Resilience at the Intersection of Heritage and Ambition - Eriel Anchondo

Eriel Anchondo is a husband of 12 years to Jacqueline Anchondo. A proud father to three beautiful children, Eric, Michelle, and Christian. Eriel is also a chess aficionado with no hopes of ever becoming a grand master and a Mexican food enthusiast. Professionally he is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Franklin Street Properties, a public real estate investment trust focused on infill and central business district office properties in the US, sunbelt and mountain west. 

Summary:
Have you ever stood at the crossroads of cultural identity and professional ambition? Eriel Anchondo, the esteemed Executive Vice President and COO at Franklin Street Properties, joins us for an intimate exploration of this very juncture, sharing his personal odyssey from a childhood in Mexico to his ascent in the American real estate investment landscape. Discover the resilience and adaptability required to thrive as Eriel delves into the heart of navigating two worlds, the influence of family expectations, and the joy he finds in chess and the rich flavors of Mexican cuisine.

Embarking on a journey of self-discovery through education can be a daunting endeavor, especially when it involves cultural leaps across countries. Eriel recounts the pivotal moments of his academic life, from the initial pursuit of medicine to a transformative economics education, and the eye-opening experience abroad in Ecuador. His narrative is a treasure trove of wisdom on embracing challenges, the importance of communication skills across diverse backgrounds, and the courage to step into the unknown to fulfill one's true potential.

Our conversation with Eriel culminates in a masterclass on financial literacy and the strategies that underpin long-term prosperity. He provides invaluable advice on navigating retirement planning, maximizing 401(k) investments, and the principles of prudent financial decision-making. Eriel's story is a testament to the power of aligning with a life partner who shares your financial vision, the impact of disciplined savings, and how strategic career moves can lead to success. Tune in for a candid and enlightening episode that promises to inspire and inform anyone on their path to financial and professional achievement.

Chapters

• 0:04 Success Journey for People of Color
• 12:45 Navigating Challenges in Education and Career
• 22:54 Navigating Retirement Planning and 401k Investments
• 31:24 Investment Strategies and Career Path
• 41:16 Financial Success

Transcript

Raul

Host

00:04

This is Raul Lopez, and you're listening to. How Do you Say Success in Spanglish? The path to success isn't easy For minorities and people of color. Many attempt to journey with little to no guidance. Join me as I sit down with individuals who share their stories of perseverance so that together we can learn how to say success in spanglish. What's good me hentai? It's your boy, Raul. Welcome back. Thank you, guys for joining us. Today I have Eriel Anchondo, executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Franklin Street Properties Corps. How's it going, Eriel? 

Eriel

Guest

00:43

Good Raul, how are you? 

Raul

Host

00:44

Doing alright, man, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I know it's a little late right now, but I really appreciate you coming online and meeting me today. Eriel is another person who I've known for a really long time. We go way back so I've gotten to see a lot of his journey first hand, so I'm really excited to have you here Just to kind of introduce you to the rest of the world. 

01:07

Eriel Anchondo is the husband of 12 years to Jacqueline Anchondo. They're proud father of the three beautiful children, Eric, Michelle and Christian. Eriel is also a Chess aficionado with no hopes of ever becoming a Grandmaster, and a Mexican food enthusiast. Professionally, he's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Franklin Street Properties, a public real estate investment trust focused on infill and central business districts office central business district office properties in the US Sunbelt in Mountain West and that was obviously a mouthful for me to say, and I did ask you before this I don't know what infill means and you explained. It was like the downtown area. So you know, every day you learn something new, so I appreciate that. But tell me, to start off, tell me who is Eriel. 

Eriel

Guest

01:54

Well, thank you Well, first of all, for having me. I really appreciate the invitation. As you mentioned, we've known each other for quite a while and it's a great honor to be here today. 

02:07

So thank you and your audience for allowing me the opportunity to just talk about my experience, and you know where I come from and where I hope to go from here, so thank you. So first of all, I am an immigrant. I was born and raised in Mexico. I lived there until I was about 19 years old and moved to the United States for college. I attended Boston University a while back, started in 1997. I was a super senior. I took me five years to graduate, for reasons that we'll probably cover later today, but I graduated in 2002. And yeah, that's. I have three beautiful children, Like you mentioned Eric, Michelle and Christian. I've been very fortunate in life. I married a beautiful woman, my wife Jacqueline. We married for 12 years, not only each other for 15. So that's in a nutshell who I am and I live here in the Boston area. I've stayed here ever since I came here for college and I've been very fortunate, as I said, in a personal level and also in a professional level? 

Raul

Host

03:32

Awesome, and that's amazing. You know, obviously, coming from Mexico, you were you born in Mexico and lived most of your life in Mexico, or did you come to the States at some point? 

Eriel

Guest

03:44

No, so I was born in Mexico City. My father was studying there he's. He's a doctor and he was doing some sort of medical training in Mexico City, so I was born there. I only lived there for a few months, though. 

04:01

We moved back to my parents' hometown in Juarez, Mexico just right at the border with El Paso Texas and that's really where, where I grew up. I attended school there. I attended school in Mexico up until senior year of high school, senior year of high school. I finished high school in El Paso Texas because I figured it'll be easier to come to a university here in the States if I was able to graduate from an American high school. So one year of high school, senior year you know, pass it to me. 

Raul

Host

04:39

And how does that work out, as someone who is a Mexican citizen gets to go to school in the United States for one year, yeah, so it's. 

Eriel

Guest

04:49

It's. It's hard to fathom for a lot of people who've never been to a border, such as, you know, the Mexican and US border. But El Paso and Juarez are simply separated by a river and their international bridges going back and forth In fact, I was living in El Paso, texas, for a while and going to school in Mexico, so I would drive across every day, sometimes twice a day. It's normal for people in the border to go back and forth. It sometimes takes a while, you know, especially to come from the Mexican side to the American side, as you can imagine, but it's. It's actually pretty, pretty common. So it's, it's something that people in in the border do on a regular basis. Yeah, that's all that unusual. 

05:40

I was sorry. What was the rest of your question? No, that was exactly like that. 

Raul

Host

05:43

It's crazy. I mean I'm proving and so the idea of, hey, I'm going to go spend one year in do school in America and no one's going to kick me out right away, it's kind of crazy. So but yeah, the borders are very different. I mean I lived in Texas, for you know, I lived in Texas for a while, so I've been a couple of times to some of the borders and it's just, it's a whole different world living on a border. So it's really cool. So you said your dad was a doctor, right? Was there ever like a pressure when it came to like education and what you're supposed to be when you grow up? 

Eriel

Guest

06:13

Yeah, so not a whole lot of pressure per se, but you know, my father is a pediatrician. His two of his brothers are also doctors. Their wives are doctors. 

06:27

Therefore, I grew up in a family full of doctors and you know, at the family reunions or Christmas dinner, that's all they will talk about, just what these medical cases and stuff like that. So growing up I just assumed I was going to become a doctor and I never questioned it. My parents never pressured me or anything like that, but I never questioned it that I was going to become a doctor. That was my goal and if I had stayed in Mexico that's probably what I would have ended up doing. My mother, she's an engineer, she's a professor. So they never, you know, there was never any pressure for me to become a doctor, but I think it was understood that I would eventually go to college. I don't think that was ever a question. 

07:19

My parents come from very limited means, especially my mother. They were very poor growing up. You know my mother, you know not having enough to eat, sometimes think like that or money for the boss to get to school. And you know through education and thanks to the Mexican, you know education system and their universities, which are, you know, they're in a way very socialist type of universities because they're very inexpensive, they're highly subsidized by the government and you know, sometimes that's a bad word here in the United States, especially in the political climate that we are in. 

08:02

But I can honestly say that if it wasn't for that type of system, my parents would have never been able to afford to go to college and to move up to the middle class, which is, you know, where I grew up. I was very fortunate to have, you know, two professionals as parents who, while we were enriched by any means, you know they were able to provide us with a beautiful home and nice vacations. I always had, of course, you know, enough to eat and to cloth and myself and things like that. So myself and my younger sister, and that's really due to, of course, my parents' hard work and determination, but also Mexican universities that just make it affordable for a lot of people to be able to attend. 

Raul

Host

08:52

Yeah, and then you decide to go to Boston University and go to a private school about a thousand miles away, almost expensive schools in the country. 

09:02

Yeah, exactly that. I know I'm still paying, but yeah, and they try to call me for donations and I'll tell you all donating when I stop paying you guys off. So call me in 60 years, but so, yeah, so what was that process? Like? Going to school in El Paso after being going to school in Mexico, and then, you know, starting to apply for college. You know how does that process work for someone. 

Eriel

Guest

09:29

So it was. It was a strange process for me, simply because I did not grow up in the American education system. Like up until senior year high school, I had never attended school in the United States, so I didn't know anything hardly anything about what it was like to apply to a college or university in the United States. I simply had no idea. I started my senior year high school and then all of a sudden I hear about having to take the SAT, which I really didn't know much about. I had never taken up a prep test or any classes or anything like that. I remember I signed up for the SAT test without knowing much about it and I bought a book the day before the test and that's where I learned what analogies work is. I had no idea and I just, you know, reviewed the book and took the test the next day and fortunately I did. 

10:26

I did well, and well enough, I guess, to get into Boston University, and it's something that growing up I never imagined doing. Like I said earlier, I always thought I was going to become a doctor and if I stayed in Mexico I would have most likely become a doctor, simply because in Mexico you go straight from high school into medical school. There is no college in between. You go to medical school for five years and then you do your social service and that's it. 

10:58

You become a doctor. You want to go on and get a specialized in something else you could, but you go straight from high school. So if I stayed in Mexico, that likely would have been my path. And due to my parents divorce and my father remarrying an American Chilean woman who had attended Boston University she had, she got her PhD at BU and she encouraged me to do apply. She believed in me and believed that I could do it and, together with my step-sister, karen, who was also applying, we applied together early decision and we got in. So I came to Boston. I had never been here before. I got here three days before classes started. I had no idea what I was doing. 

11:53

I'll admit, the first few years were really, really tough. You know the language and, quite honestly, I wasn't prepared for the rigor associated with going to school here in the United States and grade schools such as BU. I simply wasn't ready. So it was very, very tough and the first few years two or three years were very tough, but all I could do was, you know, keep my head down and study hard. And I think that's one of the reasons why I stuck with medicine or trying to become a doctor for so long, simply because, you know, everything was confusing and hard. 

12:33

But I just thought, well, this is just the way it is. And you know, I still have a lot to learn in English and my second language. Therefore, I just have to, you know, study hard and that's what I tried to do. I wasn't always very successful, I never failed a class or anything, but, you know, I was always one of the best students in my class and I get to BU and there's a lot of people who are far better than you. You know, it's a humbling experience when you get to university, but, you know, starting in my after a couple of years, I remember I was in a human physiology class and you know, brilliant professor, he was talking about the human bladder and things like that, and I stopped for a minute and I was like I just don't like this. You know, now I get it, I understand, I speak English now and doing okay. 

13:26

But I just this is not for me. And I had taken a class in a sociology class and I ended up really enjoying it. And that's really when I realized that, you know, medicine was not for me, that I there were other things that I was good at and that I enjoyed. And that's where I started thinking about you know, what else I could do, and ended up with a degree in economics, but not before I finished my biology degree which was my pre-med. You know biology type of major just because you know, I had started it. 

14:01

I wanted to finish it, so I went abroad to a biology and ecology program in Ecuador and South America, which was a phenomenal experience and it's something that I recommend to all college students to go abroad at least once. You know it doesn't usually cost much more than staying on your regular campus. If you can afford it, you can go out to see another country, learn a new language, meet you, meet different people. I think it's it's one of the reasons why I've been successful in life. It's just the ability to connect with people from different backgrounds and you know, put yourself in somebody else's shoes, get out of your comfort zone. I think it's. It's. It's a wonderful experience. So, for all college students, if you can afford it, you're going to make it happen. I highly recommend it. 

Raul

Host

15:00

Yeah, no, it's awesome and it's funny because you came from the South. You know Mexico, texas and I came from up north, where I grew up my whole life pretty much in the Northeast, in Rhode Island, when I was going to Boston and then I moved to Texas and I felt like I was going into a whole new world. Right, it was a completely culture shock and I was not used to the idea of going into a grocery store and they speak Spanish to you the whole time you're there, you know, like everywhere and things like that. And I was just in Houston. I wasn't even near the border, you know where. It's a completely different thing. So how did that culture shock? You know there was a language barrier. You know how did it. How did that affect you? How'd you overcome that? 

Eriel

Guest

15:40

Yeah, you know, like I said it's, it was very hard the first couple of years. It took me a long time, and to have a conversation, regular conversation, with people, for example sitting in biology class, right, because it took a lot of those I couldn't listen to the professor and take notes at the same time. Just my brain just couldn't do it Right. I had to pay attention, listen and, okay, I understand it, and then write it down, but by then the professor was, you know, much farther ahead, so which meant that I had to get home and go through the my class notes again, read the chapters in the book again which, you know, my roommate at the time, brian, who's from Maine and you know, grew up here you know he obviously didn't have to do that. 

16:39

It was much easier for him to just go to class and take notes and of course he was a great student, but I had to spend a whole lot more time than he did studying. 

16:51

just because I didn't have that, you know, brain flexibility to like listen and take notes at the same time. I couldn't have a regular conversation with a lot of people at the same time because I really had to focus on what one person was saying. And of course, you have people from across the country here in Boston, so accents are different and certain words are different. So it was pretty challenging and it just takes a while and of course I still have an accent. I will always have an accent, I think. 

Raul

Host

17:29

But I don't think that matters. 

Eriel

Guest

17:32

I think that as long as people understand what you're saying, accents are irrelevant. It just takes some time. 

Raul

Host

17:41

Okay. So when, while you're in school, you're dealing with all this stuff the language barrier, the cultural shock and you decided that you didn't want to do medicine anymore, but you still decided to finish because of you know all the time in effort you put in. There's no point in wasting what you've done and that forced you to take more time in school to finish ultimately complete. 

Eriel

Guest

18:04

Yeah, so I went abroad, to Ecuador, on the tropical ecology program that I was telling you about, and you know it was a phenomenal experience. I went to Ecuador in the spring of 2000. So right after the new millennium, and you know, my classmates were, all you know, great biology students, future scientists. They were focused on, you know, the biology and we spend a month in the Amazonian rainforest and you know, we went to the Galapagos Islands and to the mountains and to the Yandos and it was a phenomenal, phenomenal experience. But while my classmates were interested in, you know, the fauna and the flora and the ecosystem, stuff like that, I was more interested in the social component of ecology. You know why is it that? You know people have to resort to destroying the environment? Because it's partly because they're starving. You know there's the social, very social and very important social and economic reasons. And if we want to protect the environment, we need to also understand the social and economic reasons. 

19:20

And so, upon returning to Boston University, I decided to add a major in economics, going abroad and doing this ecology program, and I wanted to take four classes in biology. So then that was done, I was done with my biology requirements so I could focus on something else. And yeah, I did economics. I will take, you know, four economic classes in a semester trying to catch up. But, you know, only had a year and a half left and I just couldn't do it in that quick. So it took me an extra year. 

19:55

So my super senior year, my fifth year, towards the end I had only one class left and I realized that I could do it in Spain and BU study abroad program. And that's what I did. I went to a little Madrid for six months, my last semester in college and also a phenomenal experience, very different, as you can expect, than my Ecuador experience, but you know, I had an internship there. I took a class at the Autonomous University in Madrid. It was really a great experience. So I highly recommend once again to everyone, to all college students, to take some time to go abroad. 

Raul

Host

20:40

And what year did you end up graduating? 

Eriel

Guest

20:43

So I graduated in 2002. 

Raul

Host

20:45

2002. So you graduated 2002 right after, right after September 11, pretty much affected everything. 

Eriel

Guest

20:53

Right. Kimberley has been, you know, 21 years, graduated in 2002, right after September 11, right in the middle of a recession, might recall the dot com had busted, the boom had busted right. So it was. It was a tough economic environment when. 

Raul

Host

21:13

I graduated, and how did that affect your job potential at that point? 

Eriel

Guest

21:19

This is very challenging and you know, since I had started economics kind of late, you know in hindsight there's things I should have done differently. But I don't regret anything that I did. But I could have been more prepared to join the labor market upon graduation. Of course you know my last semester I was abroad, so it was hard to do. 

21:45

And honestly, I didn't know some of the tools available to graduating seniors at schools such as Boston University to find a job. I never took advantage of those. So when I graduated I honestly didn't know what I was going to do. I couldn't find a job. I took odd jobs here and there. I taught you know science and math that are alternative high school here in the Boston area, which was a very, very challenging yet very rewarding experience. 

22:18

You know, I like to say that if I ever win the lottery and never have to work in my life, I'll probably become a teacher because there's something that I really enjoy doing. And then I got a job at a call center of a financial call center for a fund, investments in the retirement plan division. And you know I will take calls from people all over the US, you know, who had questions about their retirement plans. And you know that was yet another humbling experience. Because now, if I said and I was talking to people from all over the country with different accents, and there I am trying to explain fairly complex, fairly complex terms, investment terms and all that and it was very challenging at first, but I slowly, you know, learned, I think, to turn what could have been a negative into a positive right. I had a thick accent and my English wasn't perfect, but people started to appreciate that because I could explain things. 

23:26

You know fairly complex things in a simple language, simply because I didn't know any better. I mean because I couldn't do it any any other way. Right? So you know, I started getting you know complimentary calls and things like that. So I was very pleased with that experience and from there I joined a group of people who would travel across the country to talk directly and present directly to 41 K participants, and it was a phenomenal experience because I got to see the United States. I've been to 49 out of 50 states I something that I really enjoy doing, of course, when I was single and would pack my bags on Monday morning and come back home on Friday night. Sometimes I will just stay wherever I was and just go to a different city on Monday. So great, great experience. 

Raul

Host

24:22

Nice and it's. It's cool that you did stuff like that with 401ks and retirement. So because I think not to kind of go off topic on your journey but I think for a lot of us we don't understand enough about that stuff early on and we all, a lot of us, fumble through that. Did that help you at all out learning, selling and talking about these financial stuff? That that also help you get you prepared to say I got to start focusing on my like 401k early, start focusing on my retirement, absolutely I mean. 

Eriel

Guest

24:56

you know I'm injured, like I said, in economics, and upon graduating I had no idea how a retired plan worked. You know a 401k plan right, so so learning about investments and 401k plans and the right strategies has really helped me out in my professional and personal development, but certainly something that I very much enjoy doing because, you know, in the past you know our parents retirement plans were pensions right, where you work for a company for 20, 30, 40 years and they promise to pay you upon retirement. They promise to take care of you and you know, for a long time that worked out pretty well, but pensions are not very common anymore. People don't tend to stay with the same employer throughout their careers, like you know, our parents might have done right. So here comes 401k plans, and 401k plans are simply a way to switch the risk of investing from the employer to the employee. Now we, as employees, are expected to know how to invest our money, make decisions about how to invest our money for the long term and, quite frankly, a lot of times we're not prepared to do so. 

26:20

Like I said, I major in economics and I still didn't know how to do that, so it's something that I encourage, you know all young people to do start saving for retirement early. You know the money that you put away in your 20s is going to have a much higher impact than the money that you put away in your 40s or 50s. You know a lot of people say, oh, I can't afford to do this right now. I'll save more when I'm more established, in my 40s and 50s. And then life happens. You know, kids come, maybe, and gets harder and harder. But if you start from the very beginning, you know that three, four, five, six percent of your salary that you choose to contribute is going to have a much greater effect than the 20, 30, 40 percent that you may think you'll be able to contribute when you're more established. So start early and as much as you're going to afford. 

27:16

And certainly if your employer offers you a match, which basically what that means is that for every dollar that you put in, they match it a certain amount, sometimes dollar per dollar, sometimes 50 cents on the dollar. But you know that's free money. There's no reason why we, as employees, shouldn't contribute into our 401k plan. I think that's a big thing. That's a big thing, and so that's what you should do. You know, at least up to the amount that the company matches. Most common formula in the US 50 percent up to six. So you put in 6 percent of your salary. The company puts in another 3 percent. That 3 percent is free money it's. 

Raul

Host

27:57

you wouldn't have gotten it if you weren't saving for retirement and it has a huge impact on your own term retirement and savings. So put as much as you can into your 401k from the start. That you get used to not having that money, because when you have to later on decide I need to take away a few hundred dollars from my paycheck is going to hurt you. But when it's already gone you're not going to miss it and you can just keep going. You just keep going with it. 

Eriel

Guest

28:22

Yeah, because the money comes out of your paycheck before taxes are perfect. So, like you said, most people get used to it, they don't really notice it anymore and it's being invested. 

28:34

And now the second part. Of course, the other big decision that you have to do as a 401k participant is how to invest that money right. Like most of us don't have the right training to know what kind of stocks or bonds or what all of that means, but the industry has made it fairly simple nowadays for people to invest in. There are these what they're usually called H-based funds, where it will be called, you know, jp Morgan or T-Rope Price or something something retirement plan and then it will have a year at the end 2040, 2045, 5060, 65, et cetera and the idea is that you simply pick the one that is closest to when you're going to retire. 

29:20

So, if you're 25 years old, you're going to work until you're 65, 67 or so. So that's going to be, let's say, 2023, that's roughly going to be the year 2065. Oh, that's scary. But yeah that's it. You just pick the one that is closest to when you want to retire, and early on. The fund is going to be fairly aggressive, meaning it's going to invest heavily in stocks. But it will slowly change. It will slowly become more conservative as you're getting closer to retirement. 

Raul

Host

29:55

That's how they work. 

Eriel

Guest

29:56

And they're really a way to put your money and you don't have to do a thing. For the rest of your professional career, that fund will change with you as you get older, you get closer to retirement, there's really not much that you would need to do. 

30:11

So those are great tools. And a lot of people tell me well, should I pick my own stocks and time the market and things like that? And well, there might be a few people out there who can do it successfully in the long term. I'm not one of them, and I think most people are not. If I could time the market, quite frankly, I wouldn't be here. I would be a billionaire with a private island. 

Raul

Host

30:42

You'd fly me down there for the interview, and I think one thing people don't understand either is that the reason that you get to become more conservative as you get older is because you don't want to get stuck with some people who were stuck during the last recession where all the stocks value tank and your retirement got cut in half because everything was on stocks instead of like on bonds and stuff like that. So they're because more conservative to kind of help protect you from those situations. 

Eriel

Guest

31:12

Exactly so. Stocks are more volatile than bonds. If you were to graph the stock market performance, it will look like something like this like will fluctuate a lot, but in the long term it's a great investment tool and provides the highest returns in the stock market. But it does fluctuate quite a bit. There's going to be years in which it's going to do pretty well and there's going to be some brutal years, like 2002 and 2008, where the stock market dropped in 20, 30, 40% in a single year. And it's painful when you're sitting there and you're looking at your 401k balance and it's dropping and it's dropping, and it's dropping. 

31:55

But if you still have a while before you retire, it's really not the end of the world. The market, historically, has come back. Of course it can't guarantee that it will continue to do that, but, going by historical measures, the stock market has been a great investment vehicle. So if you still have time before you retire, you can afford to take a loss, an unrealized loss, as long as you keep the same investments and in fact it may even help you in the longer term, because that just means that next time you get paid your next paycheck, your next contribution is going to buy the same fund you were buying a year ago for much cheaper. So once the market turns around, you'll make money on those cheap investments that you bought when the market was low. 

32:40

So stocks fluctuate quite a bit. Funds are pretty aggressive, meaning they're heavily invested in stocks. When you're far away from retirement, bonds don't fluctuate very much. It's considered a much safer investment. So by the time you're closer to retirement, most of your investments are in bonds. That's typically how it works. By then your investment balance will fluctuate as much. That's the idea. 

Raul

Host

33:05

Well, thank you for that. Like I said, lessons learned for everybody. It's something little knowledge to go away with. So, going back to your journey, you were doing this 401k and what came after that? Did you switch to a new job? Did you start working in the job you have now? 

Eriel

Guest

33:23

Right. So life happened. So for a while I was working in the retirement plans division and then I expanded into other types of employer benefit plans, such as health and welfare, medical plans, dental insurance plans, things like that. So I was very heavily involved in all things employee benefits for quite a while. 

33:52

I was very fortunate to meet my now wife, jacqueline, and we got married and we wanted to start a family. So she sat me down one time and she said you know, you've always wanted to go back to school, so what do you want to do? So she really gave me the kick in the pants that I needed to go back to school and I got my MBA and an executive MBA program. So I was able to do it while still working Great tool for those of us who were, you know, later in our careers, who couldn't just stop working to go back to school. Executive MBA programs are a great way to get you a degree, and that's what I did. 

34:39

And upon graduation I also worked in the technology department of a bank and shortly after a classmate of mine invited me to apply for a position that was opening up in his company, the Frank history properties, where I currently work, and that's where, when I made a very a switch into now real estate because I had the right background for it. I you know, with my background in investments and and all you know, hr, employee benefits and technology, I was able to join Frank history properties as the senior vice president of operations in charge of investor services, investor relations, HR and it. 

Raul

Host

35:30

Nice, and then eventually you've moved up to the chief operating officer as well. Yes, so for a lot of people the whole concept of C sweet positions is, you know, not even on their radar? You know, and obviously you are. Can you kind of explain what exactly someone in those positions would do? 

Eriel

Guest

35:53

Right. So, first of all, the frequency properties is a public company. We traded the New York Stock Exchange American. So, as an officer of the company, there's a lot of rules and regulations that we have to follow. 

36:11

Of course, we have to be very careful not to disclose material information about our company, unless we do so publicly in a press release or something like that. And well, we are together with the rest of the executive team, and of course I report to the president and to the chief executive officer, but together with the other executives in the company, we are all responsible for the performance of the company and for the financial reports that we have to put out. Me less so, since I'm not the chief financial officer, but certainly I get to read all the financial reports before they're published, make sure they're accurate and complete. So I share that responsibility with the rest of my executive team. 

Raul

Host

37:07

Nice, and do you think that your, the MBA, was a big factor in being able to move into those positions? 

Eriel

Guest

37:15

Absolutely. I think the master of business administration is a great managerial type of degree that allows you to really to play a lot of different roles. There's a lot of different industries that I could have gone into after obtaining the degree. Like I said, I went from the pure financial industry into real estate investment trust, so it's somewhat related but really it's quite different in the sense that we actually have physical assets now and at Frank history we own office properties right. So the MBA really was a great stepping stone to a very different career in a different industry. 

Raul

Host

38:06

Nice. Yeah, I mean a lot of people I've talked to when they talk about yeah, my life completely changed with the moment I got my MBA. 

38:13

It just went from where I was and I know I think at this point MBAs can get a little bit oversaturated in the industry a little bit, but I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't taken advantage of that MBA and jump leaps and bounds with that degree. So but when we talked before during our pre-interview, you had mentioned that you kind of had this idea behind theory of success that you kind of talk that you work through yourself. Can you explain a little bit about that? 

Eriel

Guest

38:47

Yeah, so I define my theory of financial success as it's. Basically, the main point is to, if not, eliminate completely reduced debt, and the phrase that I like to use is same car, same house, same spouse. So what does that mean? Well, so, upon graduation or once you're established in your professional career, whatever you end up doing, you're likely going to need to get a car right, unless you live in a city like maybe New York, maybe Chicago to a lesser extent. 

Raul

Host

39:38

But here in the. 

Eriel

Guest

39:40

United States. You're probably going to need a car to get to work right, and it should be a reliable car. It should be a car that you like, but ideally it should be the car that you have to owe less, so getting to us the least debt possible and paid off as soon as possible. And, needless to say, you probably shouldn't be buying a car unless you have no credit card debt. Credit cards are great tools when you need to buy something, especially plane tickets or emergencies or things like that, but the interest rates of credit cards are just. They're so high that they're designed to keep you in debt, in my opinion. So if you're not able to pay off your credit card each month, you probably shouldn't be considering making any other large purchases in the meantime starting with a car. 

40:42

So you're going to need a car. Buy a car cheapest car that you can afford that is somewhat reliable is going to take you where you need to go and drive it until the wheels fall off, until you absolutely can't do it anymore. Eventually you may have to buy a new one, of course, but keep it as long as possible same car. Eventually you're going to want to buy a house, and there are a great way to build wealth is to buy real estate, to buy a house to live in. Right, I think they're great tools that we can pass on to our children or, of course, whoever we wish. Whoever we wish. 

41:22

But you should probably buy a house that is not too big, that is in they might need some repairs, a house that you can easily afford and that, ideally, you can pay off in 15 years. Shoot for that If you can't do it. If you have to go with a 30 year mortgage, that's fine, but make sure you can afford to make those payments. The general rule is your payments should probably shouldn't be more than 40% of your income. I would say that it should probably be even less, maybe 25 to 30%, so you don't incur more debt by making money, because some people get too big of a home or a home they really can't afford, and then they go into debt credit card debt or other types of debt because they have to keep making their mortgage payments and they should but same car, same house and, most importantly, in my opinion, same spouse. 

42:32

I think that the decision of who you marry, who you join your life with, who you form a family, is perhaps the most important in your financial, the outcome of your financial success. 

42:48

Having somebody who shares your values family values, social values and financial values, I think is the greatest denominator of financial success, in my opinion. You know, like I mentioned earlier, I was very fortunate to meet my wife, jacqueline, who you know supported me and encouraged me to go back to school, and I've been very fortunate in life. Of course I was very lucky, but I was also prepared when the opportunities came and I had little debt and I was able to make those moves because I had no credit card debt so I could take on some additional debt to go back to school. I had already paid off my college debt at that point and we try to live frugally. We try to make extra payments to our mortgage because you never know we could go through another recession and if anything happens so you lose your job or medical emergency or any other type of emergency, you have a lot more flexibility when you have little to no debt to make changes, to hunker down and weather the storm. 

44:09

It's a whole lot easier to do that when you know you don't have credit card debt or any other type of debt. 

Raul

Host

44:18

They're really good goals to aim for. 

44:20

You know that, people, if you start earlier, it makes it a little easier later on in life when you don't have as much debt or you're not dealing with making payments so that you can, you know, paying down a credit card with your payments so that you can use that money to go by gas. You know, you're just kind of in the cycle of going back and forth and squeezing a little bit more and just barely making it every week. And then, God forbid, something happens your car breaks down, you know, you break your leg and you can't go to work for six weeks and you know things hurt. 

44:52

So it's a. It's a great mindset and I think it's a great way of being able to do that. You know, the same spouse thing, you know it's a very for me at least. It's crazy how much harder and how you know this. For me it was kind of like there was a secondary person driving me to be better for myself, but for them as well, you know. So I want I didn't want to just improve myself when you're, I wanted to improve my wife. I want to improve my kid. You know I wanted to be a better role model to my daughter. I wanted to not just be more successful but encourage my wife to be more successful. 

45:26

You know, I wanted to all, all of us live together not live together, lift up together and become, you know, a better better with everything and live that better lifestyle. And you know it. For me a lot of that didn't click in because I was just kind of like I'm fine, I'm fine until I met my wife and I met and I had my family and things started to matter for me a lot more and I'm fortunate enough to live in a. 

45:51

You know, I'll talk to my wife and I'll be like I think I'm going to look for a new job because I'm not going anywhere in this job and I might have to take a job that doesn't give me the benefits I would get another job but will open me up to learning new skills that will potentially open the door. And she said, all right, well, we'll figure out what we need to do and we'll make it work. You know, we'll work through it and whatever. And lo and behold, two years later I took the skills from that job and the skills from my ass job and I got the job. I have now and I, you know, in the last five years nearly doubled my salary, you know, just by taking risks. But having someone I know saying go ahead, you can do this, we'll make it work, you know, just makes you. 

46:35

You know, I think when you're a kid, you have your parents to encourage you sometimes. Well, some people have good parents to help you, encourage you and hopefully, when you get older, you have someone in your life that continues to encourage you. And I think that mental health, that mental push, is always going to be more successful than anything, any pennies and dimes you save on anything else. I think that's usually the most important fact. Thank you for that. That's very enlightening, and so you know, one of the things I like to ask everyone when we get here and get kind to the end. Oh well, let me ask you one more thing what do you feel is going to be the next step for for you Beyond this? 

Eriel

Guest

47:12

So before I answer your question, let me let me just add that you know when I say same car, same house, same spouse, let me just say that if you're in a bad marriage, a bad situation where you're unhappy or God forbid you're, you're an abusive type of environment. 

47:30

By all means, get out. You know, seek help. Absolutely, having the right person by your side, right somebody who shares your family values, will encourage you to be better, like you were saying. In my opinion, it's, it's, it's one of the greatest ways to be financially successful. Yeah, in life. 

Raul

Host

47:56

Yeah, yeah, clarifying that's good because, yeah, it's not being with the spouse forever is being with the right person as far as long as you can, even if you don't get married, if that's them, but your partner is going to be taking them. We have to clarify some times and nobody started yelling at us. But yeah. So to back my question, you know, what do you feel is your next step moving forward? 

Eriel

Guest

48:20

Well, so I think for me I'm 46 years old, like I mentioned, I have three kids. You know my my next role in life is being a good role model to my children and help them become the best men and women and then they can be. I've achieved quite a bit on a professional level I'm very fortunate and to be where I am and now it's, you know, my time to focus on the next generation. That includes certainly my children, but you know so to also be a mentor to two young people out there and in college now, or in high school aspiring to go to college. So that's sort of where I see myself focusing my efforts outside of my job, my time and efforts, and it's been a role model to two others, to two young people, right? 

Raul

Host

49:26

Yeah, it's beautiful and it's definitely. I think when you get to a certain point in your life, you feel like, okay, I think I'm getting close to where I want to be. I think my successes are speak for themselves. What, what, what more do I need to give you know, and so what more can I do and what impact can I leave in this world? You know, and so I'm. Sometimes some people do, some people don't. You know it's okay if you don't either, but you know I'm in the same boat as you. I'm at that point in my life where I'm kind of like you know what impact, what's my next step and how can I help. 

Eriel

Guest

49:57

So I'm with you there, brother, yeah and you know your, your initiative to do the this podcast is you know you're already there, you're, you're achieving that, that goal, thanks. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why it was so honored to be invited and very happy to be here. 

Raul

Host

50:16

Thank you, yeah, so I'll end this with my last question that I'd like to ask you. You know you go back in time and talk to you. I can't say little Eddie I don't know if there was ever a little Eddie L variable can see he's really tall, big guy. We, his neck, his neck there to us is big Mac. You know, but he, he. But if you go back in time and talk to yourself when you were younger and give yourself some advice, what's something you tell yourself? 

Eriel

Guest

50:42

So it's just to keep an open mind, and it's something that, in a way, you're forced to do when you go to school here in, in particular here in the United States, and because you are forced to take classes outside of your major. And if it hadn't been for that sociology class or other, you know, classes outside of biology that I that I was required to take, I don't know where I would have been, and I certainly would have been, would have been as happy and as successful as I am now. So keep an open mind, get out of a comfort zone, you know. Go abroad, see how other people live, see how other people the leaf systems are, and that's probably the greatest advice I can give any, any young person, you know, starting their adult lives, I think. 

Raul

Host

51:45

Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here today. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope to have you on in the future for other type of things that we do on this podcast as well. So thank you so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you once again for listening in and tuning in. I appreciate all support, as always, and I hope you'll continue to tune in as we continue to learn how to say success in Spanish.