Please reach out to Paul Montelongo on Linkedin

Please reach out to Letitia Reyna-Montelongo on Linkedin

Check out StatusJet HERE

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Rey Treviño [00:00:00] Rolling out of bed. Got your bag on your mind? Commercial real estate. Where are we headed in 2024? We’re going to talk about that and much more with commercial real estate experts on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Rey Treviño [00:01:28] Well, hello as always, and thank you for tuning in for another episode of The Crude Truth. As we continue to roll into 2024, there’s just so many things that are unanswered as we continue to invest, whether it’s in oil and gas, real estate and technology. And today we’re going to talk more and focus on the real estate side and networking. Today, I also do have, brought back my co-host Kristy Kerns, current Kristy. How are you?

Kristy Kerns [00:01:55] Good. How are you?

Rey Treviño [00:01:56] Doing Real. Well. I’m so excited today. Especially for the guests that we have on. I mean, these two individuals are literally, like, creating a trail and just the net worth and the network that they’re continue to grow. You know, our guest today, for those out there that I can already see but are listening, our guest today are Paul and Letitia montelongo. Guys, how are you all.

[00:02:18] Awesome.

Letitia Montelongo [00:02:19] Super great. We’re super happy to be here too.

Rey Treviño [00:02:22] Oh, man, I promise the Walmart gift card is in the mail.

Paul [00:02:25] Okay,.

Rey Treviño [00:02:26] In the mail.

Paul [00:02:26] All right.

Rey Treviño [00:02:27] And, Because that’s what it took to get you guys here.

Paul [00:02:30] So we’re already taking the tour?

Rey Treviño [00:02:32] Yes. Yeah, the tour is done. It’s all done, you know? Guys, thank you all so much for coming in. I know y’all happy to be in North Texas. Yeah. And, when I heard your words, like, guys, y’all got to come on the show and, to kind of, give a little background and opportunity. Opportunity to me, Letitia, at the, family office summit, I think I said that. Right. It’s that correct. And, Fort Lauderdale here a couple months back, and that’s a big group of, high net worth individuals that are always looking for different types of investments. Is that a best way to put that?

Letitia Montelongo [00:03:03] Yeah, it is. And we love that’s the first time that I had actually been to the family office Club Summit. Okay. It was amazing. I got pretty much everything I wanted out of it. Kind of dove in the water the first time I heard about it. For a couple of years. Richard Wilson, who actually we found out about Richard because he was a speaker at our summit. He invited us to it, so I was I was happy to go. And, you know, it’s really interesting when you talk to high net worth individuals in a grand scheme like that. There were a thousand people at the conference. Right? So it was immense to begin with. But then when you really sit down and listen to all the issues that people that have millions of millions of dollars their lives, they have just as many issues as we do too. So the topics were really interesting.

Rey Treviño [00:03:45] I enjoyed the topics and the fact that there’s so many people that had the same issues, and you could sit there and bounce ideas off of people. That and you didn’t sound. Like. Pretty well. No, I didn’t, you know, I was like, well, man, I got this issue or this. And you know, you know, taxes on this, this amount here. Y’all see how I’m even uncomfortable talking about millions right now on my own podcast. So to be in that room, I own it. Yeah. Well. But to be in that room, it was very, very confident. You know, I was like, hey, you know, because everybody had the same kind of problems and everybody knew you weren’t trying to, you know, be a be a mean person or try to open up. Everybody’s like, hey, what are you doing for this? You know, that is one thing that I’ve read lately is like, hey, people at the top, they collaborate. They’re not trying to compete down at the. It’s like, let’s collaborate and let’s do things. And so Paul, you know, I we’ve had a great laugh and a great times to just open it out. Can we, can we talk about you guys for a minute? Sure. That’s obviously you all are from San Antonio Paul and I’m going to leave it there.

Paul [00:04:42] San Antonio, Texas, that’s where we live. And, Leticia and I have been married now four and a half years. And we’ll tell you that story in a minute. Okay. But, we she she has two daughters. I have two sons. And between us, we have seven grandchildren. Oh, wow. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Yeah. Okay, good. So. Yeah.

Letitia Montelongo [00:05:03] Can you write him off on your taxes? I know that they. I think

Paul [00:05:07] where they, who gets the money when we die? I don’t know what you think in. All right. But but. Yeah. No, we’ve been married four and a half years. So, I was born and raised in San Antonio, but I lived away from San Antonio about a dozen years. I live in Las Vegas and Salt Lake and North Carolina, various places. But, doing real estate? Yes, doing real estate. And then I moved back to, Austin 2018. I was. Doing a podcast. She was doing a TV show. Her TV show was about cryptocurrency. I had heard you could buy a real estate with cryptocurrency.

Rey Treviño [00:05:42] Yes.

Paul [00:05:43] She looked real pretty on Facebook. Okay. So I reached out and I said, can I interview you on my podcast? Okay. And, you know, she said nothing. For six. For six months. For six months. Nothing. I let it go. About six months later. So, you know, I need to look that up, make sure my dates are right. But I’m pretty sure six months later, I messaged her again. I’m going to be in San Antonio. Can I come interview? She says yes. We hit it off in ten months. Later, we were married. Wow. The best part, I think, is that she had been, she had been single for 13 years. I had been single for 13 years. I don’t think either of us had any any idea of any plans to get remarried. And then we met each other and then, you know, the rest is history, as they say.

Rey Treviño [00:06:27] I would say, yeah, that’s that’s history. Especially at ten months, no plans. And then boom, you’re right. After ten months.

Paul [00:06:32] Right? Right.

Letitia Montelongo [00:06:33] But he didn’t know what he was dealing with. Tell us about our fourth date.

Paul [00:06:38] So this is this is where I knew. This is how I am. This is where everything came clear, by the way. What I’m about to tell you has served us tremendously in our professional career.

Rey Treviño [00:06:48] Okay.

Paul [00:06:49] So we have a few dates on fourth date. She turned to me and she says, so, Paul, what are your plans with me?  Yeah. Like what it where we call that pretrial pre pre closed question.

Rey Treviño [00:07:01] Yeah. Yeah.

Paul [00:07:02] Trial crowd closed and I said so I looked there straight in the eyes and I said my intentions are to date you to see if you’re the person I want to marry. And I’ll know very soon. Right. So what do you like?

Letitia Montelongo [00:07:13] You take number five.

Rey Treviño [00:07:14] Okay

Paul [00:07:16] I got. So I got date number five. And, you know, very soon thereafter, we started talking about marriage and went off to Hawaii and got married. No, I did, yeah, very. Yeah. Just the two of us on a beach sunset in the back and a and a Polynesian and Polynesia Polynesian minister.

Kristy Kerns [00:07:32] Really?

Letitia Montelongo [00:07:32] We do that. The minister made him sing to me.

Paul [00:07:36] Yes, well, I sang the vows to her.

Kristy Kerns [00:07:39] Did you really? Yeah.

Paul [00:07:40] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 [00:07:41] Did you really? Well, he played really good. I did. It was so cute.

Paul [00:07:44] I did, it’s on recording somewhere.

Rey Treviño [00:07:46] Oh my gosh.

Paul [00:07:47] Yeah. So. And then we came back, and then we had a big, big thing with all of our family and friends. And our big should go. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it’s been a ride. And then right after that, there was, there was this thing that happened, I don’t know, there was a toilet paper shortage or something.

Rey Treviño [00:08:00] I heard about that bowling pin shortage.

Paul [00:08:03] So we were like, we were there together. Newlyweds trying to understand each other in the first place and then trying to understand, you know, this thing that was happening to the world. And so I.

Letitia Montelongo [00:08:13] Just go to my room and go, like, I don’t even really know this. Guy. I’m like, drafting no function for me. Like.

Kristy Kerns [00:08:20] How did that play out?

Letitia Montelongo [00:08:22] I was okay after a while.

Paul [00:08:24] Yeah. But but the other thing was, you know, I have I have a long history of real estate. Yeah. My first real estate deal when I was 17. So I’ve been doing a lot of real estate. I’d sold out of a property to move back to Texas. I was kind of chilling out, and she, you know, we met, and then she says, listen, you have this skill set and you have these things that you know how to do. Let’s go. Let’s go get some real estate. And then I over the next 24 months, well, 18 months after that, that happened in 2020. About 18 months later, we’re like $80 million worth of assets, under management. Right. And so, you know, we just we created a plan and we went after it. And have you need to ask. I’m just saying this, okay. You need to ask how it is. How how are we with working with each other?

Rey Treviño [00:09:13] Well, I was gonna know you. You teed me up a minute.

Kristy Kerns [00:09:17] Getting ready to say how was that good.

Paul [00:09:18] Thats your question?

Rey Treviño [00:09:20] Yeah, that was great, Kristy.

Kristy Kerns [00:09:23] That was it. Working together.

Paul [00:09:25] Great question.

Kristy Kerns [00:09:26] Answered.

Letitia Montelongo [00:09:28] It’s good.

Paul [00:09:29] It’s good.

Kristy Kerns [00:09:30] Do you find that you empower each other a lot better?

Letitia Montelongo [00:09:32] And you know, I feel like we had to figure out our roles in the business. Right. And now it’s great. At first it was a little because, you know, I had been independent for a long time, and I kind of had my own little businesses for those 14 years that I was by myself because I, I worked in corporate America. Okay. And then in 2008, I left, I was a senior vice president of a fortune 500 company. I traveled Monday through Friday. I was on the go. I was a conferences. I was doing my thing. And then when it happened, I got I was part of the reduction. Right. So I said, I’m never going to be laid off and fired again. I’m going to start my own little business. So I had multiple businesses. So then we got married. It was just like, you know, Paul is used to be an entire engine. So is Leticia. So, you know, it was a little bumpy at first, but I feel I feel like now we’re great. I do, you know, you being a coach, I, I run will not run, but I am the chair of a women in multifamily group in San Antonio. So I do a lot of women events. And one question I always get from the women is like, how is it when you work with your husband? How do you when you’re really a D, right? I’m a D in the desk. How do you actually tame that feminine energy? Right. So so that has been very you know, at first I didn’t want to, but now I feel like is I lean into my feminine energy. We work together so much better. Yeah. Right. And he wants to take me on more dates. So I love it. It’s worked out good for me.

Kristy Kerns [00:10:57] I wish that so many more people could understand the feminine energy and women understanding that it’s okay to be you’re okay to be masculine 9 to 5, but you had to turn that off and.

Letitia Montelongo [00:11:07] Made a huge Difference..

Kristy Kerns [00:11:08]  Yes.

Paul [00:11:10] yeah, we just had to figure out.

Letitia Montelongo [00:11:13] Do you want to say anything about

Paul [00:11:14]  jump on your podcast?

Rey Treviño [00:11:16] No, no, I got nothing.

Paul [00:11:19] So we just had to figure it out. And you know, we did. Right. So

Rey Treviño [00:11:24] Well. You talk about having to figure it out. And then again, you know, obviously I guess there were some fights over how many ply in the toilet paper was in 2020 just to get together. But yeah, again, you know, Kristy, you really asked it right. And you teed it up. It’s like because of that question that she asked you on the fourth day, you know, how has that been and what was it that y’all can work 9 to 5 together, you know, how is it, you know.

Paul [00:11:49] So that question to me, yeah was a reflection of like a go getter mentality. Okay. And so I knew that I knew myself well enough to know that if I was going to marry someone again, I need that go getter mode mentality with me. And aside from the interior and exterior beauty right there, like this characteristic really meant something to me. Yeah. Yeah. And so the other thing was to, you know, I got to hang out with her daughters, and her daughters were high quality people. So I’m like, okay, that the apple does it for fall for the tree. So that made sense to me. But in terms of business, it’s that that attitude, that mentality that has really moved us forward. It’s like, okay, what’s next? Here we go. What are we doing here now? How do we get this close and how do we get this set. And that that, you know, go getter mentality is really I think it’s critical in business. Right. Yeah. So it’s been a real. It’s been a real inspiration.

Rey Treviño [00:12:43] Well, in the go getter mentality, first of all, I can I can completely understand having somebody with you by your side that has that type of an attitude. That’s what you want. And sometimes you don’t know it when you’re, well, when you don’t have it. And then once you’ve seen it in certain forms and aspects, it’s like, oh, that’s, that’s why they’re, they’re here and, and they’re doing things together. And so I think that’s really, really cool. And then I want to talk about that, you guys, you mentioned that you’re at a summit and you talk about that go getter mentality that you two being together. Let’s talk about y’all summit and which I’ll do there.

Letitia Montelongo [00:13:19] Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things when Paul and I got married, we really were very conscious. We’re like, okay, we’re not in our 20s anymore, right? And we were in pretty good shape for our ages. Right. So when we got married, I was 37. Yes. Okay. And Paul is 61. Okay. So we wanted to like, make sure that we whatever we did, we went ahead. Adventure and fun. Right. We we didn’t want to be put in this little box that you’re like baby boomers. You want to go out and have fun, do a good job. So we’ve kind of taken that adventurous attitude that we have and we we put it in our business. So our summit is actually called the Adventures Investment Summit. So we don’t just have people sitting around in a conference room. We had it in Scottsdale was the first one. We rented these two beautiful mansions. I think just the lodging alone cost us $65,000 for four days off. Right? Then they were like, high end private chefs came in. We had yoga instructors fly in. We had hand yoga every morning out on the grass. Then we had these amazing speakers come in. Richard Wilson, the one who owns the family office. He was one of our speakers. So we had high end speakers come in. And then during the day we’d have great sessions. The chefs made us fabulous food. We did fun events like we all got on jeeps one day and went out in the desert, for our jeep ride. So we want to make sure that as we’re working, that we’re pouring as much fun and excitement and adventure in it as we can. And then we’ve identified with people that we seem to be attracted to us that want that same, that same adventure.

Paul [00:14:46] Right? And that’s the way we live, right? Like, we we’re highly active people. And it’s not just business, but it’s a lot of fun. In fact, when we first got together, we’re like, no, we’re talking about our our values. Yeah, right. So, Aaron, I made a list. You made a list in the top characteristic or a value that we shared was adventure. So it’s like we’re going to live an adventure. Adventurous life. Now, that doesn’t always mean like, bungee jumping, you know, like, this is an adventure. Yeah, yeah. So it’s a perception. Yeah. But everything that we do, we see it as an adventure. And we’re always looking to to, you know, to have a day of excitement and, and squeeze everything out of the day. Yeah. That’s true.

Letitia Montelongo [00:15:26] No matter what it is like. The first time we went on a ski trip, we went with our families, right? Yeah. We went up to, Wolf Creek, which was we love to go skiing there. And so we were there for a week, and we were supposed to go home Saturday and Friday night it snowed like 18in, and all the kids were getting in their cars, go home. And I told him, I said, hey, look, I only to ski one more day and, you know, we’ll just drive all the way home. It’s okay if you drive one now. And what are you thinking about? Yeah, let’s do it. So we get up that morning, we get to the ski resort. Well. Is we’re checking in. They’re like, hey, you’re going to be in the races today. And we’re like, sure, why not? You know, so they sit this up. So we get to this hill that’s about downhill skiing, right? You know, we I ski a couple times a year, but I am not a downhill skier. But we have our little numbers on and and as we get to the top, Paul looks me he goes to notice anything about this line. And I said, no, he goes everybody has helmets on and they have matching jackets. So I think it’s all the ski teams from around here and they’re all like 25.

Paul [00:16:20] We did the race.

Letitia Montelongo [00:16:21] Not first in this age group. I think I’ve been like for. It was so crazy. And then now I’m thinking about I’m like, oh my God. Because it was like that kind of downhill skiing. Right. With the. Flags. Oh its crazyBut he was so much fun.

Kristy Kerns [00:16:35] Did you guys get helmets eventually or. No.

Paul [00:16:37] Yeah,Oh do we helmets I guess. Yeah. Not that.

Kristy Kerns [00:16:39] I know, but I set up.

Paul [00:16:42] Oh eventually. No no no

Letitia Montelongo [00:16:43] we didn’t. But it was so fun.

Kristy Kerns [00:16:45] Oh my gosh.

Paul [00:16:46] Yeah yeah. But anyway so our summit.

Paul [00:16:50] So so we want to attract people that are like us you know. And so you know not everybody’s for us and we’re not for everybody. Yeah. So so these are people with an adventurous spirit and adventurous soul. And we mixed like a heavy duty real estate education. And with it like growing really high quality education. And so and these are all people that if they weren’t before they’re doing deals now, most of them were doing deals before. So these are these are people that are in the business and want to be in the business at a next, higher level. And so yeah, that’s it was awesome.

Rey Treviño [00:17:26] Well, let’s let’s talk about Charles real estate background. Him not necessarily diving into the portfolio. You know that’s that’s for the circle. And you know we’re not there. but you mentioned it. They go, hey man. In 18 months we had a we had a portfolio of $80 million. Right. You know, what is it that you guys are looking for? You know, let’s talk about what we can, you know, talk about on that and how y’all been able to build that up and why people want to go to the summit. That should have more.

Paul [00:17:50]  Yeah. So I have a background, a very, very strong background in construction and real estate, like from when I was a boy. Okay. So when we decided to start buying multi-year, when I started buying multi-unit properties back in the early 20 tens, I was looking for what’s called in the business value add. In other words, is it need some fix up? Yeah, we need some fix up. We can increase the appreciation and then we sell it all. So that’s the kind of product that we, we buy now. We buy A, C and B products. For the most part we have some A’s, but we buy season B’s. Need a little bit of a little bit of TLC. We we apply that. We increase the value, increase and increase the sales price and then sell it for ourselves and for our investors. Okay, okay. And so, that’s that’s what we pursue. That’s kind of what we’re known for. And we become real good at it. And so we’re going to do more of that. In addition, we’re also doing new development because remember my background heavy duty construction. So we’re doing a brand new storage facility. We’re doing a brand new 450 unit class A product here in Denton area. Yes. And so the storage is in San Antonio is a brand new from the ground up products. You know, we get to decide what kind of product to put on the ground that matches the market. And we’re excited about those.

Rey Treviño [00:19:12] Well, you know, when it comes to multifamily, you know, what type of an annual, what’s what y’all go for an annual like, hey, you know, you get your investor group, you get your team together, and it’s like, we’re going to build these. It’s going to take X amount of time. But if you took all that time from day one, the investment from day one, what type of an average return on you guys going to be looking at on something?

Paul [00:19:33] Well, the the historical track record right now is about a 33 month turnaround, okay. With about A2X return bearing. Okay. It’s a little bit over two x. So that’s been the history we’re in interesting times right now. Oh yeah. Will that history maintain itself. You know I actually think that the the turnaround period will be a little bit closer to 60 months, you know, until until the economy adjust. The returns will still be the same, but the business plan is just a tad bit longer. But we do take our properties out to market at year three. Okay. Sure. When we test the market, we see if the market will reply with favorably so that we can sell it. But that’s that’s the overview.

Rey Treviño [00:20:16] While we know Kristy, Paul, Leti here really got there, I always like, hey look, here’s where we’re at. But this is 2024 and this is what. So I mean you guys are kind of just talking the  Crude truth individuals. You know and just being honest with individuals. It sounds like like we don’t know.

Paul [00:20:33] Well yes.Yeah. So we’re we’re very fortunate that we have a group of investors, that travel with us from deal to deal and that word spreads and because of what we do, like on a networking basis. We’re always attracting new investors. They see the track record. So it’s it’s a self-perpetuating machine. And, you know, we like it. And because it’s working well and because we have the infrastructure to handle it. We’re expanding, which was our dream in the, in the, in the beginning was to really have a really cool portfolio, a legacy portfolio.

Rey Treviño [00:21:10] Yes.

Paul [00:21:10] You know, for ourselves and our family.

Rey Treviño [00:21:13] That, you know, I like how you just. I mean, Kristy, please, you’re better at this kind of stuff. But like when you said this was the dream and the idea, then you kind of eluded to the Latitia over here saying, you know, this was her you helping you out to really expand what your idea was.

Paul [00:21:29] Yeah, I, I okay, so if I’m honest. Yeah. Which I hate to say because that means I lied somewhere, but I didn’t. But frankly speaking, I would credit her with with giving me, you know, the nudge always nudging me. Right. And so it’s difficult sometimes for me and for men, I think, to go say, okay, I, I this is troubling me. This is bothering me. I’m having a problem. Community. That’s a man thing. And I’m going to blame it on men. Okay. So but but when I can get through that, when I can work through that. Obviously, her advice is very, very helpful and usually on point. And so, you know, I, I just have to give over to that if I, if I really, if I want to achieve my dreams, which is going to achieve our dreams, I’ve got to give over.

Kristy Kerns [00:22:16] Something to submit to her and let her give advice or whatever.

Paul [00:22:19] Because obviously she’s smart.

Kristy Kerns [00:22:21] Well, and going back to when you guys met, you mentioned, obviously she what the question, were you always a go getter or do you know that she kind of put more fuel in your behind, I guess, to push you forward even more?

Paul [00:22:38] Well, yes. Okay. I was I was always a real go getter. But I’d moved to Austin after selling business and, selling business. And, you know, I was relaxing. I spent a lot of time at Zilker Park with my dog.

Rey Treviño [00:22:53] ACL.

Paul [00:22:55] That’s who I lived pretty close there. Oh, and so, and then, you know, I, I think I really had an awakening when I, when during the, during the pandemic. Right. I think I really had an awakening. It’s like, okay, if I’ve got a certain amount of time remaining in my life, I really need to maximize it. We’d already decided we were going to have an adventurous life. Yeah. So this was going to be a component of that adventure. And so, I didn’t want to leave the planet unfulfilled. I didn’t want to leave the planet without maximizing everything that I’ve got in me. So that’s my governing belief 24 over seven. It’s like, squeeze it out every day. And so yeah, that that applies to business and it applies to everything else.

Rey Treviño [00:23:41] That you guys are just y’all are awesome. And I want to I want to continue on that. In my little teaser I talked about a beachhead. Let’s talk about that real quick, because I think having that go getter attitude, having you to as a team, that’s something. So I wanted to I’ll talk about that.

Paul [00:23:59] Oh, are you going to put that on me. Are you? Let’s put it on, Kristy.

Kristy Kerns [00:24:03] Oh, my God, I’m not part of the team. You guys.

Letitia Montelongo [00:24:05] Common Christy.

Paul [00:24:07] So that acronym is for big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Rey Treviño [00:24:12] Yes.

Paul [00:24:13] And before the before we went on air, we were talking about big, big hairy audacious goals. And if you don’t have that, I should. you that we have to define a word. But we’re going to assume they’re children, right? So.

Letitia Montelongo [00:24:30] An entrepreneur is a.

Paul [00:24:31] Little entrepreneurial, which, by the way, we take our granddaughters on site with us on property tour. What do you. Seven years old.

Rey Treviño [00:24:38] Oh, yeah. I’ve got a two year old. I take them out to the world.

Paul [00:24:40] Oh, yeah. We should.

Rey Treviño [00:24:41] Yeah, you ought to let them know.

Paul [00:24:42] And they may never go into real estate, but they’re learning work ethic. Yes. Right. So that’s part of the big hairy goal.

Kristy Kerns [00:24:51] Waiting for you to slip out.

Paul [00:24:54] Is is to. Leave that legacy.

Rey Treviño [00:24:55] Yeah.

Paul [00:24:55] Right. And so, you know, we have certain number of, of assets under management that we want and we have a certain time frame that we want to do it in. And so for most people, they might think that this is totally undoable. And it may be, I don’t know, but, we’re not going to we’re not going to not try.

Letitia Montelongo [00:25:16] But we’re going to do it. Oh, no.

Kristy Kerns [00:25:17] Yeah, yeah. So, you know, but yeah, that was a little.

Paul [00:25:21] Do you like, what are your intentions here, Paul? Yeah.

Letitia Montelongo [00:25:23] You know,.

Kristy Kerns [00:25:24] There’s no. But.

Letitia Montelongo [00:25:25] The last couple of years we’ve joined a bunch of mastermind, which is really elevated our thinking and really made us think bigger, grow faster. And I think that’s really helped. But, last year we went to, you know, the Jesse Edwards. Yes. So we went to to a retreat at his place in Atlanta. And it’s like an obstacle course place, and you have to sleep in tents the first night, and you have to do ice plunges, and then you have to hold your breath for five minutes. And so it was really interesting. The one thing that I loved about it, he’s got this thing that’s called Build Your Life calendar. And we just got our doing in the mail. So we’ve been working on that. And so what he teaches you is like, you only have so long to live. Right. So if you do three things a day that you love. So write down the ten things that you love to do and pick out three of them and do it. Whether it’s like, I like to talk to my children, I like to do yoga, I like to and just every day figure out how to do those three things. And then once a month. You do something for every six weeks. You do like a long weekend of something you like to do, and then once a year you do something that will you will remember that year by. I mean the hardest, coolest thing that you want to do. And so like us are some it was like a cool thing to us last year. So like for 2023, our big thing is like we had an investment summit and it was super successful and we loved it. Right. And so we’re going to do this every year so that the end of your life, you can say, you know what, I went on 40 freaking badass vacations, right? I did, I went, so I went to here, I went to there, I did all these things every day. I enjoyed my life. And it’s just such a great way to really kind of plan your life. So that’s kind of how we started incorporating our goals.

Rey Treviño [00:27:05] Wow. That’s really cool. I want to do that.

Letitia Montelongo [00:27:08] Yeah. Just answer. Download it.

Rey Treviño [00:27:10] Yeah.

Paul [00:27:11] Shout out to Jesse. It’s for

Letitia Montelongo [00:27:12] Nephew. I mean, he’s he’s so awesome. Anyway.

Paul [00:27:15] Know it’s a life of intention.

Kristy Kerns [00:27:16] Do you think that he helped because you talked about mastermind obviously doing the cold plunges and changing your, you know, can I do this instead of the word I can’t? It was more I can.

Letitia Montelongo [00:27:25] Honestly than cold. Yeah I have always so I like sports and I’m very athletic right. So I’ve always wanted to do those, warrior runs, but I never have done them. And, and I play women’s and volleyball for years and all of my volleyball team, we could do them, but I always can do because I was so scared. Because they always have that. The ready ice truck to dump an ice into a lake that you’d have to swim through. And I was just like, I could never do that part. But then we went to this event 2.5 minutes. I was in that cold ice water. It was so cold. But it was great. Yeah.

Rey Treviño [00:27:54] Don’t ask me. How long were you in

Paul [00:27:56] Two. Yeah. Together. Two. I think it’s two afterwards. Yeah. It’s good. Have.

Letitia Montelongo [00:27:59] Yeah. And there were like six couples at a time doing it. So there was like 80 of 80 couples that went to this event with us. Right. Oh wow. Yeah. It was so amazing.

Paul [00:28:07] It and and I know about all the great health benefits for ice baths and inflammation and all that, but man, it’s tough.

Rey Treviño [00:28:16] I’m not a fan. It’s cold. And I think it’s cool that you had your partner there with you in the in it at the same time because, you know, you get somebody that that you’re with and like, if you like do a ride that you’ve never done or anything like that. And you guys, hey, let’s do this together. And then all of a sudden you’re spinning around like, okay, we’re doing this ride together is like, you know, never done that kind of rider before the ice plunge. Just look and hold on each other’s and that’s it.

Paul [00:28:40] Adventure.

Rey Treviño [00:28:41] Yeah, yeah.

Letitia Montelongo [00:28:43] So since then, we’ve done. Have you heard of that program? 75 part?

Rey Treviño [00:28:47] No.

Letitia Montelongo [00:28:47] So we just finished two of them. So it’s for 75 days. We did it and we ended the day before someone started. Okay. So for 75 days you workout twice a day, 45 minutes each.

Rey Treviño [00:28:57] Okay.

Letitia Montelongo [00:28:58] One has to be outside.

Rey Treviño [00:28:59] Okay.

Letitia Montelongo [00:29:00] You drink a gallon of water a day, a day, okay, a gallon of water. You read ten pages of a book, nonfiction figure, you know, alcohol, and you follow some type of diet and you do it for 75 days.

Kristy Kerns [00:29:12] I’ve been doing that. I don’t know, it’s called take a picture, okay.

Letitia Montelongo [00:29:15] And take a progress picture. Right. So we did that for 75. And if you stay for summer.

Paul [00:29:19] If you skip any of those steps, if you miss a step you have to start over. So it’s an exercise in discipline.

Rey Treviño [00:29:26] Oh I want to try that.

Paul [00:29:27] And planning. Oh wow. The health benefits are great. Yeah but it’s more of a discipline mindset thing.

Letitia Montelongo [00:29:34] Yeah. Makes you plan your day like you have to know the day before. Like, if I have this, call it this. I don’t work out at the.

Paul [00:29:40] 75.

Kristy Kerns [00:29:41] Okay? I’ve been doing that. That was my thing since January 1st two days. So two days. No alcohol, obviously no TV, just reading.

Paul [00:29:50] You could watch TV.

Kristy Kerns [00:29:51] But I guess one.

Paul [00:29:52] And that’s your Thing.

Kristy Kerns [00:29:53]  Yeah, that was my thing. Yeah.

Paul [00:29:54] This is nonfiction book. Yeah.

Letitia Montelongo [00:29:56] So we just finished the second one last week.

Paul [00:30:00] Yeah, ten days ago. So yeah.

Kristy Kerns [00:30:01]  Are you going to do it again?

Letitia Montelongo [00:30:03] I am, he’s doing it again already. Okay. I have some stuff coming up next week I can’t. I can’t

Kristy Kerns [00:30:08]  you know I had to start over.

Paul [00:30:10] But you know but but okay so just so my belief and I think our belief like is how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Rey Treviño [00:30:17] Yes.

Paul [00:30:18] So you know I chose this to actually she said you want to do it. And I said yeah, sure. And then the next day we woke up, she goes, okay, we’re doing it. So I’m like, well, I said, yeah, sure, I guess so. So we started that day and we did it. But it, it to me, it seemed to be a reflection of everything else that we’re doing. Like, can we be disciplined? Can we take care of ourself? Can we follow a plan? Can we commit to a thing? You know, so it’s just a it’s just a reflection of everything going on is the way that I chose to see it. Yeah. And and you know, there were moments where it’s like, man, you know, do you want to quit? And it’s like, no. So I had more.

Letitia Montelongo [00:31:00] Moments in that because my afternoon workouts always got pushed back. Right. My mother lives with us. She’s 85 and I take care of her. And, you know, she’s all that.

Paul [00:31:10] And there have been there have been several times where the last workout ended at 1158.

Letitia Montelongo [00:31:13] Yeah, I would be walking through our neighborhood at night like an Olympic date coming and going, oh my God.

Paul [00:31:18] Yeah. But what, you know, it’s like you make a commitment to something that you and then you. Do it? Yes. Right. And so how many times is someone, make a commitment and then find an excuse or reason, not fulfill that commitment? Oh, yeah. Right. So is that, you know. And where else is that reflected in your life?

Paul [00:31:38] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Letitia Montelongo [00:31:40] So yesterday he was walking when it was.

Paul [00:31:43] 15 degrees or something. Silly.

Rey Treviño [00:31:45] Good for you.

Paul [00:31:46] Yeah. Oh. That’s cool. Yeah.

Kristy Kerns [00:31:48] It was held on elevation, right?

Paul [00:31:51] Yeah, yeah. There you go.  Good job. Yeah.

Kristy Kerns [00:31:57] I always like the best for everything.

Paul [00:31:59] But it doesn’t have to be 70, 75 hard. You know, it’s it’s your relationships. It’s your work ethic. It’s your health and fitness. You know? Like what? How you do one thing is how you do everything. Yeah. True. Yeah. So. But that’s become a real important mantra to us. And if I look back on my life, I’m like, yeah, how I was doing things at that time, that was a reflection of how I was doing things at that time. You know, so it’s always a matter of improvement. Consistently improving. So you get to a point and you just raise the level for yourself all the time.

Paul [00:32:32] Wow.

Kristy Kerns [00:32:33] That’s huge. Yeah, that’s what they say. You know, if you want to be successful, what are you willing to do to put in those things? To be successful at anything that is. Are you willing to work at your relationship? Are you willing to anything? So if you’re not willing to commit and do those things, then you’ll fail at everything.

Paul [00:32:46] And then we find the side benefit, which is really the the best benefit is now there are people that are attracted to that. Yeah. Like so you know, the people that that we are attracted to and that are attracted to us, we share those kinds of values. Yeah. And so now we’re, you know, you run in with that kind of crowd.

Kristy Kerns [00:33:04] Yeah. Your vibe on your tribe, that’s what I the attraction, all that stuff. I love it.

Paul [00:33:09] And so those are those are all. I didn’t know we were going to go there, but I’m glad we did.

Rey Treviño [00:33:16] I’m leaning in. Yeah.

Paul [00:33:20] Oh, my. And hopefully. Okay, let’s let’s talk about a selfish part of it. Hopefully somebody will see that in us and go, you know, those are the kind of people that want we want to be the steward of our investment. Yeah. So there’s a business application, right? Then somebody will see us and go thus. That’s the kind of couple I want to hang out with.

Rey Treviño [00:33:40] Yes. Yeah.

Paul [00:33:41] You know, I’m going to learn from them.

Kristy Kerns [00:33:42] Love it.

Paul [00:33:43] And we don’t think of ourselves as like, couple example or anything like that. But but we do find that we attract those kinds of people in our lives.

Rey Treviño [00:33:51] That is cool. I mean, like, I mean, you the way you’re talking, you all three are talking about this attraction. Now I’m thinking it’s like. Being in the oil and gas industry. You know, we’re so isolated and we’re born in a way that way is like, you know, you keep everything to yourself. You’re quiet, you know, whatever you’re doing. However, I do feel like some things in 2023 have changed that. And, it’s it’s really cool to just kind of listen to you guys talk about your summit, talk about how you all only continue to bring more and more positive people and people that are like minded into what y’all are doing, and that is translating into success in life business. And I mean lack of better words for love, which I think is really, really awesome. And I mean, y’all, y’all came in here. I wanted to talk real estate. Talk about something. I’m coming out here taking notes.

Paul [00:34:41] That’s nice. Yeah. It’s, it’s it’s a great life. And, I think in the world right now, we need positive news. Yes, we need positive people. We need positive ideas. We need to not pay attention to the B.S. in the mainstream media. Yes. And we need to build our own lives.

Kristy Kerns [00:35:03] And a lot of examples of relationships.

Paul [00:35:05] And the lives of people in our world.

Kristy Kerns [00:35:08] For sure.

Paul [00:35:08] And and that’s how the world is going to come together, and that’s how the world is going to improve. And somebody’s got to do it. Yeah, somebody’s got to do it.

Rey Treviño [00:35:18] Well, I’ll tell you what. As we, as we slowly kind of wrap this up, you know, let’s talk real estate real quick for 2024. And you kind of said, hey, we’re not 100% sure, but you know three things before I ask you the question, three things always say to invest in this energy technology in order to estate all through. You’re not going away. You know, technology’s changing every day. Energy can be oil and gas, obviously renewables, all of it. And real estate. Real estate is not going away. And as I’m sure y’all have said many of times, there’s only so much of it. So, you know, on the real estate side, you know, where do you see things going? Are you excited for 2024 as far as the real estate market goes?

Letitia Montelongo [00:35:54] Yes, we are, we are. We have so much on the horizon, so many deals. We’re looking what the new build is going to take a little bit of our time, but we’re excited about it because it is the only, class A five star and it. Oh, so it’s going to be super upscale, beautiful finishes. And we’re close. We we’ve already got the entitlements down. We were out there today. They started doing, the civil engineering. They’re drilling the holes. Okay, you know, checking the soil. So. Yeah. So that’s already started today. We got to see them and meet those folks this morning. So that was good. Our store just was to have a shovel in the ground by March. Oh, San Antonio. Yeah. So that was a you’re working with architects on that. So that’s been really good. And we’re probably going to buy 4 or 5 more multifamily this year. Now or so. And we’re going to have a lot of fun.

Paul [00:36:41] Absolutely.

Rey Treviño [00:36:42] We’re going to have another summit in 2024, right?

Paul [00:36:45] Absolutely. Two more, two more.

Paul [00:36:47]  one for the spring.

Letitia Montelongo [00:36:48] Yet first weekend of May. So if anybody’s interested reach out to us. We can give you details on that okay. we probably going to cap it at 40 again, but, you know, it’s going to be the last one and just make it even more cool this time. So even though it looked great on the from everybody else, there was some things in the background we’re going to work on and make that better for us.

Rey Treviño [00:37:09] Detail?

Letitia Montelongo [00:37:09] Yeah. Detail.

Paul [00:37:10] The details that better experience for for the people that attend. Okay. But on the on the real estate front, it’s it’s a matter I think it’s a matter of mindset. There is opportunity everywhere. Yeah, there’s opportunity everywhere. How can you create that opportunity? That’s your job. Yeah. Make the opportunity happen. And I think 2024 and 2025, for that matter, are going to be exciting times for people that are Heather, have their stuff together and have their business organized to buy real estate. We’re we’re just, like, so excited about the opportunities that we have and that, that we see coming out. And with the summit in the, in the private and, and the mastermind retreat that we do, it’s like, will attract the right people. They’ll come in with us, they’ll have a great time, will connect, they’ll network, we’ll do fireside chats. We’ll have one in the spring. We have one in the in the fall. And, these are these are high end events for high end people. Yeah. So.

Letitia Montelongo [00:38:05] Well. And we and we like it because we he said build your own economy basically. Right. So one of the things that we love about the summit is that our children work with us on that. My daughter is an event planner, so she does all the event planning. Her son is a high end chef. He worked in San Francisco at Michael Mina’s restaurant. He does all the work on that side. So we’ve really been able to incorporate our family, which would be the most important thing. That’s.

Paul [00:38:28] Yes, that’s part of the big goal.

Kristy Kerns [00:38:31] Yes, exactly. The big portfolio.

Letitia Montelongo [00:38:33] The big.

Paul [00:38:35] Hairy.

Letitia Montelongo [00:38:35] Audacious family.

Letitia Montelongo [00:38:42] I got the big. Home. audacious goal

Paul [00:38:48] You’re stuck on the audacious part. That’s not what she wants to hear.

Letitia Montelongo [00:38:54] You said it. Yeah.

Rey Treviño [00:38:57] How can people get in contact with you guys?

Paul [00:38:59] Yeah. Great. So to get in contact with us for our real estate in our social media. Montelongo capital.com. We’ve got a number of ways to get Ahold of us there and to see what we’re doing in the world. We encourage people to follow us on social media because they get to see they get to peer into our lives. We’re unfiltered that way. And and they get to see our adventures, and hopefully somebody will get inspired somewhere along the way to go out and live a life of their venture on their own, if they haven’t already.

Rey Treviño [00:39:27] So on the unfiltered side, then people, you’ll actually hear somebody say, big hairy ass goal that does that.

Paul [00:39:34] Did you hear that?

Kristy Kerns [00:39:35] Yeah, I did.

Paul [00:39:36] That was for you, Kristy.

Paul [00:39:38] Yeah, that was the running joke before the show, right? But yeah, we and the other thing is to we, we invite, people to contact us and talk to us about their, you know, their, their financial and real estate goals and what they want to achieve for their family. And we can see if we can help if we can help. Great. And other than that, if we can establish some kind of relationship or friendship, that’s great as well.

Rey Treviño [00:40:04] Awesome. Yeah. Well, guys, I cannot thank y’all enough. I don’t.

Paul [00:40:09] It’s been so much fun.

Rey Treviño [00:40:10] This has been a blast. I’m looking forward to the, pre, or the post posted in the afterwards. I tell you that much, Kristy. Thank you, as always, for coming back on that. You know, again, with your skills and the life coaching, you know, you ask way better questions that I did on, on this whole front. And thank you for sharing about the real estate as well.

Paul [00:40:29] You’re welcome. Thank you for the invitation.

Letitia Montelongo [00:40:30] So great meeting you.

Kristy Kerns [00:40:31] Yeah. Me too. I’m. I’m excited to get excited to follow you.

Rey Treviño [00:40:36] That to all my guests, to all everybody out there. I want to thank you, as always, for tuning in to another episode. Please be sure to like, subscribe and follow us and we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.

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