Candy Valentino (2:46)

Thank you so much for having me. And I am so sorry that I've been doing this so long, that. That was so long of an intro. Oh, my gosh.

Heather (2:54)

Listen, and you and I were just talking about this before we started recording, and I think it's important for my people to hear this. Unfortunately, we live in a world today where anyone can proclaim themselves an expert, proclaim themselves, you know, a business strategist, you know, really position and personal brand themselves any way they see fit without any credibility, without any reason or justification for these statements. So I do feel it's important when I meet someone like you, it is important to note those accomplishments. And really, here there's so much more credibility beyond you saying, hey, I'm really strong in business.

Candy Valentino (3:33)

Yeah, right. And we have people that, I think because, you know, to be a doctor, an engineer, you need that piece of paper. So I think we have people that don't have any credentials, don't have any experience in teaching what they're teaching, and it's putting a ton of misinformation out there, which we shared, and it's really doing a lot of damage and costing people a lot of money.

Heather (3:52)

Oh, my gosh, it's so funny. I remember when I first launched my personal brand, which was a year before I was fired in corporate America, and I remember saying, gosh, how do I title myself? Right? Because it's easy. When you work for a corporation, you're the chief revenue officer of the corporation that's been given to you. You've been anointed that. But now I was trying to proclaim myself something in the world separate from the company I work for. And I thought, well, what do I call myself? A sales expert? A sales leadership expert? A business strategy. I don't know. And I struggled personally with, you know, should I say that I'm something? What if?

Podcast Host/Announcer (4:31)

Do I need someone to approve this?

Heather (4:32)

Do I apply? You know, do I need permission? And then I kept seeing to your point, Candy. I kept seeing these people that were 21 years old, you know, in bikinis, saying that they were a sales expert. And I'm thinking, that's bizarre because, you know, when I look at your resume on LinkedIn, there's nothing in regards to sales experience or expertise. So it's just funny to me that I struggled so much with how to give myself permission to make a statement about my 25 plus years expertise in an industry. However, others, you know, don't struggle with that. Did you ever feel that same way?

Candy Valentino (5:06)

Oh, my gosh. I also was like, so first we have people that are telling other people to, just as long as you're one chapter ahead, you can then be teaching what every topic it is. And so I remember trying to think, well, how do I differentiate myself that I'm not one chapter ahead, I'm 25 years in this. And also, like, how do you sum up 25 years in a title? Like. Like, it's not just been business, it's been investing in real estate for two and a half, two and a half decades. It's been, you know, exiting companies and like scale and growth. So I really never settled on a title. If you look at my Instagram Prof. It just says like, 24 years in business, 22 years in real estate investing. Because I'm like, that's what I've done. I don't really know outside of that because I don't, you know, business strategist. Anyone can say that. So I didn't want to call myself that coach. There's obviously great coaches, but there's also a lack of integrity in this space. So, you know, it was kind of like I'm just like, well, I'm an entrepreneur, which is what I am. I'm a founder, which is what I am, and I'm an investor and a philanthropist. Like, those are the four things that I have cred in. And you know, other than that, that's about it. So it has been really tough, you know, coming from. I don't even want to say tough. It's just been different coming from being behind the scenes, building a company, working with teams, scale, growth, like managing everything. And then now being front stage, as I like to call it, sharing the information, teaching other people. Because I've been such a doer. I've never really thought about what, like two years ago I was like, well, what do I do when I actually had to, like, stop and think? Like, what do I actually think about when I'm looking at a company? Like, if I was looking to acquire another company, like, what would that. What do I actually think about? That was the hardest part was taking 25 years and like whittling it down to put it in a freaking book. Like, that was really hard. Rather than writing a book to build a platform. Right. There's a lot of different ways that people do things, but I think it's just important to make sure that you're not wasting money with misinformation.

Heather (7:03)

Absolutely.

Candy Valentino (7:04)

All right, let's.

Heather (7:04)

For people who don't know your backstory, because I love your backstory, if you could share with us, you did not grow up. You did not grow up, you know, with a silver spoon in your mouth, going to Harvard with, you know, all the Ivy Leaguers. Give us a little bit of insight into how you came up and how you were able to do it with, basically, it seems like without leadership or a mentor advising you and directing you.

Candy Valentino (7:27)

Yeah. So I grew up in a trailer, really small town. My parents were teenagers. My mom was 16 and 19. My mom was 16, my dad was 19. When they found out that they were gonna have me. So my grandfather rented a piece of land, like a little patch of grass, if you will, so that my parents could buy a trailer from, like, a trailer lot and park the trailer there. And so when you are operating from a place of survival, as opposed to intention within your family unit, you don't have a lot of direction. You don't have a lot of guidance. And truthfully, what probably most people would think is so sad, and maybe there were times, because of some of the things that happened as a child, I'm also so grateful because it's given me the ability to figure things out. It's given me confidence to know that I don't always need somebody else to tell me how to do it or give me advice or even need our own cheerleaders. I hear this all the time in the space. Like, you know, you don't have to do this alone. And we all need mentors and cheerleaders, and of course there's truth, and that can be easy. But if someone's listening that doesn't have a cheerleader, doesn't have someone in their corner, you can do it, too. Like, it starts with us making the decision to decide to do it and then taking the next steps to figure it out. And I find oftentimes, especially in business, people wait to hear the external noise or validation from someone else, but if they just get quiet and still, oftentimes we already know the answer. It's like we already kind of know that we should pivot. We kind of already know that we should leave the relationship, but instead of doing, we let our kind of. Our brain kick in and tell us why we should or should not do that. I think I just got really good at, like, listening to my instincts, because before there were manuals and social media, like, that's All I had. And so I think that served me and I think it'll serve a lot of entrepreneurs if they really start to dial into what they already know and listen more.

Heather (9:24)

And what was that first business and the beginning of you launching your own business when again you had, you didn't have anyone to model after. You were just setting out, trying to figure out how to do it yourself.

Candy Valentino (9:34)

Yeah. So my dad was a mechanic. So he had a little small auto mechanic shop. He was self employed. It was just him working on cars. And he had like one helper. He called him like, I think an independent contractor. So every day I got dropped off at my dad's garage. So every day after school, I didn't learn a sport, I didn't go home, I didn't have a snack. Like I lived the rest of my day in the garage. So I learned a lot of entrepreneurial skills. I learned a lot of hard work. I learned kind of like observing what my dad, even at 20, in his early 20s, you think about it, when I was five, he was 24, you know, trying to figure out how to run a business business on his own. And I watched a lot of that. So it didn't seem to be anything but natural for me to start a business. When I was 19, you know, even though he didn't build a big business, I knew that I wanted to because I watched him miss a lot of things. I watched that he wasn't available to do things because he was always working, always at the garage. And so I thought, maybe there's a better way to do this. And although I knew college wasn't the path for me, because it was just I wanted to get out and not be poor and just, you know, make money. And I didn't want to delay four years and rack up debt and all of that stuff. I just knew that building a large business was what I needed. I knew that I needed a team because I saw what the opposite did. Right. It's like we either have the lessons from people that tell us what to do, or we have lessons on what not to do. More of my life has been lessons of what not to do and to try something new. Because sometimes we get so stuck, stuck in what we have and we're so afraid to change, we forget that sometimes it's like the pain of what is has to be great in order for you to want the unknown. And for me, wanting the unknown kind of came natural. So I got a small business loan. I opened the doors, brick and mortar. I mean, this is 1999, there was no like, boss babe movements. There was no like, women empowerment. It was actually more exclusion. Like, who do you think you are? Where's the owner? Like, I mean, I had to walk into every room and really prove myself. Like, I was wearing suits at 19 years old just for someone to try to take me seriously while my friends were, like, you said, partying, going to college, having fun on the weekends. I had to say a no to a lot of those things. And so I started with an SBA loan, brick and mortar. And I started a wellness spa before they were a thing. 1999, doing. Like, there were hair salons, massages weren't even on the scenes. There was facials and med spas weren't on the scenes. Like, it was only like big resorts and there were none of those in my area. But I had traveled and it was the first time I kind of like left my state and I was in New York and I remember seeing these big things called spas and I'm like, these are amazing. Like, the women are amazing. Like, every woman should have access to this. And so I literally left that trip and came home and I was like, this is what I'm going to do. So started a wellness spa with no understanding of how to operate, no one else in the industry, no one even to model around because the closest one was like an hour and a half. And literally just figured it out. Figured out how to run payroll, how to balance inventory, how to do all of those things and just did the hard work necessary to scale and grow and, you know, obviously built other companies from there, invested in real estate along the way. And here we are, 25 years later.

Podcast Host/Announcer (12:58)

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Heather (15:31)

One of the things that's interesting to me because I didn't do it is many of us and this is, you know, goes for me, we get into a business and we develop some success, some expertise, some knowledge, some confidence, right? And you start feeling like I'm sure you did finally at the in the wellness. Wow. I like broke this, you know, industry wide open. This is innovative. You know, I feel really great about it. We're doing well. How did you then think, wow, maybe I should start investing in real estate and diversify what I'm doing. Ideas like that never crossed my mind.

Candy Valentino (16:06)

So that is really self education. It's what I talk about in my book is like really always expanding our mind and learning our way to build more wealth. I didn't have the visual representation of that in my life. I mean I feel like there was maybe one or two guys in my small town that like had a Cadillac and that was like the rich guy, right? Or the guy that wore a suit. But I read a book at a really young age about and it just made sense. Like about bad debt and depreciating assets and appreciating assets and real estate. And So I was 20, 21, 2021 years old. First couple of years in business, making things work. I had a six week run rate on my SBA loan to figure it out, like six weeks or I was going to be out of money. So talk about your back up against the wall and needing to figure it out. But I feel like that leverage is what was like, I will not fail. I will make this work. And I think sometimes we're a little too soft on ourselves. And I feel like we're in a little bit of a culture that's kind of weak, that we, you know, put down hard work and we put, you know, we want to wrap hard work up into like hustle culture and think that it's like some demonizing thing. But if I didn't work hard, if I didn't say no to a lot of things, have the long nights, I wouldn't. I'd still be in the same place that I was back then. So the story is, you know, it's really kind of interesting. I just think it's. I read the book, I walked out of my business. I was going to buy, at 21 years old, my dream car, which was a Jeep at the time, because what 21 year old doesn't want a Jeep? And I was sitting down with the numbers. I had already went and looked at the car and I was doing a cost analysis because I learned very early that numbers is where you really learn how to build business. So I diligently started seeing, studying accounting and all the business finance so that I can develop my business acumen when I was 19. So then at 21, I was looking at the car and I walked down this. This house that had a foreclosure sign on it, and I was like, foreclosure? What is that? You know, duct tape to the window. Well, the next day I had a client that came in and her name was Marian. She was an agent, a real estate agent. And I'm like, hey, there's a house down the street that's foreclosure. Like, what's all that about? How's that work? And she started telling me all about it. And the foreclosure was $23,000. My Jeep was like $35,000. Fast forward to today. The property's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Has cash flowed every year for 20 years in the Jeep, maybe I get three grand, right? So I didn't buy the Jeep. I bought the foreclosure. And then I realized really quickly that that $23,000 made me money. And the Jeep would have just been something I drove. And I was Instantly hooked. So I realized that while everybody else was doing fun things on the weekend, if I could leverage my money and invest in real assets, that I would be basically doubling my efforts, taking my business money that I'm making, investing it in assets. And now I did one type of job. I worked in the spa. But now I'm actually getting two types of income. And that's all I needed to know to do it over and over and over and over again. Flipping properties long term holds, short term holds, Airbnbs. And then just really started testing investing to see what vertical I really liked. While I was building businesses, investing became fun. It became a way that I could test my knowledge, grow. But then also it was the hobby that instead of like a hobby that takes from you, golfing takes time, takes money, or whatever somebody may enjoy. I looked at it. It was a hobby that gave to me. It gave to my net worth. It gave me more money, and that enabled me to be able to do what I set out to do when I was 19. I said, I don't want to work until I'm 65. I want to do this for 20 years and I'm out. And I literally sold, exited the last company right before my 40th birthday.

Heather (20:02)

That is incredible and such an amazing, inspiring story. Now for people listening, they're going to say, okay, obviously this woman is incredibly smart, was business savvy, just didn't know it yet. What do you say to those people?

Candy Valentino (20:14)

No, I always say, like, I wasn't. And that's the most important thing to remember because all of those things we want to point to because it's easier to say, oh, this person has this because they were really smart. Heather has this because she's really beautiful. Like, everyone wants to point to these different things. All of that is, is fear. You're trying to use an excuse of why somebody else has what you can go out and do. I was not that smart. I was not connected. I had no money. People even like, whoa, your dad had a business. My dad barely made anything. I mean, he just made enough for us to get by and to live. It wasn't like he had a car dealership or something. Like, it was just a little auto mechanic shop in the basement of an auto parts store. And so, yes, I learned real life principles that were amazing and super valuable. If there's anything that I had that people didn't have. And it was just watching that, there was a lot of things I didn't have that I had to overcome. I had to be, you Know, overcome being abused as a child and being sexually abused and like just dealing with having to figure things out all the time and not having parental guidance, not, not having a lot of value instilled and trying to figure things along your way. So there were definitely some blessings for sure, but smarts, connections, money, none of those things were part of the equation. It was far more deciding. It was literally deciding. I remember When I was 15, I was watching an infomercial. It was the very first time. And if there was anything divine that happened before, it would be this. I was 3am I imagine this. I was lived. I lived in this little white trailer. It was the flowered couch that anyone that grew up in the 80s probably had in their home. You know, this like flowered couch and the, the kind of like big TVs were still in and I was flipping through. And it was the first time this infomercial came on and said something around the way of, you are not a product of your circumstances, you're a product of your choices. And the way I interpreted that was that what happened to me, the circumstances that I grew up in, what happened to me as a child, I can't do anything about that. But I get to decide what's next. And that put such a fire in me because I realized that none of this that's around me, my visual representation of the world does not have to define my whole life. It's just a moment. And so from that point on, I remember taking out a sheet of paper the very next day in school and I wrote down three goals at 15. And I said, I want these three things by the time I'm 30. Because that seemed so old, right? 30 when you're 15. And it was things like a certain type of house and a certain type of car and a certain type of job. And I had every one of those things and then some before I turned 23. But that was staying focused, being diligent. A lot of times people want to say it some other thing, but what they're doing is they're discrediting focus and playing the long term game. I said no to so many things in my life so that I could say yes to anything now. So I think that's the most important part. Trade instant gratification for long term gain. And anyone, anyone could do what I did.

Heather (23:35)

Okay, so you kind of glazed over very lightly that you were abused as a child. And I went through something very similar to what you did. And believe me, this is not something that can be glazed over for anyone. Listening right now, if you don't know someone who's gone through any type of abuse or you never have it, truly, in my opinion, the worst thing that ever happened in my life. And for most people, I can't, you know, speak for others, but it's one of the most horrible things that can happen to a child. What did recovery from that or growth from that look like for you in your life while you were building a business?

Candy Valentino (24:12)

So I think that a lot of times when we go through something like that, we start to run from things, right? Like we're running from. So I feel for me, a lot of my. My life, up until even when I started the first business, I was running from that pain, that life. Like, you know, I didn't want. I wanted to make money because I didn't ever want to have to depend on anyone. Like, I wanted to be successful so that I had power and control over my decisions and my autonomy of my life. So that's. I was running from. The interesting thing was I. Even once I got longer on my journey, I never chose what to run towards because I was running so hard, so long from things. Now, if we talk specifically about the abuse, I never talked about it other than when it first happened. I literally bottled it up, stuck it down inside, and for 20 years, never uttered a word. And looking back, it's interesting how our survival mechanisms that are so strong in us will kick in and will really get us through whatever we need. So for me, it was about just always grinding, always focusing, because I didn't realize then that I got so caught up into who I wanted to become and how much. How far I wanted to get away from all this situation, that I was really just trying to create the life that I wanted because I didn't want to acknowledge what was, and I didn't probably address it. I think I was close to 30 before I ever really talked about it and really have only opened up to talk about it publicly in the last couple years is for me, it was one of those things where everything started to connect. My life started to. To be so much clearer when I started to open up, because I think that we are. We have as much pain as great as our secrets. And I think when we're hiding from something and we're trying to minimize something, or we're trying to just completely compartmentalize something, no matter how hard you try or how good you are at it, which I was really damn good at it, it will surface in other ways. It will surface in choosing the wrong partner. Next, it'll surface in making a bad choice and hiring someone or having, you know, who you're going to sleep with or who you're going to marry or. I think that you choose. You choose bad decisions when you aren't really healing what you've already gone through. And so, you know, it was definitely a journey that then took me to, like, really talk about it and open it up. But the interesting thing was when right before I probably talked about it for the first time. I had bought a building because I was investing in real estate, commercial building, and had no idea what I was going to do with it. But I just loved commercial real estate at the time. So I would buy any deal that I could find. And I bought this building. It was sitting there vacant, and I was driving, leaving the business. You know, I'm, like, rushing and pushing, and I'm, like, climbing so many mountains and. And I made this, like, Mecca little place that, like, everyone wanted to come to. And we were really known to be a pioneer in the space on the east coast and, like, all this stuff. And yet I felt so freaking empty. I felt so unfulfilled. I accomplished every one of those goals on my list when I was 15, and yet I still was driving by that building and thinking, is this it? Like, did I. Did I do all of that that I get out of all of this abuse for this. For this feeling? And it was like, in that moment, the best way to describe it, Heather, is like, I. I recognized everything that I've done and then everything that I still didn't have. And at that moment, I was driving by this building, and I thought, what am I gonna do with this building? Like, this has been sitting here for a year. I gotta do something with it. And it was like a voice like, we're talking, said, put your animal shelter there. And I was like, I never wanted to open an animal shelter. I never wanted to have a nonprofit. Like, those weren't things that were ever a conscious decision for me. And. But I did. It was like a gut. It was like a gut check. And it was something that I immediately did. And of course, because everything else I figured out, like, why can't I figure this out, too? So figured out how to start a 501C3 and, you know, turn that building into a kennel and everything that we needed it to be to. To house animals. And it was through that. It's interesting, I built a nonprofit to save animals, but in the process, they saved me. I didn't realize that throughout life because I felt so alone that I turned to animals to heal my dog that I would see, you know, the the rabbits or cats that I would save and want to bring every stray animal home. And so I look back and think if I didn't have all of that happen to me, I wouldn't have the heart that I have now to help end suffering and to not want to see other people go through it. And so really through a very unconventional way that I truly healed. And it was through pure contribution. It wasn't the achievement of my goals, it was through giving and being in service to others.

Podcast Host/Announcer (29:21)

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Candy Valentino (30:55)

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Candy Valentino (31:11)

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Heather (33:35)

I asked you to try to find your passion. Oh my gosh. That's so beautiful. You can make me cry. I love that story. I love that you have turned such a horrible situation into such a gift and I'm just so proud of you. That's such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so back to business because this was something, you know, looking through all of your Content looking, looking at your book, one of the things that you talked about that was helpful to me. Incredibly, as someone who's on this journey now, working, you know, 25 plus years in corporate America, which I know like the back of my hand, I don't know this new entrepreneurial, I'm only a few years in, so I'm a rookie and learning as you go, which is exactly what you did. Figure it out along the way, which is fine. However, it's helpful sometimes when someone's ahead of you and they give you some tips and you know, hearing you explain the difference between someone who's working alone like your father did, versus someone who becomes an entrepreneur like you did. What are some of those hacks and differentiators that you can share with us?

Candy Valentino (34:38)

The biggest thing to remember is oftentimes people think they're becoming an entrepreneur. They think that they're building a business, but really what they do is they end up building themselves a job because they didn't build the business with intentionality of how they want their life to look if they're ever going to exit this company. Because, you know, and it's fine if somebody wants to be a self employed person, Nothing wrong with that. Some people love what they do and they want to continue to be the artist or the talent, but they never sat down to identify are you really the entrepreneur or are you really great with managing people or are you the talent artist within your business and you're the one that should be front stage as we call it, as opposed to building the business and directing the growth. So it's really key. You can build anything you want. But what I see most people do is they don't recognize the difference. So social media has glamorized being an entrepreneur. I have no idea why when I came out of my exit, I didn't even have an Instagram profile. Like, so when I came out of my exit and like saw this, I'm like, why is all of this being glamorized? Like I've been pulling my hair out for 20 years. I'm dealing with employees, lawsuits, like you name like all the things business structure and you know, I mean, it's just been nuts. So I was like, I don't understand. And then I really started diving in and that's when I was like, oh, okay. Well most of these people actually haven't built a business. So that's why they're glamorizing it, because they can take a laptop to the beach and that's supposed to be some Fun thing until they realize that they have to take the laptop to the beach because they have to run the webinar, they have to do the thing, they have to have the workshop, they have to connect with the team. So if you're not intentionally scaling and growing a business, if you're not intentionally building systems and having efficiency in the business that other people can run, you will always be tied to it, and that's a job. And actually, it's harder than just having a job because people think, oh, I want time. I want to be able to do what I want with my time. When you're an entrepreneur, oftentimes you have no control of your time, because if your team, someone calls off, you have to step in. If all of a sudden the event's not going as well as you want, you got to jump in and handle things, or this ball was dropped and you got to jump in. It's actually. Maybe you actually just want a job, and then you can take your money and build assets so that then you can do whatever you want. The difference between building a business and a job is a job. You always are going to trade time for money. A business, you build a machine that generates revenue, generates wealth, so that you can invest it and do anything you want. If I did anything right, it was by reading books in the beginning that taught me that. And I've always been able to. If I do anything that I'm good at, it's identifying patterns, which is why I can and jump into someone's business and, like, really see things, or jump into someone's investment and be like, oh, that's because this, this, this, and this is wrong. Based off of two and a half years or two and a half decades of seeing different patterns. If you want to build a business, it is a totally different skill set than just being really good at something that you do. Neither is right or wrong, neither is bad or worse. But just make sure you know what you're building so that you don't end up in golden handcuffs. I see a lot of times people end up in these golden handcuffs. They. They think, oh, yeah, they look like they're doing great. But really, you just had to sit on back to back this. Or you had to go do all these coaching calls, or you had to do all like. And yes, it's nice that you can do it from anywhere. But you know what's even nicer? To be able to do it from anywhere and not have to drag your laptop around. Unless you really want to. Like, that is really what Building a business is all about. You want it to build wealth so that you're not constantly trading time for money.

Heather (38:13)

Tell me if you agree with this. The most epic fail around the example that you're giving and that you're teaching right now is doing a job, holding a job, but behaving as though it's your own company and you're the entrepreneur. Because that's what was just resonating with what you were saying for me. You're talking about when you're an entrepreneur, you're all in. You're the person has to jump in and fix and solve all the problems. You're the one who has to save the event. You're the one that has to post if nobody else is going to post. P.S. that is how I live my life right now, but that's also how I live my life. When I worked for a company, I acted as though it was my own. And that. That, to me, is the most epic fail ever. That I cared more about the company and the job than the CEO even did.

Candy Valentino (38:53)

Yeah. So I think what happens is when you're in a job, doing that, even when you're an amazing employee and you care, and I had some amazing employees that truly treated my companies like their own. And when. When you have that, though, you still get to go home, you still don't have the weight of the growth. You don't have the weight of payroll. You don't have the weight of pivoting now, because Covid just happened. You don't have the we of like, okay, is there going to be a recession? Like, the brain power that an entrepreneur goes through to pivot and think and direct is way greater than any employee, even when the employee cares a lot. But what happens then is because you're always taking that home, what costs entrepreneurs a lot of money is when they have really narrow focus, when they're really focused on one thing. I gotta fix this. I gotta fix this. Because sometimes we're so focused on what we think we need or want that we miss what we can actually have. We miss that we can actually build it completely different. And we can actually have a business that gives us a life. Building wealth isn't about just money. It's about building a rich life so that you can say yes to things that you want to do and you don't have to do all those things that distract you during the day. A lot of times, entrepreneurs are really majoring in very minor things. It's like they think a lot of the urgent is also important. But they don't always equal. Just because something is urgent doesn't mean that it's important. And every single time you jump in to be an employee in your company, you're also teaching your other employees to constantly need you. So it's like the child that throws a tantrum, and then you go, oh, my gosh. And you coddle them, and they're just gonna throw more tantrums to get your attention. Business is very simple. When you have people that are like, oh, my gosh, well, let's just reach out to Heather. She'll be able to know the answer. And then you do. You're teaching them to always come to you. That's not leadership. That's management. So now you're managing people as opposed to leading them. A true entrepreneur is leading people so that they can be empowered to make their own decisions. Then they don't need you. My whole goal is to hire the smartest people around, work with them, groom them, and then be like, have them be able to have total autonomy to make their own decisions, their own. And I want to go to them for their expertise. Like, I don't want to be the smartest person. If you're the smartest person in the room, you've built the wrong team. You're in the wrong room, wrong table, wrong team. You want to make sure that your goal as a business owner is growth, vision, and building with intention. Do you want to exit this? Do you want this to parallel into something else? Do you want to be acquired? Do you want to merge with another company? Like, these are conversations I noticed that we're really lacking in the space. Like, nobody was talking about it. But it's really one of the most important fundamentals that you can have when you build a business with a purpose. Not your purpose, like, sit on the couch. What's my purpose? It's like, what is your business's purpose? Is it just for you to work by yourself, or is it just. Is it for you to actually build wealth, build a team, be acquired. Neither's right or wrong. Just decide what you want.

Heather (41:57)

Oh, it's so good. All right, now let's get into wealth habits. Your new book, Six Ordinary Steps to Achieve Extraordinary Financial Freedom. Why did you write it?

Candy Valentino (42:07)

You know, it was interesting, the book. I talked to you about reading. When I was a kid, I read three great books, and they all had men pictures on them. And I remember thinking, I'm so grateful that I read those books. And I know that in the late 90s, it was a totally different time than it is now. But I feel that we've missed a lot of the fundamentals. I feel that we've missed and complicated a lot of things. But business and wealth is very simple. When we take everything away and we strip it down, you can only grow business by increasing sales or decreasing expenses. That's it. You increase sales, decrease expenses, simple. How do we increase sales? We either add a new customer, get an existing customer to buy more frequently, get an existing customer to buy more, average cart, average ticket, or raise our prices. Every single other strategy in life to business growth falls under one of those four. And the first customer acquisition is always the most expensive. The fourth, raise your prices is what most people go to. And it's typically wrong because they don't have the business acumen on their finances to even know what their profit margins or their gross profit is to know if they should raise their prices. So I wanted to write the book to make it easy and accessible for everyone to understand. I take very complex business topics and break them down so that everyone has the data and the numbers in order to know what to do next. So it's more of a playbook than it is a book of theory and ideas. I always say ideas won't build you a million dollar business and it won't create a million dollars. It's the execution and implementation of the idea that does. And that's what I feel like is really lacking. People want to talk about ideation, which entrepreneurs love to go down the squirrel rabbit hole of flashy objects and things they can create. But oftentimes we only have so much time to create a few. So what's really going to move the needle in your business and personal finance? And when I looked at all of the data of what I've done over 25 years, nothing's extraordinary. I didn't have some earth shattering innovation or invention. I didn't charter a rover to Pluto or anything fancy. There was all the non sexy boring things that most people don't want to talk about because they want some little hack or angle or like give me the secret to building wealth. The secret is this. There's no secret. It's just, there's no magic bullet. It's just doing a lot of ordinary things over time. Living beneath your means, earning more income so that you can invest more, more quickly. You know, we're coming into some economic turbulence, for lack of a better word, you know, some unstability in the markets. All that means is there's opportunity for the little guy to get in and Start investing. So I think that's why the book is so important to me. I also think it's important because as women, we need to talk about money. We need to talk about wealth. When we did this study, women are actually better at managing money overall. Obviously this is general generalization to the nth degree better. And so I think it's important for women to have the conversation and so that you don't end up being down the road in your life, tied into a relationship or into something and not have the tools and knowledge to have your own financial independence. I see that happen so much as people, oh, I don't, I don't know. So and so takes care of that. My husband handles that. I don't need to know. Like you are running a risk of being on your own or destitute or out someday if you're not paying attention to the numbers. You know, I've heard stories where, you know, their husbands went and racked up, or vice versa. Women went up, racked up debt. Men went like the spouse had no idea of the other until they go to get divorced. Or some, you know, horrible thing happens in their marriage and then they find out like, oh my gosh, my financial situation that I thought was secure is ruined. We have to take responsibility for our own finances. And I think that it's such an important time and an important message for women to understand and everyone to understand. It's not a book for women, but just because we're talking for, for everyone to understand that anyone can build it. It's not an elusive club, but you just gotta be willing to do the work.

Heather (46:03)

So who is the book for?

Candy Valentino (46:04)

So the book is for anyone for. I mean, it could even be for someone, you know, 16, 18, 21 years old. That's starting. Because these things aren't taught like any, anything that we are walking around with unless we've been diligent at really looking into our, our money mindset, our beliefs about money, how we spend money and our habits. Because it's not just think and get rich, you also have to do to get wealthy. So it's really about what the social and school systems are not teaching us. It's really about the facts about money, how to build it and how to keep it. Because it's actually really easy, especially in good times, to be successful in business or even build some wealth. It's really hard when markets shift, shift, and the vertical that you may be in is different to sustain wealth and sustain success. So the book is more about teaching people the fundamentals even if you already have a multi million dollar net worth, I guarantee there's things in there that you haven't thought of. I remember being a business, my gosh, I think I was in like 10 years doing very well and I remember hearing like wait, I need what contract? Like, you know, I was in like a room where I was the smallest, this business at the table and these women with, you know, 50 and $100 million companies were like, oh yeah, you need this non disparagement clause and work for hire contract. And I was like, wait, what? So you know, it's the little things like that that we don't know because we haven't done it before. So anything we can do to really like close the gap and fix the link to help people sustain wealth is really who it's going to be for and it's, it's gonna, it's gonna change their life for sure. Just because I think, think it's, it's good to know that it's available for anyone.

Heather (47:45)

Where can everyone find your new book? Wealth Habits and where can they find you?

Candy Valentino (47:49)

So anywhere books are sold. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and we're doing a bunch of cool like we have an event, we have all things. So if you go to wealth habitsbook.com it'll tell you to upload your receipt. You can get access to all sorts of free things. And then I'm Candy Valentino everywhere. Candy Valentino.com and Instagram, TikTok. All the things.

Heather (48:06)

All the things. Well, Candy, please keep doing the amazing work you're doing. I wish I had this book when I was 19, but I'm grateful that everybody's got it now. Guys, go check out the book Wealth Habits. Everybody needs it. These are the simple tactics you need to implement now so you have wealth for your future. Until next week, guys, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing.

Podcast Host/Announcer (48:37)

Inevitably something will happen.

Heather (48:39)

No one succeeds alone.

Candy Valentino (48:41)

You don't stop and look around once in a while.

Heather (48:44)

You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.