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Welcome to episode one of season one of the Growing Empires show. In this episode, I’ll be talking about what you can expect from the Growing Empires podcast, as well as how I got started in real estate investing, and perhaps what you can do as well.

Welcome to Growing Empires. Hosted by real estate entrepreneur and trusted investment advisor, Jennifer de Jesus, Growing Empires provides insight to building wealth through passive income-producing real estate investments for those who want to build and manage a more profitable real estate portfolio.

I grew up with both of my parents at home. I lived in a very conservative household. My mom was an elementary school teacher for over 35 years, and my dad worked in a manufacturing job for roughly about the same amount of time. Both of my parents had a very different experience in life. My mom loved what she did. She had a passion for helping children. She enjoyed all of her summers off and worked a pretty easy schedule, you know, she would go in around eight o’clock and she would be able to be home around 3:30, 4:00 in the afternoon, right? So she was around my sister and I, and she would be able to take us to our sporting events, and you know, our mom was always there.

My dad, on the other hand, in his manufacturing job, had to commute roughly 45 minutes to an hour a day. And his experience was very different. He absolutely despised his job. So literally every day, for as long as I can remember, I would experience my dad coming home and griping about work and all the people that he had to deal with in a day and how much he hated his job. But I think that that happened because, you know, we lived a stable life, right? He was conservative, but we lived a stable life. My parents were providing for myself and my sister. And you know, we didn’t have the fanciest things in the world, but we had a very nice house.

You know, my sister and I got to enjoy a pool as we grew up. We did do family family vacations, not anything elaborate, but we would do family vacations. So my parents worked hard to provide those things for us. As I got older, and I started to think about what I was going to do in my next career, I knew that it was important for me to first of all love what I did, right. I was not interested in being my father. I wanted to love what I did, and I wanted to have a little bit more maybe control over what happened in a day, right? When I left high school, I got into the beauty industry, and I was a cosmetologist, I worked behind a chair, built up a very nice business and spent many, many years doing that, and I absolutely loved it. I love that working with customers, making them feel good about themselves, making them, you know, beautiful, and I immersed myself into education and I learned as much as I could. So it was very easy for me when I decided to be out from behind a chair to naturally gravitate into corporate America and work my way up the ladder. I was able to do this not only once, but twice in my corporate career. And in both cases, after I’d already achieve potentially the highest paid employee and had the best benefits and the best perks, I was disposed of. Both times was because of downsizing. Not necessarily because of anything that I did wrong.

But as I experienced corporate America, the first time didn’t hit me so hard because I was kind of young, and I was able to react really quickly and just find another job. And it was it was very easy. The second time, however, was much more devastating. I was on my now third child, and I was pregnant at the time. And now I am in my early 30s, right? So, I didn’t have a backup plan. And I had already had a different life in establishment that required income to be coming in. So when I was disposed of the second time, I got to be honest, I went from feeling really comfortable in life to being really broke really, really quickly. And it was a very stressful time in my life. And I will never forget this as long as I live because it was the one moment that defined who I am today.

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From that moment forward, I vowed that I was never going to be disposed of again, I was never going to allow anybody to have control over myself or my family. So as that they could essentially write my destiny. It’s funny, too, today, I still joke with you know, my brother in law and people in my family that work in corporate settings or, or even just as a matter of fact, they just work any job, right? So if you’re not the owner of a job, you are disposable at any given time, and that is not even a disputable fact. So I always joke with my brother in law because I always say you’re working for the man and one day that man is going to decide that he doesn’t need you and where are you going to be? You have nothing you’ve got nothing. You’ve got no nest egg. You’ve got no passive income. You don’t have anything, if you don’t have your job.

And although I joke with him, I’m very serious in a sense that what I learned from that experience is that everybody, no matter where they are in life, no matter what your job is, no matter what your skill set is, even if you are the most sought after person in some industry that there’s very few people, you know, maybe you’re a chemical engineer or you know, something like that, whatever it is, if you are not the owner, you are absolutely disposable.

So, what I do today, and what I’ve done over the last 11 years is to build a foundation for not only my family, but to help other people build foundations, by having passive income so that they could be essentially bulletproof. It is so important to me that I share my knowledge and share my expertise with people so that you too can live a life that you want to live and live financially free live a life of financial independence. So at any given moment, if you want to leave your job, or you want to retire early, or you have other goals for yourself or your family, you’re able to achieve those. And one of the ways that you do that is passive income. I got into real estate, because real estate is one of the vehicles that allows you to create passive income.

11 years ago, when I got into real estate, all I wanted to do at that time was just create a vehicle where I can control my destiny. And in real estate as an independent contractor, you do just that. You’re as good as you make it. And you can make great money or you can make no money and it’s all what you put into it. But I was okay with that because I was eager to learn. I was eager to create my own destiny and write my own plan for my family. So I got into real estate, and I immediately immersed myself into anything that I could to potentially learn anything, that I could gather. And I learned about residential real estate, investment real estate, commercial real estate, literally, everything, I absorbed everything. After a year in the business, I was fortunate enough to meet somebody that, to this day is is a very good friend, a very good advisor.

And I just, I’m just so fortunate that I can speak to people that have similar goals in life, and that have achieved things that I want to achieve. But after about a year in the real estate business, I met a guy that was looking to invest in Lehigh University, which was a very hot market, right. Lehigh University does a lot of off campus housing, and it was just a great avenue to find some passive income.

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After I helped Bob find his investment property, he asked me if I was going to help him manage it. And so like I would always would, fake it ‘til you make it, I said, absolutely. And then as soon as I got off the phone with him, I walked into my broker’s office at the time and I said, you got to help me. I can’t let this guy down. But I have no idea what he’s talking about. From that moment forward, I spent a great deal of time and energy learning about investment real estate.

Bob is still one of my clients today. And he’s been a major source of referrals, and me having the opportunity to learn from some very wealthy and well-off people. All of that I bring back to my real estate game. And I use it to invest myself. I use it to help people learn how to invest. And it’s something that I’m very excited to share over the course of the next couple of seasons with you my listener.

After I got a chance to speak to Bob, I realized he had a very specific goal for what he was trying to achieve with passive income. He knew exactly what he wanted. He knew exactly where he wanted to buy it, and he knew exactly what is expected outcome was going to be. All I had to do was figure out how to deliver what he asked for.

Fast forward 11 years later, Bob and I’ve got a great partnership. We are definitely business partners. And a lot of ways, Bob has learned that I will always have his assets protected, and that he can feel comfortable to continuously buy and grow his portfolio. And I’m going to make sure that everything that we do regarding our daily operations is protecting Bob’s money. Over the course of season one, we’re going to break down the concept of real estate investing, we’re going to talk in depth about passive versus active income.

We’re going to put the building blocks together and talk a little bit about how to get started building a real estate portfolio in this area or in any other area that you might want to invest. We’re going to dive deep into how the money works in real estate investing and this is a very important topic that I think not too many people understand.

But there’s a reason why you might choose to build a real estate portfolio. And I think it’s really important that you understand all the nuances of the money. We’re going to talk about passive income as it relates to property management. There’s going to be a question and answer segment where we’re going to answer a couple of questions that my listeners have asked. And there’s also going to be, as I referenced before, you’re going to get to hear Bob on part one of his special guest interview.

Next week we’re going to talk about the concept of real estate investing, passive versus active income, and how to choose which one is right for you. Until next time, take care.