Adrian and Andrew Cisneros | Digital Hustle Show
Steven Burkhart: Hi, my name is Steven Burkhart with Burkhart Creative Agency. This is another wonderful episode of the Digital Hustle show and I've got two guys with me that I'd love to have them introduce themselves and they have come onto the show and they've just got so much great information. They've built businesses, they've hired people and so they can do a lot of good and sharing some of their experiences with you. So go ahead and introduce yourself guys.
Andrew: All right. So how are you guys doing? Adrian Cisneros. I'm here with this awesome gentleman named Steven. We've got a conversation a little bit prior to prior to this, but super excited be here with you guys. Come from the typical upbringing. Hispanic got spanked a lot as a kid and
Andrew: I went to the traditional, what everybody tells you to do, what your parents tell you to do. Go to school, get a degree, got the degree, don't use it. And I went on to go into the real estate industry. Now I'm in the insurance business and I make a lot of money with my licenses and no money with my degree. It's funny how that works out, but yeah, I'm happy to be here with you guys.
Steven Burkhart: They probably don't owe money on your licenses either.
Andrew: No I don't owe anything. Isn't that funny? That is funny.
Andrew: Well, my name is Andrew Cisneross. I'm actually the older brother of, of Adrian and I'm excited to be here today. Thank you for having us. You know, our goal today is to bring value if in any way possible to anybody. And I come from the insurance industry as well. I've been in business for eight years. I own several businesses, so very, very experienced in, in different industries, but excited nonetheless to be able to bring value again in any way possible and be able to hopefully stretch the mindsets of those that are watching. And you know, how you guys transition to the next level.
Steven Burkhart: That's awesome. And now the jump ahead of ourselves a little bit, but you kind of talk about, you know, helping people learn and grow. You guys have really wanted to take that next step in your businesses. Right? And we'll, we'll kind of cover the history of their businesses, but you guys are already starting to really want to do education for people and help people because you really feel like, you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it seemed like you were talking on the phone earlier where it's like you really feel like people's education and finances is just so huge, obviously that controls your future controls literally everything you do in life outside of the house, vacations eating out. So just talk to me a little bit about what you guys are doing now. And we'll jump back into the history, but tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing now with education, how you guys feel about that. What do you think? Why do you think that's important?
Adrian: Oh man, so many reasons, so many reasons. But I would have to say I think that education at the end of the day is the number one thing that we need to focus on as an as individuals. Because, I mean, second to that is application, right? But what we learned and what we know is really gonna ultimately decide the decisions we make and how how fluid those decisions are and how fluid our processing is and how confident we are as individuals. Self-Development is very important with that. So pushing the self development factor and the leadership growth aspect of, of, of people in a business in any is really what we tend to focus on because everything starts with you. And a lot of people don't realize that how you are on the inside is going to portray outside. So if we're not very confident on the inside, we don't feed ourselves very properly or we don't have what we need to be successful in our industry. It shows. And that's what we like to do is just help people become valuable as people. And that comes with a lot of education, becoming a professional, what you want to do, whether it be going into a specific industry or whether it be going into broadcasting TV, whatever it is, you just, it's, it's the value of a person that we're trying to increase.
Andrew: And I think, and I'll touch on that as well, a lot of what we're doing too is me obviously coming from being the oldest first generation business owner. So I learned a lot of different things where I look back, I'm like, wow, if only right someone else would have told me those things, but I, then I realized something important and that factor is you don't know what you don't know. And, and for me learning that you don't know what you don't know until you know, I was like, wow, how many people can we actually not so much save them from having to go through those experiences, but help give them clarity and help give them vision, help them transition and understand that what we do, who we are is a byproduct of simply knowing what we don't know and to be able to position people and say, Hey, let me give you some insight of, of life and hate what you're doing today and what it's going to impact in the future. And just give them some clarity and shine some light and say, Hey, business, there's freedom. Ownership. There's freedom, right? Understanding there's freedom because it's a, in this generational freedom, because our kids understand our habits. They pick them up subconsciously and consciously. So a lot of it comes into play is, Hey, not only is the financial literacy, but as a person literate, have a life and an understanding of various, the various aspects that come with it.
Steven Burkhart: Right. I think that's super great. And even just with your, your comment earlier about your degree, it's like there's so little this what's taught in school. So like, I feel like people, like, I feel like you kinda need to let themselves off the hook a little better. It's like if you haven't been taught like financial literacy, then like why? I mean, you should feel pressure to learn it, but you shouldn't feel pressure. Like you should have known it because like, literally you weren't taught it. So like, no, you've got to go do that and now you've got to go find credible people in which to get the education from. And certainly there's, there's different options. But you know what I mean? At the heart of what the heart is so important, right? Because lots of people are, it's not like making money from education is wrong, but like everyone has their own angle and stuff. So it's important to know the heart of why they're doing something because doing something for people's good is, I dunno. Absolutely. Yeah.
Andrew: And, and I think one of the biggest misconceptions for today is that people have an understanding that the, the, there's this idea that people feel that there's a disk value to education. I believe education is important. I think that attorneys, I think the doctors, I think people in professional industry, they need the, the, the foundation. They need the fundamentals. They need to know, you know, the basics of the industry, the basis of what they're getting into. And I think that a lot of what today is too is that people are discrediting discrediting the educational system to an extent where it's like, Hey, let's understand, yes, society in life has transitioned or entrepreneurship is big. And it's a really the only way to build something for yourself now outside of a, a law degree or a doctor or whatever it may be, you know, but it's getting people to understand, Hey, what we're doing. Don't feel that you have to make a decision based off society. Really understand. Get the education. You get the idea to say okay and then make a decision because what you do, again, it comes down to it's a gender generational impacts. You can't get time back. You can buy time.
Steven Burkhart: If you got the money to do it.
Steven Burkhart: Earned it. Right. well cool. So let's rewind to kind of how you got started, right? Cause you guys had a brokerage, correct? Right. As w it was kind of like the starting grounds for everything. So what kind of, walk us through what happened there.
Adrian: Go ahead and walk us down.
Andrew: So, so for me it was a dibbling and dabbling in the real estate industry and really buckling down in my early twenties. Once I made that decision to really understand, you know, my dad told me two things. He said, either you're going to go to school and you're going to get a degree and it'll make things a little bit easier to achieve, or you're not going to go to school, but just understand that you're gonna have to work very hard. It doesn't mean you can't get to the top. It just means you're going to work a lot harder than the average individual. And I understood that. So for me, I understood when I graduated high school, I went to a semester of college and I was like, yeah, this probably isn't for me. Right? And I, and I made that decision, but I understood clearly when I walked out of that door and that last semester of college, I understood, Hey, when I walk out this door, there's no looking back and there's no time to waste buckled down because the next 10, 15 years of my life are going to lead me into my thirties and forties.
Andrew: So then that jumped into the real estate industry and I understood that industry and understood the ups and downs. I understood the pros and cons to the business. You know? And for me, I'm a, I would like to think I'm a big thinker. I dream big. So I understood that there's different categories in the industry where I can bring value to various people. So then I understood, Hey, the traditional business that the traditional brokers, are they covering every aspect of life? Are they covering high income, low income? Are they, are they covering the first time buyers? The trends, the people that are transitioning into something bigger and they weren't. So opening the brokerage allowed me to position not only us, but it was position the people and understand, Hey, we can bring value. It may not be pretty, but we can get you to a point. And that's where we kind of really said, Hey, this boutique, this brokerage, we can do something, we can change the world with this. And that's when we really begin to go in and dive into the broker world. Right. So if I to like
Steven Burkhart: Dissect it a little bit, what you're saying is that like you spent the time to find out how the industry worked and then find holes in it that you knew that you could poke the holes in the umbrella. Right. There you go. Right. And it worked out. Absolutely. So then how did you come into all that?
Adrian: Right after college I was blessed with the opportunity. So I went, I'll rewind a little bit. So me, I'm a big family guy. I ended up going to school in, I get a scholarship to go wrestle in a, in a school in Nebraska, division two school out in Nebraska. Man, that was a crazy culture shock, crazy everything. But I got to experience a little bit of the culture and the values of a Midwest, small town lifestyle. Still couldn't handle it. Came home, I couldn't do it. Spent a year out there, came home. And as soon as I came home I jumped into real estate. My brother was like, Hey get your mortgage license and I need you to help me do you do the loans on the back end and we'll start feeding each other and I need you to learn this business so that way we can in the future position ourselves to run our own right.
Adrian: And then from there, you know, coming into the investment side of things and just becoming educated and becoming knowledgeable. Same thing for me. I just took the back seat and as soon as I got my, my, my my lending license or my loan originators licenses what it's called I was full force in it. I had like 12 loans to fund and the first month and I was like, Oh crap, how am I gonna do this? But you know what? You don't learn how to swim by dipping your toes in. Right? So, so that's how I got started in the real estate business. And I'm blessed to have an older brother that was leading the way of paving the way. So nothing but a positioning and I'm blessed the blessed with the opportunity of having a family in the business.
Steven Burkhart: So you let him handle the misery of plowing the ground for the first time. Yeah, exactly. Cool. So you guys, you guys have this business, you end up starting to grow, right? So you guys started hiring people on staff, right? So the teams, the agents. Absolutely. That's awesome. So walk us through just like and just kind of like give us a little bit behind the scenes on like what was it like to hire people, not necessarily like what is your hiring process, but like, so you hire people, you've got like this company culture that you want to like impact on people that maybe is internalizing you guys but maybe hasn't been externalized for the first time. So how did you guys really nurture those new employees and team members? Got it.
Andrew: So for me it was two things and I learned a lot transitioning into the second business when we actually transitioned to the insurance industry because for me that was really when the hiring process began. That's really when systems come into play. That's really when you have exponential growth. So for me it was understanding something that a lot of people I think miss for a long time is that people hire to hire employees. And the idea for us is I'm not here to hire employees. I, there's enough. It was how can I empower people? How can I give somebody, I call it skin in the game, how can I give them the ability to say, Hey, you can be more than you think you're worth. Let me show you. Be business partner. Right? Right. You're, you're more than, you're more than just a, a, an agent.
Andrew: And it was understanding the, the, the, the concept and the idea of hiring leaders versus hiring an employee. So when we really understood that, that's when the exponential growth took place. When we're actually sitting down with somebody to find a leader, not necessarily to say they're a leader immediately, but to find the qualities and say there's a leader inside of you, it just hasn't been tapped into yet. And that's really when the systems took place. And that's really when growth took place overall. And you could really see the exponential growth of the individuals coming on board. And that for me was very, was very, very vital point.
Adrian: Yeah. Cool. What was your story? You know what, it's funny because I in the real estate side, I sat back and watched a lot of the hiring happen. And I learned from just sitting back and watching that we're supposed to hire for culture, not so much for skills because skills can be taught, but culture can be dismantled. And learning just people in their characteristics and how they mesh with just you as an individual and seeing their values really come to light over time. Because at first everyone's putting up a front and interview process. Right?
Steven Burkhart:
Totally. So that's just like dating "Like yes I am perfect". It is actually shocking to me. The more I'm in business, the more I realize that dating and business are like so similar. It's like selling it's culture. It's not lying. It's trust. Crazy. Totally.
Andrew: Yeah. It's huge. So, so yeah, you know what I'm learning on the back end of like you said, I mean my brother nailed it on the head. We really learned the hiring and these systems and the real fluidity of building and expanding and the insurance side of the business. But sitting back and I'm just watching just people unfold before your eyes. In an industry that's pretty tough to be, to be successful. And in California, let alone in real estate, everyone, I think what how many agents are there and the whole and the whole state, Oh my gosh, there's hundreds of thousands of agents in this very populated state. But still it's so competitive. So people come in and they wash out really fast right there. That's all that I'm trying to say. At the end of the day, people come in and they go really quickly because they're not, they don't have the mindset to under the, the longterm growth aspect of it. And the Hey, you're going to gonna succeed and you're gonna need to take some licks along the way too. You're going to get rejected a lot. So I'm sitting back and being able to watch my brother do that on the, in the, in the first few years of business was a tremendous help for me. But transitioning into the insurance businesses where we've been learning tremendous, tremendous amounts of, of, of people's skills and intrinsic values versus extrinsic values. Right?
Steven Burkhart: Yeah. That's awesome. I was just listening to I don't know if it was a podcast or just a video or they were talking about your, your success in a company is, is your fault. You're there, you need the don't possess the skills you need to succeed or you're in the wrong business, like the wrong company. And so being able to have that opportunity that you were able to give them by saying like, here, this is a place to use to succeed and we can give you all the opportunities. And that really does put it on them to say like, okay, look, while you're going to be a leader, because we're not putting any right, don't put any handcuffs on you. This is the place to succeed. So I know we weren't gonna go there per se, but like what were some of the things that you guys ended up saying that were like the qualities that you were really like seeing and looking for and, and kind of and are just articulate kind of what you were sensing when you were interviewing people?
Steven Burkhart: You know, for me personally, it comes down to are you selfless? Like, is it really bigger than you? Like for me, that's the only thing that matters. Everything else, the, the, the, the storytelling and what I call the fluff in between it. I see through it. I just want to know that does it really go big like beyond you? Because if it does, let's do business cause you're going to be able to with withstand the, the, the, the Valley lows and you're gonna be able to climb the mountain tops. Right? So for me, it's, as long as it's bigger than you through that process, and I understand that there's some type of selflessness, it doesn't need to be very evident. I can just see some bit of it to say, okay, now I can stretch your mindset and I can really, really pull that selflessness out of you. For me, that's that one thing I look for like every single time is, is it bigger than you? And I'm always very transparent when I sit down and let them know, this is bigger than me. You don't work for me, I work for you. You don't run my race. I run your race. What race do you want to run? How fast do you want to go? Right. So a lot of it comes down to a lot of, again, and I've understood that immediately I have to set the temple because duplication takes place immediately. Yeah.
Steven Burkhart: And it's always a little bit less than you. Oh, it's never like no one ever really succeeds their manager working unless they're like really, really self-driven. And we always say that you're going to do, be careful what you do because whoever's watching you is going to do 50% of what you did, right. And 100% of what you did wrong. And it's, and it's so true because all of our bad habits come to life and they come right back at us and our faces
Steven Burkhart: Are they going to do it so much better.
Adrian: And they're going to say, yeah man. That's why I'm scared to have kids cause I don't want anyone duplicating my, with my dad 100%.
Steven Burkhart: So let's just, so let's just be real for a second. What kind of like, I'm just literally curious, what kind of things about yourself did you discover? And I do mean the negative things when you started hiring people and they started becoming a reflection of you guys. I'm just super,
Steven Burkhart: That's funny how y'all just take off the clothes, huh? Yeah. For me personally, I didn't realize how how, how much I push things off. I, I'm a, I naturally, I would prefer not to have conflict. I'm not afraid of it. But I've noticed that through having that bad habit of just, ah, later, later I'll deal with it later, I'll deal with it later. I realized how that begin to duplicate and how that I'll do it later. Compounded to a point where, Hey, there is no later like this has to be done right now. This is an issue. Conflict resolution you talking about like I think just in there in project, in daily tasks, impersonal life carrying over into business. I think it went into it. It went into like literally every category to a point where I realized this is a problem, right? In business and personal life.
Steven Burkhart: I said wow. And it exposed me to understand, okay, you do need to position yourself to say, Hey, speak up. Address it. Because again, there's things that are subconsciously duplicated and there's things that are consciously done. And it's funny because the more the the, the subconscious things tend to be picked up the most. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. So for me it was, it was just that, it was just the understanding of realizing, wow, I need to really stop procrastinating or I need to really, really take action on that particular thing and address it for what it is. So for me that was one of the big wake up calls from them.
Andrew: Nice. Yeah. For me, I would say, you know, I come from the sport of wrestling, so everything's about me and it's me against one other person and I'll have to worry about is me. And then going into the real estate business too, before we started to actually growing and expanding, it was just me. Okay. So being a lone Wolf in, in knowing that everything comes down to just my work ethic and what I put into the business, right? Transitioning to where now, Hey, we expand and I need to rely on more people and I need to know that they trust me to take them to where they need to take them. Wherever they told me they wanted to go, whether it be, Hey, I just want to develop as a person, or Hey, I want to make $50,000 this year, or $100,000 whatever the case may be.
Andrew: Being in the mindset of, Hey, it's not just about me was exposed me really fast. I was like, wow, I've, I'm a very individualized person and my brother, he thinks I noticed because he thinks a lot about how everybody else thinks. He's like, Hmm, I wonder how this person's feeling. And he would say comments like that, Hey bro, how do you think this person is doing? How do you think this person is thinking I think these Johns, what do you think John's, how do you, why did he react like that? Right. And I was like I don't even ask myself those questions. Cause like you realize though. Yeah, I did. I'm like, man, I don't even, he's like, and it made me realize that I need to build a relationship with these people because the only people that I really care about are the people closest to me.
Andrew: My brother, my little brother, every, the close. My family, I have a lot of family in the business as well in our businesses. Cousins, pretty most of the models. So pretty much like my brothers and sisters. And I care a lot about them, but still I wasn't, the relationship wasn't where I needed to be to build a business and a strong business together. So knowing that I'm a very individualized person and having to transition to being more, Hey, how are people doing? Building a with people. Did you ever take the Enneagram test a chance?
Steven Burkhart: You know what I, that that was something that I really never really got into. Cause I know there's several is the this, there's all these different personality traits. Never, but it's something that I do want to do to kind of break down myself a little bit. Right? Yeah. Oh totally. It's, so I, I just wonder because some of those things you mentioned are so much of me, like so I'm an Enneagram five and so basically it, my, one of my natural defense mechanisms is not relying on other people, not in like a like in a self preservation sort of way. So for me it's like I do, if I'm feeling comfortable I can delegate. But for the most part it's really hard for me to trust other people and being, being willing to accept their help. So estimate kind of like my big challenge is not like for 2020 like a resolution kind of thing.
Steven Burkhart: But just the idea that like, okay, like I need to be investing other people, caring about them, I'm trusting them because I can't just stand on my own and build the dreams that I want to build, if that makes sense. So like what you, what comes so naturally to you is definitely not going to Snapchat to me in the same way. Like it's just so hard to think about. And I think that's really I think that speaks to one of the other things I think is so challenging for people, especially for small business owners, which are going to be some of the people listening to this is there's that awkward transition between solo preneur and entrepreneur where it's like all of a sudden there isn't just you anymore and it isn't just what you can handle. It's how do I take things to the next level and hire that person and say like, okay, like what, what do I do with them? How much do I trust them? What can they do? What can I teach them? And then, you know, so for the two of you guys together, I feel like that's such a deadly duo because you've got like that driven intensity, but you also have like leaving no person behind together.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, you know what, that's, that's pretty funny because we do balance each other well, but I don't think we always see it. So sometimes when you're like get irritated with each other really fast. Yeah. So you got to realize we gotta be able to step outside of ourselves and step back and think longterm think, Hey, this is a business conversation more than it is a personal conversation. Yeah. That was smart. And knowing how to diversify the two. And that comes with learning too. That comes with the relationship building and the, and the crucial conversations that need to be had. Right. And not putting those things off and, and the the challenging that needs to be had to, and it's, it's a, it's a ongoing process and it's an uncomfortable process. It's uncomfortable. Business is very uncomfortable, especially being a solo preneur entrepreneur or whatever your entrepreneur, whatever you're going to be, it's uncomfortable.
Andrew: And knowing that you're always going to be uncomfortable because you're dealing with different types of people and you have to mesh well with them whether you want to or not because it's bigger than you. Yeah. That's where I think people have a hard time if they're not purpose-driven and they're just driven by money. Right. Which goes back to why he said, Hey, don't we want to make sure that they're selfless. Right. That's going to be the biggest key determining factor for us. Yeah. In, in, in, and we tell our team all the time too. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go ahead. Take a team. Right.
Steven Burkhart: Yeah. Wise words. So maybe you already answered this with kind of like your, your, your mindset and your, your drive as far as helping other people succeed. But if you guys would have to boil down like, what's been like the lifeblood of your success, what would you say it is? I think for both of us can be very different.
Andrew: For me, I think for me it's going to come down, come down to, so I'm very structured and tech and kind of technical, kind of not but relationship-driven and structured driven. So I'm pretty disciplined. I think that not a lot of people are, especially nowadays, especially in a world where we have nothing but choices and we have a lot of freedom. Freedom for the undisciplined is bad because people have so many choices that they don't ever make one. And a lot of times we would find out who we really are and what we really want. When our backs are against the wall, we don't have no more choices. Right. So being disciplined and being focused to where, Hey, I know what decisions I'm making. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. Regardless, I'm still gonna make them. Is way better than being indecisive and way better than being you know, maybe I'm stubborn.
Andrew: Maybe that's a, that's a part of it too. But, but at the end of the day, I think I'm disciplined in, in numerous areas. So for me, I feel like applying the time that it takes to grow and develop being, being new in business and being younger in business too. Cause people look at me and they, and I get this question all the time, how old are you? And I don't ever tell nobody my age because then they changed their life. They stopped, they think that they have a one up on me. I'm like, no you don't because you haven't been through what I've been through. But yeah, but at the end of the day, my discipline to apply what needs to be applied in certain areas of my life, whether it be in, and there's numerous areas of life that come into business. It's, it's health, it's spiritual. It's it's mindset. It's actual industry knowledge. Being disciplined to take the time that it takes to be successful in all those areas or at least try to be balanced because there really is no balance. It is, I think that's a, a factor that I hold on to and that I know helps me tremendously personally. But I have a lot of wrongs too. A lot of weaknesses. Yeah,
Steven Burkhart: Well it's a jump in like that like even early when we were talking about like the things that other people show in us that we don't like, like that is definitely like one of my big things. Like one of the things I realized that was like coming to like a head and my personal life that was affecting and not affecting but reflected also my business life was that just like what do they call it when it's like you have so many choices you can't pick like decision overwhelmed. And it's like, I realize that like not only my personal life, but in my business life, I wasn't really like attacking decision-making. I was taking a long time to process. And so, you know, and I realized it was the fear of making a choice and being wrong. But the reality is is you never know and we can't sit on something forever until you know it's right. So then it's just like, okay, like I'm going to try this then if it doesn't work and I'm going to try this if it doesn't work and I'm going to try this. And instead of like putting so much emotional weight on a decision, like you just, you just try it and if you're wrong, at least you made a decision when you progress. Right. And so yeah, I totally resonate with that.
Andrew: And fear, I mean fear fears is a base separating factor from successful people and unsuccessful people because our response to fear, it shows like we don't take opportunities because we're scared or we take opportunities and they ended up to be beautiful blossoming into some beautiful gift and purpose, purpose driven, fulfilling thing. But if we would've never conquered the fear to, to, to, to go ahead and take advantage of an opportunity, whether it be business, whether it be in a relationship, whether it be with anything like that then we'll never know. And fears separates a lot of unsuccessful people, unhappy people from not happy people. And I don't want to die living any sort of resentment, any sort of regret because I didn't take advantage and I let fear, which doesn't exist anyways. It's a made up in our head as a result of overthinking. We let that dominate ours, our decision. That's true.
Steven Burkhart: You know, in regards to fear too, I'll touch a little bit on that. One of the biggest I get, you can say eye-opening things for me was understanding that there's really nothing different between the nine. Nine of the 1% is simply just the response to fear and understanding that one refuses to believe that that's going to stop them and the other 99% just simply says, I can't do it. So for me, really breaking that down and understanding that, being able to instill that into people say, Hey, fear doesn't exist. It's not there. It's just the, it's the idea of you failing that keeps you from moving forward is the idea. Don't worry, you need to fail. Every person who's been anybody in life has come through, I'm sure numerous amounts of failures because through... The other difference too. Is it through through failure, what some people call failure. I consider them lessons. So when people would tell me, well, what are your biggest failures here? I've never failed, I've learned a lot because failures, defeat failures, quitting as I've learned a lot. I fought, I, I've had a lot of shortcomings said, but fail I, that's not something I that I would say that I've ever done because I'm just here to learn. I'm here to make sure that people don't fail because failing is quitting.
Steven Burkhart: Well, you, when you frame it like that, it's like what I said, it puts less emotional weight on the decision because instead of it being like a huge setback, it's like just a lesson,
Steven Burkhart: The lesson, and it's really breaking life down, down personal. Sometimes what people do is it's like going to a buffet. You have all these different varieties of foods and decisions and outcomes and all these different things. Right? In the you, you take something like that idea in the, you take a company like a in and out, what do they really serve? Burger fries and drinks. Right?
Steven Burkhart: But which no one else sells. Of course, that's why they're so successful,
Steven Burkhart: But it's the simplicity to understand, Hey, life is simple. Keep it simple. You don't get it through. Throw all those other things and not, not an assistant, not necessarily. Everything comes from it. Simplify it. Make your steps, learn, grow. Especially in business. People expect to come into business in their first year and make a half a million dollars a year. They expect to go from zero to 50 agents, employees, they, they expect those things and I'm like, how can you expect something you never experience? How can you make 50,000 if you've never made a thousand how can you make 10,000 if you've never made 500 bucks? Right? And made it on your own. Right? It's different. Clocking in and clocking out. The nine to five is great because you're coming to show up, but you really don't have that much of responsibility or accountability, right? When you're actually on your own, you have to say, wait, hold on. I'm an employee today. Absolutely. You're an employee. When you have 100,000 in the bank, you're unemployed. It's the idea of, Hey, what are you going to do with it? Right. 100%.
Steven Burkhart: So then you would, so just you were basically saying that your like your super power, your life blood is your perspective on challenges,
Steven Burkhart: Perspective on challenges? Per perspective for me is just, yeah, simplicity. Just being able to break something down to know the way I see it as this, I'm the only thing that's keeping my business partners from achieving their goals and quitting. Right. Because either I'm gonna not, not continue to raise the law of the lip and allow them to experience things that they would have not elsewhere experience. Right. Or I didn't tell them what they needed to hear and they quit in their dream and they would come true anyways. I think perspective is powerful and I think it's, it's, it's comes with leadership development, which I feel personally is extremely undervalued. I call it a a career visible leadership development is an industry of its own.
Steven Burkhart: Yeah. Just on ask John Maxwell that one night, he was like, literally, it's like got 30 books that are best sellers on the ship. It's totally true and you can hear it and people's, you can hear it does in everyday conversations, like those people that like everything is a reason why they can't do something and it's just like, Oh, like I would get that job, but like there's this hurdle or I do this, but there's that hurdle and it's just like, just be honest. Like you just don't have the balls to do it. You know what I mean? Like don't, don't put these things up here like nobody else has those problems. Everyone has those problems. Everybody has someone in a company that doesn't like them and is trying to prevent their success. Okay, well, sorry, like, but some people succeed and some people don't. So yeah.
Steven Burkhart: How many times have we come across people that have addictions, they still find the means to, to obtain their addiction, whether it's drugs or alcohol. Right. I mean, you could take a homeless person, for example, and if he has an addiction or she has an addiction, the addiction will be, it'll be made, it'll be satisfied regardless of the obstacle. Right. And it's like, if that individual can justify that, then how can you quit so easily? Right. How can you justify, it's the same reason why a lot of people in business use family or religion as an excuse or an example. Like why would you use your children as an excuse to not scale and transition to the next level? Why don't you instead transition your perspective and say, Hey, this is the reason why I need to move. This is the reason why we need to keep going. Because without this, obviously there's a lot that's affected.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a story about twins and they had an alcoholic father and one of them turned out to be an alcoholic and the other one didn't ever touched the bottle in his life. So they both got asked the question. The alcoholic said well they got asked why are you an alcoholic? What? Cause my daddy was an alcoholic and the other one said, why have, why don't you drink? Cause my daddy was an alcoholic. What do you mean it's just people were going to use whatever they see to it either as an excuse or as a drive to make them better perspective. Perspective. It's powerful.
Steven Burkhart: Yeah, totally, totally is. Well cool. So, excuse me. So let's see here. So is there anything like, cause we can kind of transition to like kind of the more ending questions. What, what else would you guys like to talk about? Is there stuff like about your business? I mean, cause we'll kind of get into like what you guys are like doing, like coming up, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right, cool. So so you guys have had the brokerage grown that you've transitioned to insurance, you're doing insurance right now and you guys we didn't talk about it earlier, but you guys are moved here from out of state, right? Right. So you guys made a lot of trans transitions, a lot of changes. You guys are still crushing it moving forward despite all those hurdles. Right? And so what is, I mean it's, it's 20, 20, now it's January. So, I know it's kind of cliche to talk about what's going on next year, but right. You always got plans, right? Yeah. Gotta have plans we've got nothing to shoot for. Right. so what is it that you guys are shooting for in 2020 and just like the next five years? Just plans.
Andrew: Yeah, it'd be where you're going to call us crazy is going to call us crazy. You got to think big. Yeah. I mean the goal is a seed in every office in every state and I'm 100,000 licensed agents and brokers. So in the next, what do we say, 36 months? Yeah. That's the timeframe. So that's a big goal for my brother and I to tackle on our own. But that's where we're going. I know personally for me, I'm moving from California. We just moved what, four months ago now? Three months ago, got our office and we've just been making things happen. Know how to do it. You just do it like Nike, you just do it because people are going to ask you, well, how did you hire so quickly? Or how did your business reach this amount of revenue so fast?
Andrew: How'd you guys do all these things? And it's like, I don't have the magic formula for you, man. It's just you wake up in the morning, you just get it done. You just go out with intention, with every conversation, with every handshake, with every with every thought. Make sure that you're focused and we're making it happen. But but for me, I don't see Arizona as the last stop. I see Arizona as a place to plant our flag. We're going to probably put our headquarters here, we're going to be putting our headquarters here, and then I'm transitioning. I want to transition to my New Mexico and plant another office out there. Albuquerque is a beautiful place to be. Everything is growing. The whole country's growing. But for what we do, I mean it's financial education and there's no community that doesn't need to be more financially educated because we don't, it's not what we learned in high school and in college is what we don't learn, which comes down to credit when it comes out to, to debt, debt solutions would come down to the power of insurance and it comes down to retirement planning, all that stuff.
Andrew: And those are the things that ultimately hinder us from getting our goals, like buying our houses and buying our cars and send our kids to school. And the biggest goal is we don't know how to achieve them and we're not in the position to. So for me, I want to go and impact as many communities as possible. And these next 12 months, I want another two offices, one here in Arizona and I want to plant another flag somewhere in another state. Wherever we, whoever I find a leader that's willing to that I see is, is, is hungry and ambitious like in crazy like us. Cause we're pretty crazy. Then let's roll. Cause I'm not one to say, nah, let's not do it. Like if it was an Oklahoma and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and there was a somebody that said, Hey man I've been, I haven't, I have this license. I want to learn how to do, how to run a business. So I have, I have a bigger picture for my family and my lifestyle and my family's lifestyle and my community and I want to make it any impact and I want to make an impact because I feel like legacy's important to me. Just whatever the, whatever drives that person. If I see that as bigger than them, let's do it. It's worth a shot. Totally. It's just changed the world. That's how you do it.
Steven Burkhart: Yeah. And I think going into these next 12 months, obviously it's, it's cliche for most people, but for us it's 20, 20 started three months ago. Right. For, for, for, for those that really want to do something big, it started a few months back because you have to already, you're running against the race of time and you're trying to crunch what takes longer than 12 months in a 12 month period. Right? Right. So you continue to do, so, you know, for us, 2020 for us was just the year of separation. For us it is the year of, Hey, it's exponential growth in every aspect and our personal life, in our spiritual life and in business and health. It's how can we reposition ourselves to make sure, you know, I always tell all our business partners and people that we work with, I'll tell them all the time, almost every day say, Hey, together we're going to change the world. And some of them look at me like what? And the other one
Steven Burkhart: We're doing insurance. Right. You know, but there's crazy that, you know, the crazy ones, they look at me and they're like, let's do it. Yeah.
Steven Burkhart: You know, and what I mean by that is that statistically it said they were a byproduct of seven generations. So where we are today is because it's seven generations previous to us, made a decision to position us here. So the way I see it in where I put in the patient together, we're going to change the world, is that what we do in these next 12 months transition us for the next five, 10 15 years of our life. And every person we're impacting is a seven generation impact. I mean, you do the numbers. We can actually change the world at some point. It's not going to be today or tomorrow, may not be 1520 years from now. But the idea is to start a movement to say, Hey, financial literacy is important. Hey is the reason why minority demographics aren't growing? Hey, it's a reason why people feel the richer get richer and the poor get poorer, right?
Steven Burkhart: That isn't the case is because no one has, no one has, has made a decision to say, Hey, I'm here. I'm going to transition you to know more whether you like it or not or believe it or not as your choice. Right? But the idea for us is just to really a year of, of, of exponential growth, especially in 2020 here in Arizona in particular, there's a lot of need. There's a lot of room for growth. There's a lot of you know, the minority demographics here are, they're strong in certain cities. And, and again, a lot of that is simply a generational aspect of you don't know what you don't know, right? So, you know, people look at insurance and they're like, ha, you know, what does that have to do with change in the world where it's like, look, when you drop your cell phone in, it's the end of the world to us and we don't have $800 to go buy a new iPhone.
Steven Burkhart: Your insurance allows you to go and get a $175 deductible and get a new phone. Right? Right. So the idea is that's creating, that's creating relief short term and longterm. You're not getting a credit card to go pay for something you couldn't afford, which then compounds to a credit card probably lapsing. Right? And then there's so many things that are put into play. So it's, Hey, how can we relieve people? How can we show them to transition into retirement? How can we show them the importance of, you know, the importance of protecting your assets. You know, like I say, the wealthy people, the educated, they understand asset protection, they understand generational wealth. They understand avoid probate.
Steven Burkhart: That's the reason that they're in the position they're in. Of course, when it totally makes sense. I mean like even, cause I know in Arizona just being a native here, like and just with the different jobs I've done, I've spent a good deal of time with different retired people. And even then you need an education and finances, not because they're dumb, but because like some of them have slid in just barely into retirement and others have retired. Well, and you can kind of tell like it's a difference in people. Like they're just kinda like edgy. Like they're, you know, like how much does this cost? How much does that cost? And, and certainly like being thrifty is, is there's no shame that it's a difference walking in with a coupon, just paying full price. Not that that you need to necessarily pay full price, but it's the peace of mind knowing that I can do that.
Steven Burkhart: Right. Absolutely. And so yeah, so they're there. Even just that market itself too is like there's some people that like I hope get through retirement. Like I hope their money lasts the rest of their life. And some of them I'm sure that won't and some of them they will. And so they need, they need a financial education as much as anyone else mean so. So people would call it all kinds of different things. Your why you know, all your life purpose. I just call it will get, it's what gets you out of bed in the morning, what gets you like pumped. You know? Cause sometimes you know, especially as an entrepreneur you've got challenges waiting for you. When you wake up you're exhausted because you've been burning the midnight oil trying to get stuff done. Right. Like, like you said, nine to five is like the easier version. And, and when you're an entrepreneur, you're on the clock all the time. So what, what gets you out of bed?
Andrew: You know what, what we got home at what time last night? A little past midnight. A little past one at night. It was like about one o'clock when we got home. Unpacked our clothes and everything like that back from California and packed everything, probably with sleeping a lot too. Woke up at four 30 and I was ready to roll. And you know what the reason why though? Because I hate more than I love. I hate waking up late more than I love to go to the gym in the morning. Hate is the huge driving factor for me.
Steven Burkhart: It's a negative energy, but it's not, it's not an and
Andrew: You know what, as bad as this may sound, all the people that doubted me in my life, I use that as a driving force to it's fire man. It for the people that think I'm too young and I'm not at the capacity to lead where, where I feel like I can't, that drives me to, I mean, it could come from anybody. It could have come from my, my parents get to come from a friend, a cousin, a family member. It could have come from some random stranger says you're crazy. Right. You know what, I'm not crazy. I'm going to show it's a point to prove. Right. So having a point to prove is a huge driving force for me and hating the fact that people doubt you or, or, or being late to certain things, how it looks on you. And not coming through on your word, but I think does
Steven Burkhart: Right factor for me. And you just got to learn how to use it. Yeah. Yeah. Turning that into positive, that's not bigger. Right. you know, for me it comes down to one thing and his legacy, you know, I have a two year old daughter. We're expecting our second daughter and in the next couple of weeks. Thank you. I that. So for me, everything that I've done though, my entire, my, my entire, I guess you can say business career for what it's, it's been legacy has always been important to me and nothing matters more to me. Then how do my kids feel wearing my last name on their back? Is there a pride behind it? Do, do they, does that make them smile? You know, am I being the best version of myself every day so that they know that when they look back or when they say, Hey, your dad was this, or your dad was that, does that matter to them?
Steven Burkhart: Does it impact them? You know, legacy is important. And for me, that's my driving point. And I always tell people, a lot of what I do is I think that there's only really three things that matter in your lifetime. It's my opinion, it's the day you were born, which marks you in this earth. It's the day you die, which we're all going to die. But the thing that matters is that hyphen in between. And that's legacy. That's the, that right there determines whether your last name dies with you or whether it stays here for generations. So the idea for me that driving point is, Hey, are my kids can have a choice? Do I leave them something worth remembering and worth talking about? Right. I, I've, I've been in family members houses in friends' houses where legacy wasn't a big focus, right? They don't even know who grandpa is and had been in homeless where I'm like, Hey, who's that individual in the wall? That's my great, great, great, great grandfather and he did this, this, this and that. And I'm just like, well that's legacy. That's somebody who's remembered for generations. The name, it echoes the walls of the, the, the, the hallways in their home forever. So for me, it's being able to understand the legacy is important, not only to myself, but for those, those as well. And being able to show people the idea of, Hey, you can, you can build something worth, worth talking about their business. Right? Yeah.
Andrew: And I think when you have a mindset like that, like, Hey, I got to leave my family and I have a business to lead, it kind of makes it easier, right? Like if you had a staff of 20 people here today, I'm sure, and you guys had to have like two meetings before this and maybe even a, you guys were up late last night, you would have been the first one up. Right? Because it's your business and the lives of other people over depend on you. And whether it's, whether it's a part time job, whether it's just giving them a few bucks or whether it's a big business that's a multibillion dollar corporation like Amazon that employs hundreds of thousands of people a year. It's, I think when it's bigger than you and you have people to lead, it kind of makes it easier too. Cause I'm always thinking that, Hey man, everything I do, somebody is watching me. I always pretend like I have my son watching me in the corner. What am I doing? What am I saying? How am I acting? And if I don't think like that, then I think that's just me and I gave her lazy real quick. Right. It gives you an excuse. Sound be all right. Oh, I'll be all right. But it's not me. It's a week, right. I'll work on that tomorrow. Yeah, no, you're, you're totally writing. And it even goes back to the whole of like
Steven Burkhart: If, if what if your work ethic and your drive is what's setting the tone and everyone else is going to be just a little bit under that. Like where do you want that bar to be? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean though I feel like people's wise change so much over time it starts one thing more than two. Another thing like I know even for me like it definitely started out with like money being the priority and like I dreamt big, right? Like man, like I like, like for real, like I want a yacht one day. Like I want to be able to like be rolling in the deep end. Like, you know what I mean? Like that to me like feels like freedom. Like I used to go travel wherever and I'm not like a big, I'm not really, really an exotic cars, but you know, it'd be cool hurt to have a Lamborghini or two.
Steven Burkhart: Right. And all those are really great things and it's not like I don't want those things anymore. But I know for me like my why has very much changed. I got a buddy who's like doing a ministry in Puerto Rico and like he's from there and so he's going back and he has gone and like seeing, there's like still so much hurricane damage and people's lives are just like literally the last time he was there he was at a house in a rain and rain was raining inside of the house. Not like leaking in like he was raining in the house. And that's just not, that's not just a one case thing. So like for me, like my wife has changed to like, how can I create wealth and leverage that to not only be able to like actually have the Liberty of like flying back and forth whenever I want to, but also being able to do something good there too.
Steven Burkhart: Right? Like something further. I want to be not not, nothing against it. And I don't know what, you know, religious background you guys have, but like I want to do more than just pray for people. I want to be able to rebuild their roof. And so that's gonna take more than $14 an hour to do it. And so I'm like, get me there, get me back. But yeah, so that like, and that, that why and in itself is like dramatically changed the way that I work. And so it's so important and that's really cool that you guys really narrowed that, you know, narrowed it down to what do the huge vision that you guys have is just like, we wanted to be an impact as many people as possible. And how else can you do that? Except having a location in every single state. So every someone's there with your vision impacting people everywhere, which is huge. Absolutely. So, yep. So say some more.
Andrew: No, no, no, no. I was going to touch on the fact that you know what? Everybody starts for money. Yeah. Everybody, right? Any business, the reason you go into entrepreneurship is what if you want money,
Steven Burkhart: Financial freedom. I just want to throw $100, you know, how does the dollars in the air,
Andrew: And that should never change. You should... The reason you have that picture in your head is because God already, it's already yours. God's already given it to you. You just have to figure out how to go get it right. And it might require a lot more than you're willing to put forth. So you might not get it right, but, but at the other day, it's, it's, it's there, it's out there for us. The mansion in your head doesn't just happen. It doesn't just appear there for no reason. Right. It's
Steven Burkhart: Already yours. Just got to go get it. But the money is always going to be, it's a beautiful part of it. It gives you options, no options to go ahead and fulfill. What do you want to do? Build a church where I want to go to Mexico and hand out Bibles or I want to build a church off of just a small donation of 10 twenty thousand fifty thousand dollars right. Or whatever the case may be. I think that money's always going to be the key determining factor, but unraveling what really drives people over time. Right? Oh man. That's, that's the sauce you've to finding out what really drives them right is going to help them achieve all of those things a lot faster and a lot easier because it's bigger. You have more to offer. I think the greatest picture I've ever seen of that was I had, I w I went backpacking up North and I woken up before my buddy and there was these squirrels just going nuts on this tree.
Steven Burkhart: Just like literally looking for nuts, pun intended, I guess. But they were, they were all over the place. And so I was sitting there, I was thinking, you know, it was like and the Bible talks about how like God feeds all the creatures of the ground and yet these creatures are still working really hard. Like, and so I realized, okay, like the nuts are out there. Like the food is out there for them to have. Yeah. But they have to crawl out of the hole and then go look for it. Like the provision is there. Absolutely. But you have to work for it. And I think that's such a beautiful metaphor for like life and what you were just talking about. Like yes, God has given you a lot of things, but you won't find them on the couch. Right.
Steven Burkhart: Your dreams aren't at your front door. They're not in. A lot of people live by faith. I am. I believe in faith. You know, I take that very personal. That's something that we were a family of faith. And for me it's, there's nothing worse to meet and seeing people who just live on faith 100% because God gave us the ability to go make a decision to be more and bigger than faith. Right, right. Let's have radical faith, but let's have radical action. Let's really make the impact he intended for us to make, rather than just scrape by and say, well, he'll provide, he'll provide. Absolutely. He will. He'll open the door, he'll provide an abundance. Says it. But what are you going to do to make sure that you do your part right?
Steven Burkhart: Well, the reality is he gave Adam a job to do. So if you're going to wake up and work 40 hours a week or 50 or 60 hours a week, do you want to make $10 an hour? Right? Or do you want to make $1 million a year? You know what I mean? Like it's totally up to you to be average. Yeah, that's true. Well, cool. Thank you guys so much for sharing all of your, your wisdom and your experience from behind the scenes and thank you so much for being vulnerable. And sharing all those negative things. The positive things is really good things. And so thank you guys so much for doing that and I just can't wait for everyone to be able to watch this and be able to and get excited with you. What is a good place for people to find you online?
Steven Burkhart: Every platform. Social media, Facebook. I'm my name, Adrian Cisneross. Instagram. My name Adrian Cisneross. I keep it simple. Okay. I'm not hard to find so if you look me up you'll see my face. Likewise, obviously we're, we're, we're the more heavily platform is Instagram. Right now we're transitioning Facebook. A lot of people in Arizona communicate on Facebook but of course first and last name, Andrew Cisneross of course you'll be able to find this, there are usernames on both platforms are there. If you have any curiosities of the business is elevated financials, which you can find us on Facebook. Awesome. Cool. I'll make sure to put those URLs on there and see if I can find you guys cause I'm excited cause I'm assuming you know here shortly you guys will be having some more education material and be able to like really be at help people out. So I'm excited to partner with you guys and helping spread that message. Thank you so much for having us. Seriously, Steven has been a pleasure, man.
