From corporate banking manager to house flipper, meet Alex Ferro in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
In this episode of The Career Flipper podcast, host Jenny Dempsey sits down with Alex Ferro of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He opens up about his career shift from corporate banking to real estate — and the personal journey that led him there. After his dad passed, Alex started questioning what success really meant to him. He realized that climbing the corporate ladder wasn’t cutting it anymore — he wanted more freedom, more purpose, and a better balance in life.
Alex shares how he navigated the leap into real estate, balancing gut instincts with smart, calculated decisions. He talks about the systems he put in place to stay grounded and how he learned to redefine success beyond just making money. This episode dives into the ups and downs of career transitions — the moments of doubt, the unexpected wins, and the resilience it takes to keep going.
If you’ve ever thought about leaving behind a “stable” job to chase something more meaningful, this one’s for you. Alex’s story is a reminder that success isn’t always about the paycheck — it’s about building a life that feels right.
Episode Takeaways
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Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze
Alex 00:00:00 And what it is. I'm happier now that I'm doing my free stuff than when I was making 200 grand a year.
Jenny 00:00:08 Welcome to the Career Flipper podcast. I'm your host, Jenny Dempsey. Just a regular person trying to figure out my career path and honestly, life in general. But let's be real, I'm not some career flipping expert over here. Sure, I spent 18 years in customer experience and service at startup tech companies, and I thought that that was my path. But then I got laid off. I stumbled into freelancing. I started flipping furniture. Go ahead and check out San Diego Furniture Flipper on Instagram and TikTok if you want to see what I'm still up to and somehow ended up launching this podcast. So yeah, I get how overwhelming and honestly exhausting career changes can be because I've lived it too. And truthfully, I am still figuring out as I go every single day. So that's why this podcast exists, because I just have so many questions. How do people actually pull off these big career changes without totally falling apart? How do they push through the self-doubt when nothing feels certain? And how do they juggle side gigs and full time jobs without losing their minds? Instead of spiraling in my own head like I always do, I figured why not just start talking to people about it? So every week I sit down with real people from all over the world, working in all kinds of industries, and I chat with them about their career path.
Jenny 00:01:37 We get into the messy middle, the setbacks, the winds, the what the heck am I doing moments so you and I can take that next step with a little more confidence and maybe a few extra tools in our back pockets. So if somebody sent you this episode, it's basically like a love letter. They believe so strongly in you, and they know that you have exactly what it takes to figure this out and to keep going no matter what. So give them a big hug, tell them thank you, and get whatever you can out of this episode. It's a gift we can learn so much from one another. In today's episode, I sit down with my friend Alex Pharoah of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Alex opens up about walking away from a steady but totally unfulfilling corporate banking job. He has no clear plan, but he took the leap anyway, and after leaving, Alex chased hailstorms literally and fixed cars that got dents from the hail. It's not exactly the dream job, but it paid the bills while he figured things out.
Jenny 00:02:48 Eventually, he found his way into real estate and started flipping houses. But it wasn't some overnight success story. He made a ton of mistakes and lost a lot of money at first. Alex calls those early failures his version of university. Messy, expensive and full of lessons that eventually pay off. He also gets real about personal loss and how it forced him to rethink what success even means. Spoiler it's not about the money. Alex's story is a very relatable, like that feeling when you've been doing something for so long and it just isn't working anymore. And taking the leap into the unknown actually costs less than staying. So take a deep breath. You're not alone, and you don't have to figure it all out today. Let's get into the episode with Alex. All right, Alex, before we start anything, I want to do a quick shout out to the place that we lived in Philly, Summit Park. Because Summit Park brought brings people together in a way that many apartment complexes do not. Am I right?
Alex 00:03:58 Absolutely Summit Park.
Alex 00:04:00 Oh man, that was fun. Oh good. Shout out to Summit Park. The clubhouse, the pool.
Jenny 00:04:05 night mug night.
Alex 00:04:07 It's still going to magnet's still going. They haven't stopped.
Jenny 00:04:10 Oh, gosh. I still have my mug I still have I do, it makes a great water cup. Once you leave Summit Park, you just. You drink water? Yeah. You drink water.
Alex 00:04:23 Yeah, I know we we get older. We drank a little too much at summit, so we got to do some modern hydrate. Yeah, it was a good time though. I will give them credit because I haven't found any complex like that that has a bar and a social environment. Out of all the places which we'll get into where I've moved, there's nothing been like that.
Jenny 00:04:41 Yeah. True that they they did that right. Very unique. Here's the Summit park. Cheers to that.
Alex 00:04:47 Cheers with our water.
Jenny 00:04:49 But I'm so glad. It's so good to see you. It has been so long.
Jenny 00:04:53 And hearing about, you know, your the the past that you've taken out after, you know, Summit Park and moving on and careers and all the things. And so I'm really excited to have you here with me. So thank you for being on tell everybody who you are, where you are and what you're doing, what you're doing right now. And then we'll dive into all the flips and good stuff.
Alex 00:05:13 So I'm Alex Farrell I live in North Carolina now in Winston-Salem. I've kind of traveled around quite often for the past 6 or 7 years. Me and Jenny met in Philly and I left Philly in 2017. Then I went to New Hampshire, Chicago, now North Carolina. I've been all over the places. We'll go over that. but now, since then, I've been in real estate and I buy and flip houses. I buy and flip contracts. So I help investors find properties, I help homeowners sell their properties. and I do that all throughout the country. I pretty much work off of my phone and my computer, and I'm able to just connect people.
Alex 00:05:55 I connect everybody together. But I also buy and hold. I get a couple rentals myself and that's what I'm doing now. I mean, mainly it's all real estate.
Jenny 00:06:05 Literally flipping. Flipping the houses. You are? Yeah. You're on the in the right place for talking about flipping, but what did you what were you doing when you were in Philly. Like kind of where did your career path begin?
Alex 00:06:17 So I worked at a mortgage servicing company, I did mortgages, I was a mortgage loan originator. I worked in the banking industry, when I was in Philly for, I mean, I lived in Philly for eight years, but prior to that, in Miami, I worked in the banking industry. So a total of about 15 years, all from being the person at the bank where you go open a checking account to helping people out when they were in foreclosure or needed loan modifications. When we had the crash in 2008 there, the mortgage servicing company had a lot of files that were passed through on loans, and I got hired to help all these people come up to a resolution, whether if it was a modification or short sale or a deed in lieu, which is pretty much turning the title back to the bank.
Alex 00:07:06 so that was my background. It was in the lending side of real estate when I was in Philly.
Jenny 00:07:11 Okay. So you really started in the banking. You were crunching a lot of numbers, it sounds like. And working at a desk. Would you have to go? You went into an office, I'm guessing. And 9 to 5 lifestyle. What was that like?
Alex 00:07:25 So it was 9 to 5 most of the time. but I got so good at it that and I ended up moving with the company. I worked at one main company for about 12 years. Actually, no. 10 or 11 years. Yeah. and that company, I moved up the ranks. I moved around several positions, but I was very good at the position. That and got to a point where I would show up at like 10 or 11:00 and leave like a five. but most of it was that 9 to 5 stuck to it Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. I also did have a laptop that I that would bring home, and I would work from home at times.
Alex 00:07:58 Yeah. and I was in a computer in a cubicle. I was stuck inside of a cubicle. This was either whether it feels when I was with a bank or the mortgage servicing company, I was in a cubicle. I was right there at the office, and I. When I left Philly, I didn't want to be in a cubicle anymore. I left Philly for, because the mortgage company and everything changed, and I decided, you know what? I'm done. And I had to. I ended up moving up to New Hampshire to do something completely different, because I didn't want to be in the cubicle. And then why in an office?
Jenny 00:08:32 Yeah. Why didn't you want to be in a cubicle? Why didn't you want to be in an office anymore? What changed for you?
Alex 00:08:38 I like being outside. I like working with my hands. I don't necessarily like sitting. Having headphones on the whole day in front of staring in front of a computer. I like being active. And then, I mean, I, I, I like building stuff, whether if it's cars or houses.
Alex 00:08:54 I do like working with my hands and building things, and that's kind of what led me to my next step after Philly doing auto repair, and held that I chased hell for a little bit. I also did fender benders, like, literally pull the metal Philly paint it, and we do all this at a body at the location of the client. So instead of them having to go to a body shop, we would fix it right then and there. They don't lose the car for about a week and rent a car. Companies were our clients.
Jenny 00:09:23 Yeah. So okay, so I'm going to ask a question because you went from this kind of I'm going to say an air, quote, stable corporate job, 9 to 5, nine ish to five. And you were at the cubicle and then you just kind of realized, like, I don't want to do this anymore. And you moved to New Hampshire. Was there any moment like when you put in your notice that you weren't going to do that job anymore, the one that you've been doing for 12 years, for the most part.
Jenny 00:09:50 Were you scared? Like, was there anything going through your mind of like, well, what's next? Like, am I going to be able to pay my bills like, or did you just know? No, this is what I'm doing. Like what were your what were you kind of thinking at that point?
Alex 00:10:02 So there was times where I was scared. I was worried like, what? What am I going to do? But when it really came down to me giving my two weeks notice and all that, I just jumped. I was impulsive, I didn't care. I said, I'm going to figure it out. I did very well at that company where I had money saved up. I had bought a property and I had a lot of equity in there, so I knew I had some type of savings. I can back into it if I needed to. Yeah. but I jumped. I mean, I literally when I got to the office in the morning, I remember I went to my desk and I wrote up my, my two weeks notice and I took it straight to HR, and they're like, are you sure about this? Like, yeah, I can't do it anymore.
Alex 00:10:39 I'm done. And they let me go. They tell me, okay, dude, you're done. I mean, we'll pay you for the two weeks, but there are company rules to just take your leave like you leave right away. when I made that jump, I, I mean, I was a little scared, but at the same time said screw. I made it because I really was frustrated and not having to go do anything in there. And like I made joke earlier of going in at 10 or 11:00 and leaving at five. You think, oh great, a couple of few hours. And it did well, but I didn't have a sense of accomplishment. I didn't feel like I wasn't doing anything that really was getting me to push forward and grow as a person. Yeah. so I decided, you know, I, I'm done. I, I, I just stopped and I stayed in Philly for about another year and a half after that. Wow. I bought that's when I bought a first flip.
Alex 00:11:30 That was my first flip back. And my first flip was in Philly in Landsdowne. Big house, 3000 square foot house. Had to fully remodel it. we made a lot of mistakes and, but that, that kind of got me my eyes back into that real estate side originally. They're back in Philly. We didn't do so well in that house. Unfortunately, they'd lose some money.
Jenny 00:11:52 Sounds like a big learning opportunity right there kind of being that first, first one you you took on, I'm sure from there there was.
Alex 00:12:00 Oh, it was.
Jenny 00:12:00 My college things.
Alex 00:12:01 It was my college experience.
Jenny 00:12:03 Yeah.
Alex 00:12:03 It was my university.
Jenny 00:12:04 Yeah.
Alex 00:12:05 It was my it was my university I mean in my degree. In other words, it was absolutely I mean, I lost I think like 6 or 7000 on the whole thing, the whole ordeal. I lost about eight months of just working on the house and not creating income because we had so many issues, whatever the case is. But the education that I gained from it has played out so much more now that we're looking back, what, 7 or 8 years later? Yeah, it's paid off so much more in the future.
Jenny 00:12:33 Yeah. That's so it's so important to know of these things that when we do sometimes take those leaps and sometimes, especially in the beginning or maybe later on, I feel like there's always opportunity to learn. But like it was it sounds like what I'm hearing you say, the mistake was not a mistake. It was. And I love how you phrase it. This was your university. This was the learning that helped lift you up to do more down the road. And yeah, that that's a bummer about, you know, losing money. But it sounds like the education that you got out of that was priceless.
Alex 00:13:06 Oh for sure. And I didn't go to college or anything. I didn't have a degree myself. So I didn't have the university expenses. So I figured I just got that later on in life. There you go. It is. I mean, talk to how many young kids nowadays have so much money in debt in universities or in schools and colleges? It's it's I mean, it's another mortgage.
Alex 00:13:26 It's a whole nother mortgage on it. So for me, for what I gained other experience. I mean, the six grand in the grand scheme of things was okay. I mean, I don't want to say it was worth it because I don't want to say losing money's worth it. Right. But it was a it was definitely educational from there.
Jenny 00:13:40 Yeah. So now you're in New Hampshire and you're chasing hail, and you're going to clients houses and, and fixing their fenders and making it easy for them. And how long did you do that?
Alex 00:13:53 So I did that for three years. I, I did, working with my father's company for about two years. And then I did my own company doing the hail chasing where I traveled around the country, chasing hail, and I was doing what's called Paintless dent repair. Literally. You get a rod underneath the metal and push it up. And I did that for about a year. Then I came back to New Hampshire. And so we're talking about three years working on vehicles.
Alex 00:14:23 And then when I came back to New Hampshire after a trip from Texas, I had to go back to New Hampshire and, Covid happened. So we all know what happened with Covid. Yeah, yeah. And then with Covid, my father ended up passing from cancer, not from Covid, but it just happened to be at the same exact time he passed in March 29th, 2020. And with his passing, I had gone to New Hampshire to be with him and help him out on his business With his passing, I was like, I'm out. I don't want to be in New Hampshire. It's too damn cold. it's funny I say that, though, because after New Hampshire, I went to Chicago. there wasn't much of a difference in the cold.
Jenny 00:15:04 Yeah.
Alex 00:15:05 At least I lived in New Hampshire. When it snows, the snow sticks. In Chicago, it doesn't snow as much. But, I mean, you definitely get the snow, but either way, it.
Jenny 00:15:14 Sounds.
Alex 00:15:14 Cold. Yeah, it's still cold.
Alex 00:15:17 Yeah, it's not like Philly. At least if it snows in Philly, the snow goes away in a couple of days.
Jenny 00:15:21 Yeah.
Alex 00:15:22 You still see grass in February?
Speaker 3 00:15:24 Yeah. Yeah.
Alex 00:15:26 But either way, with the with the cars and everything, I did all that working on the cars. And then after Covid happened, I traveled during Covid, in an RV because I had it. Because I had the RV, because I was traveling the country chasing hail. So I said, well, I'm going to take the RV. That's my home. I'm going with with it. I'll anywhere. And, for six months I traveled the whole country. And then I came back to New Hampshire and I decided I'm going to move back. I move to Chicago. I don't want to be chasing hell. I don't want to be doing the car stuff. I'm going to go back to my roots. What I enjoyed, which was on the real estate side. Yeah, both the financial side of the banking side or just real estate, because throughout this time I had done a lot of construction work with a buddy of mine, remodeling bathrooms, remodeling kitchens, just side jobs and off things like that.
Alex 00:16:17 Yeah. and I decided when I go to Chicago and I went to Chicago, I'm not chasing him or doing any of the cars. I got to obviously make some money because I got a $3,000 a month rent that I have to pay in Chicago. Chicago is not cheap, folks. Yeah. so that's when I started doing what's called real estate wholesaling, wholesaling real estate, which is flipping contracts. And to put it in simple terms, the easiest terms is I will get in their contract to purchase a property with the homeowner. And that contract, I would find an investor that's looking for a property in that area that's willing to pay me more than what I have that contract under for. So if I have a contract for a property 100,000, and this investor is willing to pay me 120,000 for, I'm going to make that spread the $20,000. Like and like any wholesale business, there's always that spread of all right, I get it from the manufacturer. I'm reselling it getting for a price. That's essentially what wholesaling real estate is.
Alex 00:17:16 And that's what I've been doing actively for the past four years as well. That has led me to be able to buy a couple rental properties. I bought my house here in North Carolina. I remodeled this sucker completely from studs. and I converted my basement to an apartment where I rent that out, and that covers most of my mortgage. And now I'm just either flipping contracts or flipping houses. In fact, I got a closing tomorrow. Or it might be today around 3:00 for my next project, you know?
Jenny 00:17:47 Okay, I'm just going to keep hopping back because I'm, you know, you went from the court. I'm just going to say corporate corporate banking industry and the skills that you learned there, it sounds like really have continued to become. And I like to say cookie crumbs. They're things that followed us around and followed us on our path that we can go back to and use in different ways, like the skills that we gained in something that maybe wasn't a good fit anymore, are still skills that we can use down the road.
Jenny 00:18:18 You've now developed your own company, and you're doing things that make sense for you. And like we were saying before, we clicked record, like you do everything from your phone and you choose when you want to work. You can work from anywhere you want. you know, you're mentioning like, hopping back in, you know, traveling around again and you have this freedom and flexibility that wasn't provided to you when you were sitting at a desk, you know, years and years ago. And you have that now. And I'm wondering, you know, with the other experience of working with your dad and building that company up and doing something very unique, chasing hail and helping people, you know, pop out the the parts of the car. So so it looks better again, like there are so many things along the way, but also losing your dad and and that. Did that have any impact on your choices where you know, because I know my dad passed away in 2022 and it had such a big impact on me because there was a point where when he was on his deathbed, he said, I wish I would have not worked as much.
Jenny 00:19:27 I wish I would have taken more time to get to know you and your sister, because we didn't have a very super close relationship and it just. And then six months later, I got laid off and it would just kind of open my mind to like, wow, I don't want to be on my deathbed thinking these, these things that I wish I would have, you know, not worked as much or, you know, the thing. So I'm wondering if that's something, did that have any impact on your decisions after that happened? I mean, going into Covid, like losing right before Covid like that is such a pivotal time in the world as it is. And then to have someone so close to you you've been working with so closely. pass away. Did that have any impact on your decision?
Speaker 3 00:20:07 No.
Alex 00:20:08 It definitely had an impact on my decisions about where I was going or what I was doing. Now when he passed and me and Covid happening, my decision to kind of just cook up my camper and travel the country was that immediate decision because there was nothing to do for me in New Hampshire.
Alex 00:20:22 So it was close. And what else am I going to do? so that decision go from there. I moved on, and then my biggest thing with my dad's passing was, you know, he always wanted me to be happy. And he knew I was always humble, and he just wanted me to do whatever I wanted to. Yeah. and I knew I was up in New Hampshire because of him. Because I wanted to be up there for him and be there with my father. We did have a very close relationship. Yeah. so I wanted to help him, and I wanted to end up growing the business, help them and all that. But with his passing, he he wasn't there anymore. So for me, it's like what decisions were going to make that are going to be best for me and that he would be happy with that I'm doing. And to this day, it still takes and play. I mean, I always question that, what would you do? Or dad, what would you say? You know, I we talked every day.
Alex 00:21:08 We would talk about everything that was going on. I have very close relationship with my both my parents, my mom and my and my father, man. so it definitely took into place some of the things a consideration of what should I do, what risk to take, what not risk to take. but I've also been a little bit impulsive in my ways. Sometimes I'm just impulsive and I'll jump and do things, and it bites. Be in the ass later, or it doesn't or it doesn't. I mean, who knows.
Speaker 3 00:21:36 Right.
Alex 00:21:38 To to answer your first part, though, in regards to the corporate world and what has led on, what I can say is for sure the ten years that I had experience in helping people that are in a distressed situation. Has helped me tremendously in the last four with what I'm doing now, because my main target is people that need a need to sell a house or have a reason, or motivated to sell their house for whatever reason. So being that I was working with people that had to sell, it just helped me work with them and the organization, learning the corporate structure and the organizations, the report.
Alex 00:22:13 So all that education did help me out to be more successful now where I am able to just run my own stuff because I learned how to put systems in place to be able to say, hey, I'm going to work off my cell phone, but I got a system that's marketing out to homeowners automatically, and I got systems that I also do have a couple other colleagues that I work with as well, and I've been able to kind of get that in place where I am just working off of this. Someone calls me, I can pick up, I can text, or I have my systems that work off the phone. Technology has made it really more amazing. Yeah. but it took me time for this to, to get all that together. Yeah, I learned some of it, but to implement it, I mean, I'm still implementing it.
Jenny 00:23:00 Hey, Jenny here. Quick pause for a shameless plug, but it's for a good cause, I promise. As you know, listening to the Career Flipper podcast, my career path has been, well, I don't know if you call it creative.
Jenny 00:23:15 From customer service to furniture flipping to podcasting to marketing. It's been an interesting ride, but through it all, one thing has stayed the same. I love helping people and that's why I put together some customer service training courses on Udemy for business. They have a ton of lessons from things that I learned back in my corporate days, and you'll actually get to see corporate Jenny in her element because I filmed them quite a while ago. It's the good, the bad, the awkward of helping customers. So whether you are looking to start your own business and want to work really well with your customers, or you're thinking about pivoting into customer support or customer experience, we could all use a little help with customer service. All the courses are under 60 bucks. They're available worldwide, virtually from your couch, and over 16,000 students have already taken them. And it has a 4.6 average rating. That's out of five. So pretty cool. I'm really proud of them, and checking them out helps keep this podcast going so you can find them over at the Career flipper.com/courses.
Jenny 00:24:27 If you would like to take one or both. Okay, sales pitch over, I hope you visit the career flipper.com/courses. Now let's get back to the episode. That's a that's a good call out right there that in order to get to that place where there is that like, you know, we all talk about freedom and flexibility with our job. There are does need to be systems in place for things to still get done. And like we were talking about before, like building our websites or like the marketing that we do for our businesses or like how that works. Like there's a lot of stuff that goes into all of that to make it. So the rest of it just kind of flows on a daily basis and keeps it easy for us. It's working smarter, really. At least that's what I think about it a lot. I'm like, I don't want to be doing X, Y, and Z over and over and over all the time. I want to develop a system so it flows really easy, and I can focus on the other things that need maybe a little bit more attention.
Alex 00:25:26 Yeah, absolutely. You want I mean, systems are extremely important and more than anything, the kiss, keep it stupid simple. It's so it really does become that simple for us as humans. We we tend to think too deep into certain things or probably are afraid of certain things, and that it's analysis paralysis. And I see that constantly in the real estate side with my investors. They they have analysis paralysis, say, oh, I want to jump and actually flip this property and move it because I don't know, maybe this and that. And then all of a sudden someone else jumped in and they're the ones making the 3040 grand.
Jenny 00:26:00 Right, right. There's like two sides of it where it's like we want to think about, make the kind of the, the calculated thoughts around making these decisions. But then if we don't go quick or be a little impulsive like you mentioned, which is just kind of like your personal nature, there has to be kind of a blend of both where you have to be willing to take a bit of a risk, but also know that there is planning and structure that needs to be developed to be able to do it.
Jenny 00:26:27 How do you find that balance between both of those, especially when you're looking at a house like, how do you how do you make the decision whether or not to go all in?
Alex 00:26:37 I mean, I guess in my world on the real estate side, it's a numbers game. For me, it's all numbers. when I'm looking at a property, I'm determining, well, what am I going to sell it for? How much is it going to cost to sell it? What's it going to cost to fix it? To be able to sell it? Yeah. So it's really numbers. I don't have any emotions involved on it. I look at everything as numbers. but it is hard to try to differentiate and be like, oh, I want to jump on this one. I think there's that opportunity because the numbers that we have to work off of are not set to numbers. The market can change in two months as we've seen it happen, constantly going up and down.
Speaker 3 00:27:13 Yeah.
Alex 00:27:14 It can definitely change.
Alex 00:27:15 So you really have to make those, try to make those educated decisions and try to be responsible and as educated as you can. and it depends your position where you're at too. Like for example, I'm young, I'm not married, I don't have children. My, financial responsibilities are there, but they're probably not as high as some. A family that has two kids has the house, has all the schooling and all that expenses. My expenses are more of just traveling. And those are leisure's for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:27:44 right.
Alex 00:27:45 So you gotta you obviously have to be responsible. And you got to think, where are you in your part and your point in life? The biggest thing, though, is the happiness and being able to enjoy it, because going to work and bringing in the money and having all this money in the bank, but if you really can't go and do anything, or you get your 2 or 3 weeks that you can go and enjoy because you get your three weeks on it, what fun is that? I mean, I there's no fun to that.
Alex 00:28:11 I'm able to go and take a four day weekend and go enjoy it with no problem. Now I can go and say, you know what, I'm going to go to Colombia for a month because I want to go to go do my teeth work and my eyeglasses. I am actually doing that.
Speaker 3 00:28:24 Yeah.
Alex 00:28:25 But I, I'm able to do that. And at the end of the day, I can still work for my phone and still do do my calls out there might cost me a little bit of international cost, phones, but it's it's out there. It is, about making sure that you're responsible for being happy because I think life is about enjoying it and not being stuck to the man or that corporate, that corporate world. And if and to your listeners, they're thinking, oh, how can I do it? Or what? Or what do I do? Think outside the box. Think about all right, how much do you really have to make to survive while you're doing what you want to do? Okay.
Alex 00:29:01 You got to figure out how to make that money. I've done the DoorDash, I've done the piece of delivery, and I've. I've done what I've had to to be able to get income coming in to afford certain to afford to pay bills. You have to. But it's that freedom is so invaluable of being able to not having to say, I gotta go in and be at this office by 9:00. I have to do this. I have to meet these goals or these deadlines or anything. Now I set myself goals and deadlines. I mean.
Speaker 3 00:29:31 Yeah.
Alex 00:29:32 Take that away.
Speaker 3 00:29:33 Right, right.
Alex 00:29:35 but it is a big freedom. And I think freedom is priceless. Freedom is priceless. And having the freedom of not just like we have freedom of speech and freedom of everything here in the country, but our freedom of our time, our freedom of our time is so much more valuable than that $150,000 W-2 paycheck. And by the way, a self-employed. You save a lot more money in taxes than a W2 employee.
Jenny 00:30:04 That's great advice, and I think a lot of people listening can really I mean, that resonates. It resonates with me. I mean, just making the choice and doing what you have to do. Like we were talking before, like, right now I'm doing some part time contract work, customer experience, IT kind of tech support. And, you know, it's paying my bills. It's essentially funding the dream. And I think when we rethink these things, we can build the life that we want that makes us happy. But also you said something, Alex is like, how much do we really need? you know, I feel like, like when we have that big paycheck, There's always something to spend on. And sometimes when there's a little bit more in our bank account, it's easier to be like, oh, I'm going to buy this on Amazon, or I'm going to go do this, but do we really need these things? And I think, I don't know if it was the same experience for you, like when you, you know, kind of shifted to not having that stable paycheck.
Jenny 00:30:59 But when I got laid off, I was like, oh, I'm really reevaluating the things that I actually need. I don't need that shirt. I don't need that, you know, body lotion like these things that were just like, oh, click, click, click. I'm going to buy.
Speaker 3 00:31:12 I don't need.
Alex 00:31:13 Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I mean, when, when I left my company, I was, I left a six figure job. I was making a very good, very good income. Where to me spending money on this, spending money on that, I didn't care, I didn't care about it because I had it coming in. And when I was working, I knew I was going to get a check of 15 grand the next month, and it was just coming into I did not care. Now it's a whole different story. but when I did make that change, I started completely not spending money going out, start cooking in it and started saving and, you know, adjusting.
Alex 00:31:45 I mean, I got to the point where my house in Philly, I was renting out my rooms, I rented out the rooms to friends, and they helped me cover my mortgage. What? My house in Philly had an in-law suite, and I had that rented since I bought the property, so all that helped me, cover my mortgage. In fact, I do that now. Downstairs. My basement's rented out to someone.
Speaker 3 00:32:04 Hey. yeah.
Alex 00:32:06 So, I mean, I found ways to to make money, and then. Yes, I found ways to conserve. I got rid of my expensive car payments. I got rid of all all the luxury items that I had that I should have never had them to be at the. I mean, now, in hindsight, when I look at this now and how much I've learned in the past ten years is insane. When I was making that kind of money, and this is 2010, 2011 where I could have bought properties at 40 or $50,000, and they'll be worth 2 or $300,000.
Alex 00:32:35 Now, I could have bought them in cash, but I didn't. I mean, I spent the money elsewhere, I did buy my house and I didn't do some investments, but nowhere near as what I should have. Yeah. and I mean, I we kicked it in Philly. Don't get me wrong. We kicked it in Philly. But in the grand scheme of things, yeah, I should have done that differently. So if anyone that's looking to think about their careers or in a good position, or I'll take all that into consideration, look at your lifestyles and look at what it is. I'm happier now that I'm doing my free stuff than when I was making 200 grand a year.
Speaker 3 00:33:09 Yeah.
Alex 00:33:10 and it's and it's the happiest. And I have everything I had. I had everything, really?
Speaker 3 00:33:16 Yeah. Yeah.
Jenny 00:33:17 Same I completely I mean, that hits I just, I totally feel that same way. I, I feel like richer now than I was then. And I am making a lot less and, I think it just shows how we define success.
Jenny 00:33:34 You know, how we like. It's not always a paycheck. I mean, if that is what it is for someone, cool, okay, that's on them. But like, you know, success can look different. And Alex, how do you define success for yourself and where you're at now?
Alex 00:33:48 So for me, success is where I'm at the point that everything is kind of flowing in automatically. My leads are coming in. I have a team that's managing them and they're reaching out to me. We got this, we got that. And and I'm able to kind of manage it all and direct everybody. I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. I've always been a business owner. I grew up as my dad, as a business owner. So to me is to have a successful business with with income coming in and have successful, properties, whether commercial or residential, where I have passive, where I have the rental income coming in, in my assets, that's my retirement plan. I don't have A41K, I don't got any of those type of retirement plans.
Alex 00:34:27 My retirement plan is building assets and I feel I'm success. I feel I'll be fully successful once I have sufficient amount of money coming in to be able to pay all my expenditures, and me being able to at least travel once a week. excuse me, once a month. travel somewhere where I can say I'm spending, like, 2500 bucks. Three, three grand on a traveling on a monthly basis.
Speaker 3 00:34:51 Yeah. Yeah.
Jenny 00:34:53 I love that. And you've created that definition for yourself, and you're living it every day and making it making it happen. And this is a great conversation, Alex. You've shared a lot of very it's very realistic. You know, the leaps were very realistic and very grounded. And anyone could really do that. And I think that it takes a certain type of person who is open and impulsive and, and also saying, you know, it's going to work out, I know it's going to work out and I'm going to do it anyways, because staying is just not going to be what's best, because it doesn't lead to happiness and the success that you see for yourself.
Jenny 00:35:35 So I just really appreciate you coming on and sharing so much. And how can people find you? How can they connect with you? Where can they learn more?
Alex 00:35:45 I'm on all the social medias, all the TikToks and all that. I'm not dancing on them though. Pharaoh. Homebuyers. This. This has been great. I appreciate it, and I'm glad, we definitely caught up that it's been been too long.
Jenny 00:35:57 Yes, definitely.
Alex 00:35:58 Been saying it. Next time I'm in San Diego, I'm gonna hit you up.
Jenny 00:36:01 Yes, definitely. Let's do it. Let's do it. I would love to see you. Thank you so much, Alex.
Alex 00:36:06 You're welcome. Jenny. Good seeing you.
Jenny 00:36:09 Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Career Flipper. Want to connect with Alex? Check out the links in the show notes. If you like this episode, send it to a friend who might need a little boost today. And if you hit that subscribe button, you'll get more stories from awesome guests like Alex every single week.
Jenny 00:36:26 Because let's be real, figuring out this career stuff is easier when you know you're not the only one winging it. If you have your own career flip story to share, visit the Career flipper.com to submit your story for a future episode. You know what I love most about hosting this podcast is really the chance that one of these stories might be the nudge that someone needs to take that first step toward, I don't know, whatever it is they want to change. And I know that first step is really scary because again, I've been there, but it's also where really good shit begins. Whether it helps you grow or leads to something completely unexpected, it's worth it. So keep going, my friend. What's the best that could happen?