Create Wealth Habits by Taking Ordinary Steps with Candy Valentino
Today's Guest: Candy Valentino
I am excited to welcome Candy to the show today because she has such an impressive and diverse resume! Candy started her first business at 19 years old with no degree, no corporate background, no money, and no internet. She successfully started, scaled, and successfully sold businesses in service, retail, e-commerce, and product manufacturing in addition to creating a vast real estate portfolio as a flipper and investor.
At 26, Candy founded a non-profit charity. Through her business success, she bought and donated a building to the organization. Since then they have saved thousands of lives and Candy has been actively involved, personally raising millions for the charity.
During her two and half decades as an entrepreneur, she has been named to Top Business Leaders 40 Under 40, Top 50 Women In Business, 10 People Making a Difference, Top 10 Business Consultants by Yahoo Finance, and was the youngest female to receive the Governorās Award in Entrepreneurship in Pennsylvania.
Candy was recently selected by Success Magazine as one of just 6 āWomen of Influenceā and additionally listed to āLeaders Who Get Resultsā with names like Will Smith, Gary Vee, and Brene Brown.
Highlights From The Show:
Candy starts the show by sharing some of her background. What makes her accomplishments even more impressive is that she basically came from nothing. Both of her parents had blue-collar jobs and gave birth to her in their teens. She thought initially she would be the first person in her family to earn a college degree, but was amazed that her professors were teaching her about running a business when they didnāt have one of their own! This launched her into her entrepreneurial journey.
Candy has a lot of diverse projects, but I wanted to see what her real estate journey has been like and if she was still investing. She said absolutely she is still investing and part of what she loves about it is its flexibility. Candy talked about how much she loves the design process and managing contractors, so she has continued to hold some of her properties after rehabbing them, but she really loves the flipping process. She shares that it has been important for her to remain somewhat conservative with her investing because the only person she has to rely on for money is herself. Now she is able to flip in the millions and her last project was a $4.5M total gut property. We also talk a bit about how she was positioned in 2008 to avoid the housing market crash.
Because Candy is involved in so many different businesses, I asked her what life hacks she uses for productivity and staying focused. She talks about how much she really loves being an entrepreneur and continually being pulled in different directions. She emphasizes how important staying disciplined and focused on your goals is and not following the next shiny object. Candy states that most people are not willing to put their heads down, focus, and play the long game, and so therefore, their businesses really suffer or never get off the ground. She says she has a productivity grid that she focuses on every day to perform the top three, absolutely necessary tasks for each project or business that she has to get done in order to move it forward. She also keeps her phone face-down and on silent all of the time until she is ready to handle the incoming texts and emails.
We then spend some time discussing Candyās book, Wealth Habits: Six Ordinary Steps to Achieve Extraordinary Financial Freedom. She calls it a no-BS guidebook because she wanted to be honest and clear with people about how to build financial freedom that isnāt couched in flowery language. She stresses if anyone just does these things and does them consistently, they can find success as she has.
What a refreshingly honest interview with Candy Valentino who was a ton of fun for me to interview! Donāt miss the latest episode of the Just Start Real Estate Podcast with this very special and incredibly successful guest!
Notable Quotes:
āI just couldnāt reconcile in my 18-year-old brain how my college professor was teaching me about business when he didnāt have one himself.ā
- Candy Valentino
āWe can tell you the best strategies for building wealth, but if you hate your life, you are not going to be able to sustain it for very long.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI donāt necessarily know how to repair cars, but I do tend to know more about cars than most of the guys in my circle.ā
- Candy Valentino
āThe minute self-employed people stop working, they stop making money. That isnāt a business, that is a job.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI didnāt want to continually trade time for money.ā
- Candy Valentino
āWhen people know, like, and trust you, they want recommendations of what to buy.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI am not educated, I donāt have an MBA or some fancy letters. This is really just self-education by reading books in my office.ā
- Candy Valentino
āWe learn from mentors or by making mistakes, and the latter is a lot more expensive and timely.ā
- Candy Valentino
āYou didnāt have any pre-built doubt. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can have is ignorance.ā
- Mike Simmons
āWhen the expectation is low, you donāt have to do much to impress people.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI know people who basically committed business suicide in 2008 because they were so over-leveraged.ā
- Candy Valentino
āWhen we look at the data from any type of market, winter always comes.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI just stick with what I know.ā
- Candy Valentino
āIf you havenāt been doing this for 20 or 25 years, you absolutely should be playing in this below-median house range.ā
- Candy Valentino
āI love entrepreneurship, I love investing, I love being pulled in a million directions.ā
- Candy Valentino
āBefore my feet hit the floor, I find five things I am grateful for.ā
- Candy Valentino
āThat would be my book - āThe So-NOT Miracle Morningā!ā
- Mike Simmons
āTo do anything new, you just have to have a little more courage than fear.ā
- Candy Valentino
āIf you want to just make a bunch of money, you will miss the entire point of building wealth. Building wealth is so that you can have freedom.ā
- Candy Valentino
Thank You for Listening!
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Resources and Links From Today's Show:
Wealth Habits: Six Ordinary Steps to Achieve Extraordinary Financial Freedom
Candyās Website (for bonuses!)
More Resources From Mike:
- Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months
- WINNING DIRECT MAIL - How to CRUSH IT with direct mail!
