does this fulfill me? Does this make me happy? You know, what's the biggest challenge I have now as a builder as a designer is figuring out which Christmas party I accept to go to?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:06
Because my clients are my friends.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
And so, you know, they'll have 789 20 invitations, and I'll be like, Okay, well, I can go to yours today. But next year on what are yours? Five, you get five, like exactly right. And so but that's a beautiful problem to have, that you are in such synergy and unity with your clients. And that's what I want to continue to receive people that I can level up and leveled me up. It just dawned on me that yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. So maybe you're five is very heavily influenced by Cinco Demayo. That is my favorite norm number by the way. That's a great number. Yes, we yeah, we had a lot of number of episodes on we had Aaron Eggert on, he started networking peer to peer networking group called coalition nine and he's obsessed with nine. So 369. And anyway, we could go on and on about numbers, but Well, we're at the end of our, our one hour podcast here and I want to save your time. Obviously, you're gonna do another one right now with, you know, with bail in Spanish. And so they'll just leave it with one last thing is because obviously all your details will be in our show notes so people can reach out to you there. But what is one thing that you're really looking forward to in the second half of 24
Unknown Speaker 1:04:23
I'm looking for. There's still things I'm looking forward to. I'm looking for. We're getting ready to build some custom homes in the beautiful country here in Florida. There is country here 20 minutes from the beach on 10 acre lots. So I'm excited for those. It's called the Wisteria canopy project. And I'm super, super excited for those. And the other thing that it's a I'm so excited for is we are working on a
Unknown Speaker 1:04:54
animated series about design. Really? Yes
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
To me more about that that sounds very intriguing with Kadam and that again, I'll give you a visual, right kinda like Rosita map the builder. Yeah. Oh awesome.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:12
And it's going to be done in English and Spanish
Unknown Speaker 1:05:16
at the same night. I like this a lot. So
Unknown Speaker 1:05:23
when will this be airing? Um, we're working on it, it's, there's a lot of logistics in place, we're hoping that we our goal is to take it to the PBIS next year, in 20.5. Well, we're going to be there actually, we haven't announced it yet. And we're still working on it. You know, I've gotten the last two years, I think this next year, I'll be doing some form of interviewing, kind of, you know, man in the street style video, capture, interviews. But if I can be of help of any way, I would love to promote that having little kids, we actually just did some stuff here. Where we do every time we turn on a house, we'll send out a letter to everyone in the neighborhood. And we have we made our own coloring books about the trades. You know, just trying to get kids excited about building but you're taking it to a whole nother level. So I can't wait to see what that's going to become. I want to get girls, you know, and not that I don't want to get boys excited to but this is a male centric industry. I want to get girls excited to know that this industry is also open to them.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:32
They see a lot of guys doesn't mean we can't be a strong. You know, I mean, I've said this many times on the podcast and I believe this I mean, it is such a male dominated industry. And I want to celebrate our female owners of you know, not only design, builders remodelers, but anyone you know, I have an eight year old daughter who would be an amazing business owner. And so we'll see if she has a passion for that, or whatever she decides to do is fine with me. But where I was going with this is, you know, 90% of the decisions that we make in a home, the missus makes right you just mentioned your grandmother who was a superpower in the household and far beyond that. But you know, if my mom was an interior designer, and early on, I think I didn't realize I was kind of a trading I was getting but you know, she was training me to speak to women, not only respectfully but understand their voice. And I'm sure I've failed many, many times. And so, but my point is, and I think every builder can relate to is that, you know, the missus makes most of decisions in the home that we build with it as a builder, if you can't relate to women, and if you can't listen to them. And again, I have failed many times at this. So I'm certainly not perfect. But the point is, is how much better if the people that are in place to make these decisions, architects, builders, you know, designers, everyone, just, we just need more women, because ultimately, that is who is making the decisions as well, on top of just wanting them. I think honestly, women are just better than men, they're more organized, they're more thoughtful. I mean, there's just so many of the things that I feel like women do better than men anyway. And obviously the best is a partnership, you know, where we support each other no different than a spouse relationship, you know, no one is better than another. It's really together. You know, you've mentioned before this, you know, this teeter totter of, you know, it's not always equal perfectly, but I think if your team can sort of represent that, as well as the clients, I think you're just going to get a better build, I mean, we're going to live in a better place, and people are just going to be happier. And I'm, it's pretty exciting place in time to live in. Because I mean, look at how much has changed over the last 20 years. It's pretty, it's pretty inspiring to be a dad of a girl and thinking like what her future can be, and stuff that as a man, you know, especially as a white man, I don't know what I don't know, you know, my wife is a minority, she's Asian, and, you know, whenever we have dinner parties, you know, it's kind of like, No, you don't get a voice because you know, you know, you know, whatever, I won't go into all of that right now. But I think you probably know what I'm speaking to. And it's like, having people in my life that can sort of fact check me or kind of helped me get that perspective I'm super thankful for and it's broadened my horizon. That's one of the reasons why I love to travel, why I love going to, you know, other countries and just see how I just think it makes you a better person makes you a better business owner. And if we can take those and become just better. I think everyone else around us also benefits. Absolutely. You know, and I've raised my kids with that school of thought I've always said to my kids, there's I personally grew up again, growing up in Puerto Rico, I didn't see color till I came to the States. That was not a thing we saw, right? We just We just didn't we we Puerto Ricans come in so many different color is not even like it does. It's weird. Like if I showed you my friend from middle school, you'll be like, what is happening? It's, you know, it's like an episode of Little Rascals. But it's um, where people and honestly I think that's where as the whole our world needs to get to. We are people no matter what
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
someone shoots a gun and hits you in the heart, you're gonna die, whether you're black, pink, purple, Puerto Rican, Spanish Catholic geikie as democratic republic and an LGBT what? You're going to die? You're we're humans, we need to just get. I'm a huge proponent of all these labels out of the richest people. Yep. Right. Just so let me ask you this question. Do you think we're better off today as a society than we were 10 years ago? Absolutely not. Oh, no, you don't think we are? We don't we've gotten better. No, no. Why not? You know?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:40
Because we have, we're living in a world where we forgot to be centric.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
Right? We are now all of us are now alone.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:55
Extreme you mean? Well, and everything's a label. You just said, I'm a white man. I'm see as a white man, I see you as a man. Right? Right. You identify as a man, you're a man, I'm a woman. Right? I, um, I was just watching DOJ movies, just because he passed and I was watching the movie, I had never seen it. And as screwed on us, that whole situation was one of the things that I appreciated about him in his early career was what he said, I am not a black man in a white world. I am a man who's really good at football. And people love me for my skills. You know, I I have never meet personally and Belkis will probably be like, Oh, I'm digging into that.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:49
I have never celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month. For me. Hispanic Heritage Month is every single day that I'm alive.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:00
Right? i My kids always say to me, oh, it's Mother's Day. It's Mother's Day, every day, dude, as a matter of fact, in my family, and you'll find this funny. I send my kids away on Mother's Day.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:12
Um, with 364 days out of the year, go away for Mother's Day. Go and go. Go get you know, Tipsy with my girlfriend.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:24
So because if you think about it, what does that do for Father's Day that goes golfing, or Sunday
Unknown Speaker 1:12:32
or in the Cushing, dread. So you know, I've never spend Mother's Day with my children. As a matter of fact, this year will be the first time I'm spending Mother's Day with my son. And that's because he's in technical school, and I'm gonna go see him. But I'm never so it's just we need to get away from this labeling. Right. And we need to remember that at the end of the day, up where people, you know, my my husband's white, you said yours is a minority. I don't think yours is a minority. I think mine is a minority.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:04
You know, mine's white. And if we talk about it today, my You're the minority and so is the right, yeah. So, um, I don't, I just, I didn't I wasn't raised that way. And when it became a thing here, I was just like, I'm not changing who I am. I'm, and I, and I think you're in a better place to answer the question. That's why I asked it, because I would I would look at and say, you know, do I think you because I agree with you that, you know, we have labels for everything. And you know, people are people just, you know, be just be normal, just get normal. But, but where I was going with this is I feel like
Unknown Speaker 1:13:45
I guess my thought is is like I'm thinking about my daughter. Like I think there is more opportunity for her as a woman today or a little girl someday to be a woman than there was 10 years ago. I think that's where I was framing the question. So do you not do disagree with that? Do you think there was more opportunity 10 years ago for a woman business owner than there is today? Or do you think that by by everyone labeling everything all the time, we're actually regressing?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:09
You know, I don't know how old you are, and we're probably a little longer 4343. Okay. Yeah, I'm a little older. Not much, but a little.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:20
But, you know, I remember affirmative action, right? I don't want an opportunity due to affirmative action, although I did take advantage of affirmative action. Right? I want an opportunity because I earned it, right?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:36
If you want to are competing for a job and you're the better builder, more power to you guess what I need to do? I need to figure out what you're doing that I didn't do so that I can level up so that we can compete. Right. You know, my first education. I was like paramedic firefighter.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:52
I told you I had a life and
Unknown Speaker 1:14:56
the girls began suing the city that I
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
was working out of that it was training when? Because they couldn't get the ladder out of the truck.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:09
Well, tough shit.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:11
Okay, yeah, the ladder out of the trunk, you can't put it against the window to save the guy. That's Bernie. So then you can't do the job.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:22
Right, right. Because your job is to get the ladder out of the truck, right? It's based on it's based on merit, not the color of your skin or your sector or anything.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:32
Honestly, I think that, you know, for your daughter, if I was talking to her, I would say the same thing my parents said to me, you can do anything you want to do.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:47
Now, are you gonna walk into Google? And they're gonna go, which quoted that we need to fit today? Oh, look, you are trans. Why purple pink hair? What? When you hit that quota, let's hire you know, can I look at your resume? Can you say, do you fit the qualifications of us continuing to level up? I don't want to hand out I need personally, I want to earn it. So I don't think we're in a better place. Because to me, we're giving people opportunities, not based on what they're worth. We're giving it to them, because we got to check a box so that we can be politically correct.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:29
But that doesn't mean you've earned it. That doesn't mean you grinded for it. Yeah, that's, I think that's a very valuable perspective. I also think that's one of the reasons why people why I'm a big fan of people starting their own business, because you don't have to deal with any of that. I mean, you don't you shouldn't say you'd have to deal with it. You do, but you have ownership over your own story. And, you know, I think, you know, just like you've had eight year serial entrepreneur, right? You know, I often joke that most entrepreneurs think of like several businesses by Wednesday, and they have to spend Thursday and Friday figuring out ways not to start the business. It's a it's a problem where you and I could talk for 10 hours at this point I'm gonna have to come up to I'll send you a message I am actually coming down to Florida this fall for a builder 20 off to see how close I am to Freeport and if
Unknown Speaker 1:17:14
I have to look I don't even remember. It might be your me. Just so you know. Okay. So the Panhandle. Okay. Yeah, no, I think we're closer to the coast. So But anyway, I got in the panhandle. Yeah. Well, I'll look, I'll send you an email. But I would love to see you tomorrow. So Well, thank you very much for coming on. It was a pleasure to to meet you and talk with you. And I hope your story is extremely uplifting to those that are lifting and are sorry, listening, and I hope it encourages people to
Unknown Speaker 1:17:44
start their own business to level up and I think everyone's gonna have to reconsider their top five after listening to this one. Go.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:51
Go go follow me on social media and on roses rail rails and tell me what your top five is. Again. Wait, I love it. All right. Thanks for coming on the curious builder podcast today. This is Mark Williams and Rosa Santiago Zimmerman signing off.
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