Turning Relentless Work Ethic Into Leadership Power: How Viviana Ronquillo Built Her CEO Mindset, Earned Trust, and Led 20+ Companies to Growth

Summary

Problems to Profit Podcast: Episode Summary

Title: Turning Relentless Work Ethic Into Leadership Power: How Viviana Ronquillo Built Her CEO Mindset, Earned Trust, and Led 20+ Companies to Growth

Host: Preston Brown
Guest: Viviana Ronquillo Herrera
Release Date: August 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this heartfelt and transformative episode of the Problems to Profit podcast, host Preston Brown welcomes Viviana Ronquillo Herrera, his co-CEO and a powerhouse behind the growth of over 20 companies. This episode delves deep into Viviana’s journey from a hardworking employee to a visionary leader, exploring the challenges she overcame, the values that drive her, and the unique dynamics of her partnership with Preston.

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Viviana's Early Life and Background

Viviana hails from El Paso, growing up in a close-knit Hispanic family of six. As the middle child, she often felt overlooked but found solace in books and self-driven activities. "I was the type of kid who, we'd go to dinner on a Friday night, and I'd be the one with a book in my hand" (05:26). Her upbringing instilled in her a strong sense of responsibility and the importance of family, which would later become central to her leadership philosophy.

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Career Beginnings at Zia Homes

At 20, Viviana graduated high school with plans to study kinesiology but soon realized her passion lay elsewhere. Encouraged by her father, a draftsman working as a subcontractor for Zia Homes, she joined the company in 2005. Starting as a receptionist earning seven dollars an hour, Viviana took on multiple roles as employees left, showcasing her adaptability and dedication. By 10:13, she was managing payroll, HR, and contract coordination, making her a linchpin in the company’s operations despite minimal compensation.

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Challenges and Realizations

The 2008 recession brought significant downsizing to Zia Homes, further increasing Viviana's responsibilities without corresponding raises. By 12:10, she realized she was being taken advantage of, leading her to seek other opportunities. However, a sense of loyalty kept her tethered to the company until a pivotal moment when Preston approached her with an unconventional offer to become co-CEO.

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Meeting Preston and Transition to Co-CEO

Initially skeptical of Preston's sales-driven approach, Viviana was presented with a unique proposal: "Because I don't have a penis" (18:51)—a candid and humorous exchange highlighting the unconventional path to her leadership role. Despite her reservations and a sense of betrayal when a promised ownership stake never materialized, Viviana chose to embrace the opportunity, a decision that would redefine her career and personal growth.

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Values and Leadership Philosophy

Viviana attributes her success to core values including family, faith, and strong relationships. She emphasizes, "Family is not just my immediate family; it's everyone I work with" (26:08). Her leadership is rooted in showing up, continuous learning, and a relentless drive for improvement. A pivotal moment in her philosophy was realizing, "Your identity is stronger than your circumstance" (34:11), allowing her to separate personal identity from business challenges.

Notable Quotes:

• "Most people allow the circumstance in life to impact their identity. And people will fight for their identity." (34:11)
• "Your identity is stronger than your circumstance." (34:11)

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Managing Stress and Emotional Resilience

Viviana discusses her struggles with stress and emotional resilience, highlighting the importance of viewing stress as a catalyst for growth rather than a reflection of personal weakness. She shares, "I sit in the bathroom and cry not because I feel beaten, but because I know I can do better" (33:44). This mindset shift enabled her to tackle challenges head-on without letting them define her.

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Trust and Communication

A cornerstone of Viviana’s leadership is active listening. She states, "A lot of people just want to be heard. They don't even want you to give reasoning" (55:25). By fostering an environment where employees feel valued and heard, Viviana builds trust and ensures that the team remains cohesive and motivated.

Notable Quotes:

• "A lot of people just want to be heard. They don't even want you to give reasoning." (55:25)
• "My door’s always open... anybody who wants something or to be heard are more than welcome to step into my office." (56:27)

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Working Relationship between Preston and Viviana

The dynamic between Preston and Viviana is a study in complementary differences. Preston, the sales-driven visionary, and Viviana, the systems-driven strategist, balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They emphasize mutual respect and understanding, ensuring they stay within their respective "lanes" to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Viviana acknowledges, "We work diligently to stay in each other's lanes" (66:11), highlighting the importance of clear boundaries and collaborative synergy.

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Conclusion and Key Takeaways

This episode offers invaluable insights into leadership, trust-building, and the power of complementary partnerships. Viviana Ronquillo Herrera’s journey underscores the significance of aligning personal values with professional goals, the importance of resilience in the face of adversity, and the benefits of leveraging diverse strengths within a leadership team.

Key Lessons:

• Value-Driven Leadership: Prioritizing family, faith, and relationships fosters a supportive and motivated workforce.
• Resilience and Growth: Viewing stress as an opportunity for improvement rather than a personal setback leads to continuous development.
• Trust and Communication: Active listening and open communication build trust and enhance team cohesion.
• Complementary Partnerships: Leveraging diverse strengths within leadership teams can drive exponential growth and efficiency.

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Notable Quotes:

• "I love learning... I didn't mind learning, especially about construction, because I wanted to make my dad proud." (15:09)
• "You don't get on most of the phone calls, but you don't let me do any of the paperwork." (59:16)
• "Your identity is stronger than your circumstance." (34:11)

This deeply personal and candid conversation between Preston Brown and Viviana Ronquillo Herrera serves as an inspiring testament to the transformative power of hard work, resilient leadership, and the strength of meaningful partnerships in the business world.

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Timecodes Reference:

• 05:26
• 10:13
• 12:10
• 18:51
• 26:08
• 34:11
• 33:44
• 55:25
• 56:27
• 66:11
• 59:16
• 34:11

(Note: The above timecodes are referenced to provide context to the quotes used in the summary.)

Transcript

[Preston Brown]

Are you tired of complicated business advice that rarely delivers any real results? I'm Preston Brown and I've built a nine figure portfolio by following simple business formulas that anyone can use. In my new book, you, First Million Made Easy, I reveal the exact system that I've used to generate hundreds of millions in revenue. And it's frankly a system that works in any industry, with any business and yes, in any market. The good news, it's not about hustle, it's about. It's not about running or working or struggling and what it is about creating money instead of just earning it. Because earning money is slavery while creating is freedom. It's about stopping the cycle of managing by crisis and building a business that doesn't depend on you transforming your business from a high paying job to an asset that generates money even when you're not there. Whether you're a startup or an established company, this formula will transform your business into a profit driven machine that gives you the time and freedom to focus on what truly matters. Grab your first million Made Easy now and let's start the journey of financial freedom together. I look forward to being a part of your story. Hello and welcome back to Problems to Profit. I'm actually really nervous for this one. This is no doubt going to be the strangest and maybe most personal podcast I've done, at least for me. Because today I'm doing a podcast with somebody that I know, somebody that I love, somebody that is not a brand, is not famous, does not have the big wow feature. So for all the fools and idiots that think you're not going to get value, yeah, you can get off now. But for anybody that wants to hear something that's going to be magical, that will change your life. Especially if you're a person working in a business that, you know, has to make tough decisions sometimes. I'm honored to introduce you to my CEO, my co CEO who runs my largest companies. In fact, all of my companies now with me has used all of the money I've paid her to buy ownership in some of my companies. Who owns what do we have? 2,500, 3,500 apartment units together we have I think over 100 homes, close to 10 million if not more. In notes now, like, yep. And she's like a behind the scenes powerhouse. Like so many out there, maybe like you, who's listening? And I'm excited about this because I've watched this girl go on a journey that she has turned problems that some people would never have been able to overcome into prophets that I'VE had the privilege of living with her and sharing with her, and has, in her own space become a prophet that others go to for mentorship and education and help and advice. And I remember when she was just a little fat girl that worked at Zio Homes and glared at everybody. Yeah. Viviana, welcome to Problems to Profit. We, we go raw, we go real. We don't hold back. And I've watched this girl turn from just the little girl who was scared of everything, glaring at everybody, working her off, but always being misjudged into a CEO now leading 100 employees, plus thousands of people that work for her, indirectly or directly. And there's not a person in my life, outside of maybe my children, my wife that I'm more proud of. And today I get to share her with you. I never thought she'd come on the show. I'm so excited. Viviana, welcome to Problems to Profit.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Thank you for having me. You said you were nervous. I'm terrified.

[Preston Brown]

We launched a podcast in January. It goes to, like, top 10 for investing, top 50 for business. And I'm like, hey, I gotta have you on.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, first words out of my mouth. Oh.

[Preston Brown]

Well, I'd like for people to hear a little bit about your story. Like, you're a CEO of how many businesses right now?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I lost count around 20, so. But I think we're at about 2122 companies. Like you said, hundreds of employees, thousands, indirectly, every day is a. Is a struggle, but it's so satisfying. It is so wonderful to see all the hard work that we've done, actually work.

[Preston Brown]

And I want to, I want to bring this up because I want to go through your story and I want to go all the way back to, like, little girl, like, all this and up to now, like, but, but you're not even on social media. People can't find you, people can't follow you. This is probably going to be the largest dose of Viviana that the social media markets will have ever had, at least and may ever get, because I don't know if she'll do this twice.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, I'm not on social media. I do value privacy, but I value personal relationships way more. And I feel like being on social media, you tend to get very impersonal. And, you know, having a conversation with somebody is way better than just, you know, chatting with someone, you know, on the DM and trying to have a personal relationship when you don't feel the emotion behind it 100%. Totally.

[Preston Brown]

So let's, let's dive into where you come from start us at the beginning.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Born and raised here in El Paso. Family of six. Six my parents and four children. I'm the third out of the four siblings. Being a middle child felt like kind of, I was overlooked at times. But, you know, I, I, I made my own fun. I was the type of kid who, we'd go to dinner on a Friday night, and I'd be the one with a, a book in my hand. You know, everybody's having dinner and I'm reading a book. But growing up, I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't anything special. It was a typical Hispanic family. You know, my dad had a household. I did everything I could to, to make my dad happy. We didn't struggle much, I know financially we may have struggled a little bit, but my parents didn't make it known that we were in any type of financial straits or anything like that, and I appreciate them for that.

[Preston Brown]

Proud family.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Very proud, yes. Proud Hispanic family.

[Preston Brown]

You know, describe that, because I think in El Paso, we know what that means, but outside of El Paso, and I mean, look, the Hispanic population is growing dynamically through the country. I mean, it's, I think the largest growing minority group won't be a minority group in 10 or 15 years. It might be the majority group. I'll be the minority then. But give everybody a little explanation of what it means when you say Hispanic family. If you're from El Paso, you understand that. If you're from Southern California, you understand that you're in New York or Idaho, you may not know what that means.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Oh, geez. So my dad is the head, and the family is the rest of the body. And whatever the head says to do, the rest of the, you know, the rest of the body has to follow. And I think that's it with, it's the same with a lot of families, but with Hispanics, it's a really big head.

[Preston Brown]

Did you just make a big head joke?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Maybe.

[Preston Brown]

That was really good. Like, we have a thing in our office. And like, the joke is, I look like somebody out of Bobby's world. If you remember the old cartoon giant head, tiny shoulders. So I really appreciated the subtlety there. That was brilliant. Very sly. Very sly. Okay, so proud Hispanic family struggled a little bit, but they never showed it. They carried with strength.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes, most definitely.

[Preston Brown]

You've worked with Zia Homes now for. Well, way before I owned it.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. So did you know you wanted to.

[Preston Brown]

Be in home building? Was your family in and around home building?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

So, yeah, my dad's a draftsman, and he worked as a subcontractor for Zia Homes. So when I graduated from high school, you know, it was one of those things, you have to go to college. You have to go to college. So I went to college thinking, okay, I'm going to start. I'm going to do kinesiology, and if you don't know what that is, like sports medicine and, you know, wrapping people's ankles and, you know, figuring out the tendons and ligaments. And I went for about two years, and I. I liked partying more than I liked school. And it.

[Preston Brown]

I have trouble with that. I have trouble imagining that.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Well, I know I was. I was 20 years old. I just. I didn't care. And so I decided to drop out of college. And my dad's like, you're going to get a job. And I was like, o. Okay, I'm going to get a job. And I tried getting a job, and I couldn't find one. And he's like, fine, I'm going to get you a job. Okay. Get me a job, dad. Whatever. And so he got me a job working for Zia Homes. So I started working there in 2005. I was 20 years old, and I decided, okay, this is what I'm going to do then. So I quit partying, and I quit, you know, those friends, and I decided to start a family. So got married and had a baby. So that. That's how Zia started. And it was very simple. Sitting in the. In the back conference room. I didn't even have a desk. I sat in a conference room. No phone, no computer. I literally, like, filed things every day, and that was my job. And I was fine with it because I was 20 years old and making. I think it was like, seven bucks an hour. It was cool. So then, little by little, employees started quitting. And I kept saying, I can do that. I can do that. And became receptionist, became a contract manager. Little by little, I became office manager. And then the recession hit, and we had to downsize.

[Preston Brown]

You're talking 2008.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

2008, yes.

[Preston Brown]

Okay. So when employees would leave, you were this motivated employee. You're like, well, I can do that, too. Like, that's not that hard. And, like, they. They just kept giving you the work?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

Did they raise your pay by that other person's pay?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No. Well, I mean, I was compensated a little bit, but not exorbitantly.

[Preston Brown]

Okay.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

But by this time, I was 23, 24. It was okay. Yeah. Making nine bucks, ten bucks an hour. It works. Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

How many times did this happen? Just for context, like, 3, 4, 10.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Like, how many times people quit and I took over their job?

[Preston Brown]

I want people to hear the answer, because I doubt you even know.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Well, let's just say at the end of the day, I was the only.

[Preston Brown]

Employee left in a building company that was building how many homes at the time?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

It was about 40 homes.

[Preston Brown]

40 homes. And, you know, normally an office would consist of, I'd say, six or eight people with all the staff.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

And you were six or eight people. What were you making at this point?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I think I was making like 14 to $15 an hour.

[Preston Brown]

Oh, 14 or 15 bucks an hour.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

So 40 houses. Like, that would be something where you. I mean, if we think about the average house in America today, that's $400,000, plus or minus. So, like, just to give you guys a. The equivalent size of the business at that time, obviously I'm using today's numbers. Obviously, this was years ago. But for every 10 houses, that's 4 million of revenue. 40 houses, you're at like 16 million of revenue with one employee running the whole show.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. So I was receptionist.

[Preston Brown]

I'm sure there were. You had field people, right?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, I had field people. Of course, I couldn't be in two places at once, but, yeah, it was receptionist. We did have a warranty lady that come and go. I was office manager, contract coordinator, payroll. I did the payroll. I did the hr. I did all of it.

[Preston Brown]

What did you learn as you were taking on all these new roles?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I learned that I was being taken advantage of. Near the end of 2017, I was actually looking for another job into 2018, and I contemplated leaving, but I had been there for so long that I felt like I had some type of. Like, I owed them something. I don't even know why, but I felt like I owed the company to stay.

[Preston Brown]

And can we talk about Ron a little bit, the owner? Because, like, I think there's, like, there's. There's a dynamic that I got from, like, your dad. Proud Hispanic family.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

The head. The body does whatever the head wants. And Ron. I mean, Ron is a friend. I love Ron. Like, if he watches this episode, like, I don't mind telling the truth, but Ron's a tough mother. Like, Ron's a tough guy.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, he's definitely the head. He made me cry many times.

[Preston Brown]

The body will do what the head.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, the body.

[Preston Brown]

To do, whether right or wrong.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. And he was the head, and I was literally every appendage in the body.

[Preston Brown]

I love the common theme from familial. Proud Hispanic family to. Now, here's the Zia work family. And you were the one that was carrying the dynamic leader.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes, Yes, I was.

[Preston Brown]

And it's funny because you're still doing that today. And I don't know that I'd ever, like, before sitting in this room, in this chair with you on a podcast that the whole world's gonna see, thought about, thank God for your dad, because I don't know that had that not been framed in that, we would have worked out in business together. That is a brilliant thing like that.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Just.

[Preston Brown]

Wow. We need to. We need to send him a gift.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Thanks, dad.

[Preston Brown]

Maybe since I stole the body, that's like. Was doing everything for him. We'll get him a VA or something.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Okay. Yeah, that works.

[Preston Brown]

That's really cool. Okay, so 2017, you've learned that you're being taken advantage of. How much are you making at this point in time?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Still 16 bucks an hour.

[Preston Brown]

Wow. Doing all the jobs. You were actually working with me, I think, at some point in and around there because I was running a brokerage and marketing for you guys and.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, you were that real estate agent guy.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah. How did you feel about me?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I didn't like you.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

What did you not like about me?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I felt like you were kind of. You were a prick.

[Preston Brown]

Okay.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. I mean, you were a salesman, and I hated salesman. Because all you wanted was just take advantage of the builder and be honest.

[Preston Brown]

I love it. I don't know that I ever did want to take advantage of the builder. I always thought the builder wanted to take advantage of me, but I was definitely a salesman and I was definitely salesy, and some things never change. I think you learned something else, though. I think you learned more than you were getting taken advantage of. I think you also learned that most job descriptions, or five or six, maybe 10 bullet points, and if you're smart and you have common sense, you can learn them. And when markets get tough and things get harder, if you can find great people, they can take on more. Now, the right boss, and in this case, I think Ron made a mistake. I think you should have been advanced much more than what you were. But if you have somebody that's brilliant that can understand, oh, I can do that job. Oh, I can do that job. You learned how to learn.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, I love learning. I mean, hence the reading a book at family dinner. You know, it was always something that it made me feel good to want to learn new things. And I didn't mind learning, especially about construction, because I grew up seeing My dad do it. And I wanted to make my dad proud, you know, even till this day. So even doing all that, you know, years and years at Zia inadvertently trying to make my dad proud.

[Preston Brown]

In 2017, you were looking to leave.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

Whole time. Still a daddy's girl.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yep.

[Preston Brown]

Values of I don't need to be the center of attention, but I want to be learning, I want to be productive, I want to be valued and respected. And you realize at a certain point that you're being taken advantage of, but at the same time, you wanted to be loyal.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

So sometimes even the right values can conflict in the wrong circumstance. Okay. And that was, like, conveniently right around the time that I was negotiating to buy the company.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes. And I thought I was going to be an owner in some way. I was unfortunately lied to, and I got excited when you wanted to buy. I was like, oh, awesome. I'm going to have, like, a stake in the company. Even if it's like 5%, it's something. And then I found out it wasn't, and I was like, oh, jab to the heart. I'm not valued. It's time for me to leave. It's time for me to leave.

[Preston Brown]

Wow. We can talk offline. I want to know who told you that. That's so interesting.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

President of the company.

[Preston Brown]

Oh, wow. Okay. So the president of the company was, I mean, a very nice man, but I don't think he had any business running a company. I remember guys, like, when I was analyzing this company and I say this with the previous owner was a friend of mine, like, and is a friend of mine. But when you're buying a company, you got to look at the financials, and I couldn't make sense of the financials. You got to look at the relationships, and I could make sense of some of the relationships, but not others. There was not really a function of value from some of the relationships, and there was tremendous value of other relationships, and there was disproportionate attention in accordance with the value of the relationships. And, like, you're talking of the president of the company who was running the company, who was basically, you were the everything employee, and he was the guy in the limelight making the six figure salary, working under the owner. And at this point, I think Ron had basically, like, kind of stepped out semi retired. He was hunting, he was doing his things, and this president just. I mean, he did not know what he was doing. I took you to lunch. I think we went to Don Carbone, a really good chicken place here in El Paso, yes. Who we are not advertising for. But you should try it if you haven't, because it's good. And I asked you, like I asked you directly as I was looking at the company, because I assessed she was the only asset in the company. But at this point, I have many companies. I'm financially successful. Like, I own a brokerage, I own a title company, I own a hard money lending company. I have a home flipping company, I have a property management company. Like, I've got the gambit of single family real estate companies. So I like the idea of getting into a home building company, but I don't like the financials on this company. But I see this rock star person and I know a fact. You don't build businesses, you build people and people build businesses. And I see this anchor rock star who is also kind of angry and always glaring at me and frustrated. And I said, you know, I need to take her to lunch because I don't think she likes me. And it turns out she didn't. I found out later. I mean, I thought I was pretty likable. You guys like me, right? But I take her to lunch and I asked her, why are you not running this company? Because I had assessed she is the only asset there that is really worth having outside of some of the land developer and lending relationships. What did you tell me?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Because I don't have a penis.

[Preston Brown]

She literally dropped it on me. I don't have a dick. That's why I'm not running the company. And this is one of the most fun acquisition stories for me because I was like, well, and you ever get like that shock stun where you don't know what to say? And what comes out of my mouth is, well, I don't have a dog. In the fight of whether you sit down or stand up when you pee. If I buy the company, will you, come on, will you run the company for me? I'll give you this salary. I think I upped your salary significantly from like what, 30 or 40 a year, whatever it was.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

And I think I started you at 60 because the company was failing. I mean, it was losing money. I said, and I'm going to give you a high salary. I'll give you the opportunity to like really lead and run the company with me and. But I want you for a year. That's the only way I'm taking it over. And she agreed. Like, it was the weirdest, like, business proposal ever. I'd never had an organizational structuring that, you know, from any company. Ever that related to somebody's genitalia. And so if you're looking at any of this, like, well, I only want to work with men or I only want to work with women, like, maybe you should frame it as, like, I only want to work with talent. Because, like, I can tell you there's a lot of ways to measure talent, but it ain't on what's between your legs unless you're doing something that probably has no business in a boardroom.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Very true. Yeah. That day was a very memorable day. You know, it was. You had put me on the spot, and I. It was. It was really scary because, like I said, I wanted to leave Zia, but I had a loyalty to it, and, you know, I would be working for you, and I didn't know you, and like I said, I thought. I didn't like you at the time.

[Preston Brown]

I don't think you thought you could know a salesman.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, probably. And. But it's not like I had better. Better prospects. So I said yes, and I was like, damn. And I went home and I told my husband. I'm like, I hope. I really pray to God that I made the correct choice. I really do. And I did.

[Preston Brown]

How did he feel about it?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

He wasn't too happy. He was kind of like, what? What? Who's this guy? Why? Oh, man. And so, you know, our relationship started 2018 and was. It was a bumpy road. It really was. We had to learn how to communicate to each other, which was, I think, the most important thing, because I didn't know, you know, how to. How to speak different languages like you talk about now. And I didn't know how to speak your language. You didn't know how to speak my language. And I figured, okay, well, I'm gonna just do what I do. And I just built homes. And then you started teaching me about business, and then I started teaching you about building homes. And you're like, you wanted to change things. I'm like, no, we can't do that. We can't change things. And you're like, why? And I'm like, because it's always been like that. And you're like, oh, wow, we need to break this. And slowly but surely. You broke a lot of habits that I thought were good habits, but turned out to be not necessarily bad, but didn't help in growth.

[Preston Brown]

You learned the lesson of paradox in business. And, I mean, it's very fair. People get one sided. And I want to go into some other questions in a minute here, but people get one sided when they're looking at a business and structuring a business and growing and scaling a business. And frankly, in a lot of things, not just business, but life, right? And in production home building, if you go change every floor plan, every floor plan's a custom home. You're no longer production, you're custom. And like a custom home and a production home is really exactly the same. Only a custom home you build once because you're investing tremendous amounts of money and time and energy in the engineering and everything. Like, there's a lot that goes into designing and creating a home, but outside of that, it's the exact same thing. A custom home and production home, it's still just a home. But production builders, what they do is they customize it once and then they replicate it, hopefully dozens and potentially it's a great floor plan hundreds of times across the market. Like, I promise you, the big builders out there, Dr. Horton, Lamar, all these giants are not out there saying, hey, you know, I want to do 97,000 custom homes a year. It would be completely impossible. They don't have enough bandwidth. So you are accurate that we don't want to change what we're doing if we want the most healthy production. But it took you a little time to see that. I was saying I need to change the product and I don't want to do it because I don't know enough about it. I want to let the customers do it. We're going to let the customers tune the product. And once we have the perfectly tuned product, then we won't change it. And that's the paradox. The paradox in life is, can God create a rock so big that God cannot lift the rock? And the answer is yes. And the answer is also no. One thing that has excited me about you, specifically you and in the last, I'd say two years, specifically, because I've watched this girl that she was a fast girl that became. I've watched this lady who was not afraid to correct me. I love it. This lady who was a fat girl that became a thin and in shape girl. Like, I've watched this lady that became a secretary and then became a CEO. I've watched this lady that's gone through and she has, like done amazing things in her marriage. Like, your ability to learn is amazing and your humility is amazing. You don't need to be in front. In fact, in many cases, you don't want to be in front. And the reason I really wanted on the show, as I keep meeting, as I'm involved in aspects of the business where we're growing and scaling and buying other companies and acquiring. I'm meeting more and more people like you who are working in some company with some, I want to say, imposter syndrome to their own greatness. And you're one of those true examples of where someone. Because like, if we look at your story now, we can look at what you made last month, and it was probably double or triple what you made years ago in an entire year.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes, definitely.

[Preston Brown]

And I think you live in the custom house, not the production house. You want to live with the masses. You built for the classes. You want to live with the classes. You build for the masses. Right? Like, so you figure that out, right? You, like, have the custom home, you have the fancy cars. I know because I bought you one of them. Surprise you. But you also represent exactly what a very significant percentage of the population, not just women. But I think you will resonate with a lot of women. But men and women out there that I think are undervalued. And where I want to dive this conversation into is what are your values? Because I think the viewers are going to find commonality in that and hopefully find something like maybe hope and a little inspiration that they can too, when they realize that, oh, a hard working person that could learn with these values can get there.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Okay, so first and foremost, family. And it's not just family. You know, my mom, my dad, it's not just my husband, my kids. It's literally all the people that I work with, work for, you know, lead. They are my family. And I value those relationships because without all those relationships, including, you know, the lady who cleans our homes, I'm not, I wouldn't be able to be where I am. You know, my husband, my husband is my rock. Even though he says that I'm the rock, most definitely he's my rock. I couldn't do what I do without him. You know, I couldn't. I couldn't be where I am without your mentorship and leadership, Preston. I couldn't be where I am without, you know, Valerie, who's able to manage all those different types of personalities that, you know, frustrate me. So relationships, my family is what's very important to me from there, my faith, you know, God is very important in my life. I, I thank him every day for the blessings that he's given me. He is. Oh, he's. He's always looked out. And me and my husband have always said he, he always knows when to bless us. You know, we could be struggling. Times weren't always easy. And he always knew, okay, I'm gonna let her get this bonus one time. And you know, Ron would come in with a hundred bucks and be like, oh my God, I got a hundred dollars, let's go grocery shopping. And he knew. God knew when to bring those blessings. Until this day, he knows when to bring those blessings.

[Preston Brown]

They're almost, sometimes they don't always look like blessings. Also, I think sometimes he brings challenges that turn out to be blessings.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

You, you have been my biggest challenge and my biggest blessing.

[Preston Brown]

You're going to tear me up. Thank you for that. I promise to continue being your biggest challenge. Oh, that teared me up. Oh, it's so beautiful. So family and God. But I want to talk also about, like, work values because you are one of the hardest working people that I've ever met and I do think they translate into relationships. I think, I think your values are linked to relationships. I think that is your highest source of joy, is feeling loved and being loved and being a productive member of a community. I don't know that 15, 20 years ago you ever expected yourself to be leading the communities the size of the communities you're now leading. But I do think that they are tailored to relationships. And I think there are specific work values that you have that a lot of people have or are trying to figure out how to have so that they can achieve in this society. What are some work values that you see? I mean, that you see in you?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

So I, I, you gotta show up. You have to show up. And I don't mean just like, you know, showing up at 8 o' clock every day and, you know, clocking in. It's literally putting yourself into the business and making yourself a part of it. I, I've had to learn every single part of the construction industry and how, how every part works together. But because I wanted to learn. But then you put me in a situation to where I had to learn all the auxiliary things like real estate and hard money lending and property management. And it's me putting myself in the business, showing up every day and wanting to know how things work. And I think a lot of people think a job is just that, just a job. And you show up every day, you get paid and you go home to your family. But even going home, I think about things like, okay, what can I do better? How can we improve this? You know what? I should follow up with this. And it's never ending. It's, it's not an 8 to 5 job. My job is literally 24, 7 you know, I sleep, I dream about it. It's. I wake up and I'm like, we need to do that. There's something missing. You know, even when I feel like I'm caught up and there's. There's, okay, I think everything's fine. And then I think, wait, no, I must be missing something. There's something we can improve on. There's something we can innovate. And that's when we start asking questions and you start realizing, oh, my God, there's more to this. There's more to it. We need to look into it. We need to investigate. And if you just want to show up to your job and just, you know, collect a paycheck, well, then that's all you're going to get is just a paycheck. You're not going to get that additional value to where you know, one day you might get a car. Who would have thought?

[Preston Brown]

You know, Audi R8 to be exact. And hers was very specific. She had it on her wall. It was a purple convertible Audi R8 because she doesn't like to make things simple. So I had to go find a beautiful, amazing Audi R8 and then have it wrapped purple before I could, like, surprise her. She couldn't just pick a damn car.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Well, I didn't know you were gonna get it for me. Of course, I probably would have been more simple, but, you know, you asked me a specific question and I gave you a specific answer, but I just.

[Preston Brown]

Told her to put her dreams on the wall. That way I could figure out what the they were. She's not always loud and talkative and you're doing great on this show, by the way, so I love it.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Thank you.

[Preston Brown]

You know, one thing I really admire about how you handle thing, and I, I think you handle things better than anybody I've ever met outside of myself, like, on par with me. I don't have any equals that I know of in this, except for you. You're not afraid of problems. You get hit. We used to call them train wrecks, remember?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

And she wouldn't listen and she didn't fully trust me. And so what I would do was I would allow her to learn by dealing with the pain in the business. When I allowed the business to crash into a problem and we called it a train wreck. And then from the train wreck, I would only let it be big enough that I could bail her out of it. Because once she had a train wreck, like, she was like the master of formulas. I would use that train wreck to help her Build a new formula so she'd never have that problem again. And she's like. She was like a computer. If I was flamboyant and loud and all over the place. She was my polar opposite and systems driven and incredible. But at first, she took a risk on me. She had a certain amount of trust, but she wasn't willing to go all the way. And we'll talk about trust in a minute as well. But let's talk about train wrecks and how you dealt with the problems, because most people wouldn't have handled it the way you did. They would have run away. And I think this is going to be one of the gold nuggets that people need.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Okay, well, I mean, you never saw me crying in the bathroom, so that's a good thing, because if not, you would have realized that the train wreck would probably hit me a lot harder than you thought it did. But stress, I think, is.

[Preston Brown]

That's why we put the paper in there, right?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. I mean, stress comes with the train wreck. And in the beginning, it was very difficult for me to deal with the stress because it was. I felt like I was weak and stress. And if I was weak, I wasn't good enough. And I couldn't handle. Took you literally making me crash and burn. For me to realize that I can do better, I am better. Of course, I still have till this day, which is why I'm like, okay, we can, you know, if it's too quiet, something's wrong. There must be a train wreck coming, because I think you instilled that in me. But.

[Preston Brown]

Sorry. Good programming.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I'm learning. I mean, I'm learning every day. But it's. It's dealing with those stresses that make me that better person. I really can't articulate. It's very difficult because, like I said, I sit in the bathroom and I cry. But it's not a crying because I feel like I'm beat. I'm crying because I know I can do better. I know I'm a better person. I know I can succeed and do those things, and I want to prove it. I can. I can do those things.

[Preston Brown]

That's the value. That's it. You're not attaching the failure to who you are. You're attaching the failure to what happened. Most people. And this is what I want y' all to hear. Most people allow the circumstance in life to impact their identity. And people will fight for their identity. They will die for their identity. I mean, how many people do you hear and they're smoking cigarettes Two, three packs a day, you know, they're going to die of cancer. They're going to leave their wives, their children, their family. Everybody is not going to have them anymore because they're doing something that at this point we just know is wrong. It's not like the 1920s or 30s when we didn't know. And you'd be like, man, like, why don't you quit? And they're like, I'm not a quitter. They're willing to fight for their identity. And, and you had this magical ability to logically separate the emotion from the circumstance with who you were.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, that's a good point. Yes. And I think growing up, you know, I, I think living in our household, like, maybe it's all Hispanic household, I'm not quite sure. But you, you want to, you have to be strong. You can't show emotion. You can't let show anybody show you or show anybody that you're weak. And I think that perceives also into today. And how I perceive, like, I, I don't, I don't like sitting in front of people for fear that, you know, maybe I might seem stupid. Weak. Cry.

[Preston Brown]

You would have to work very hard to seem stupid. Yeah, like, you'd have to put some work into it. Like, we can go give you a class on it, take notes. I'll let you go watch something like on the RNC and the dnc, like on how they operate their business model. And maybe if you took enough notes and acted like them, you could be stupid, but I don't think so. You probably wouldn't be capable of acting stupid.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Well, but there's still that feeling.

[Preston Brown]

And I want people to hear that because at your level of success, I mean, we own companies together and some of those, like, we have one company that does well over 100 million in revenue. And if you have those feelings still today with your life, maybe it's okay for everybody to still have them. By the way, I do too. Like, you know, any, any, any entrepreneur, any leader, any business person that's inauthentic enough to say, like, oh, yeah, bravery is never feeling fear is a liar. Like, like, yeah, you get scared all the time. Like, bravery is meeting fear where it's at. Not pretending you don't have it, meeting.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

It head on, confronting it.

[Preston Brown]

Don't fake it till you make it. Face it till you make it. I love that. So the value of your identity is stronger than your circumstance? Yes, I'm gonna call it that. That's what I'm gonna write down. Your identity Stronger than your circumstance. And I hope for our listeners you'll frame the question, is my identity stronger than my circumstance? Does my outcome in the specific event impact who I am? And in almost every circumstance, and I hope in almost every circumstance, the answer is no. The answer should be like, no, it does not impact who you are. If you have the strength and character to decide on a value that your circumstance is your circumstance, it could be your glorious moment, it could be your teacher, it could be your lesson, it could be your reward, but it's not you. That's why you see so many people hit goals and a year later they're unhappy. A month later they're unhappy because that's just the circumstance. It's not who they are. So I love that value and so many people have fallen off on that. You have another value around trust. You're super slow to trust.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

And I think this has worked for you and I think this has worked against you in many ways. But I also think that it's something that would be well received if you'd share some of your thoughts on that trust.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

That's a loaded question because I'm not quite sure where it stems from, but I know it's always something that always has been a part of me, you know, from a kid to not trusting what anybody says because maybe could be the Hispanic thing, you know, trusting what my parents say. You know, if they say that person's bad, then all those types of people are bad till, you know, not trusting you, which means I didn't like you and making it very hard to.

[Preston Brown]

I like you.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Communicate well. You like me now? Until this day, like meeting, meeting new people. I've grown to open up before. When we first started working together, I was very closed off in my emotions because I didn't trust that you would reciprocate what I was feeling. So, you know, I always had this face on. Like I had literally a resting bitch face. And, oh, it was.

[Preston Brown]

I would call it an active bitch face. It was a very active face. But it was bitchy.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

It was bitchy. Yeah. And I didn't realize how bad it was until you brought it to my attention one time when we went to an event and it was at a banking, it was a grand bank reopening or something to that effect. And you said, viviana, try smiling. And I was like, what do you mean try smiling? And you're like, just try smiling. Just, you know, from your heart. Just try to smile. And I was like, okay. So I felt like I was a dumbass smiling at everybody. Hi, how are you? You know, trying to make it seem like I was likable, you know, because I didn't think you would like me back. And it was really hard. Anyway, so Victoria Esteus was at that bank opening and, you know, here I am trying to smile and show everybody how likable I was. And she's like, viviana, you look different today. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, well, to be honest, when I first met you, I thought you were a. But today you look very pretty. And I was like, what the. Thank you, Victoria. I love you.

[Preston Brown]

I did not know that story. I don't know if you've told me that before or not, but I did not remember that at.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

So, you know, that's when it clicked that day. It was probably about three or four years ago that day it clicked when it was like, maybe I don't need to look like I'm a bitch to get respect or to feel like, you know, I. Someone can or cannot trust me. It has nothing to do with that. And it, it allowed me to be more likable and open towards people, but still having that boundary of the trust. And I'll allow you in when I'm ready, but I don't have to look like, you know, I'm smelling poop all the time.

[Preston Brown]

It's true. And it's a good story of your face too, because, man, your face is much more pleasant than it ever was. We used to joke that she was the Indian chief. How. And like that was all. That was it.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

That was it.

[Preston Brown]

And you'd get kind of a blank stare. You're like, are you mad at me? Are you happy with me? I think I saw her have an emotion once in maybe like five or ten years that I worked for them. And as soon as she caught me, she like, like, I think Ronna just yelled at you or something. And like you were wiping your eye. And I walk in and like. And I'm like, what the happened? Like, she just, like, she put on a mask.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

And I think there's a place for the masks. I think you're, you're, you're trust thing is. Is an interesting value because now you trust and you protect, but it's still harder for people to get in with you. But once they're in like they're, they're in like they're, they're true family. And the way that you have leveraged that trust is based on measurement and deserve. And I think my wife actually taught you some of that. Can I share that story?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Sure.

[Preston Brown]

So we were enjoying the previous Trump tax codes where bonus depreciation could get you out of paying taxes. And you know, one day we're, you know, we were buying a lot of assets using bonus depreciation, offsetting our income and paying like zero taxes at the time, which, that's the legal way to do it. Okay. And Viviana has made more money in that year than any year in her life. We have a company doing, I don't know, I think it was probably 50 or 70 million in revenue at that point in time. We'd made a ton of money, we had high margins and my tax bill was zero. And like, here's Viviana, my CEO, like, and, and she's got this enormous tax bill and we're hanging out with my wife, who is like the nicest, sweetest, most not business person ever. Like, if you meet my wife and you talk business, she will look at you like Viviana used to look at everyone all the time and just like her face will look like she tasted. And Viviana's like, oh, my tax bill's like, like this and, and says this obnoxiously high number, like higher than most people's salaries. And Aaron's like, do you not listen to anything Preston says? And then all of a sudden you could see Viviana's face go internal. It was like, it was like it flipped in and glared at herself. It was a really interesting, unique thing. You self corrected super quick. And I think you've shifted all of your tax strategy, you've shifted your investment strategy, you shifted everything. That was actually when you started looking at diet stuff, started spending time with some of my friends. Guillermo Navarrete, if you guys don't follow him. The guy's a genius, I think. How much weight did you lose?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

About £40.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, like, and you look great. You look beautiful. But like, it was amazing. I think at that point, my wife, by jabbing you, by giving you a little emotional train wreck without any actual train wreck in it, gave you the ability to think. Okay, well, I'm still not going to necessarily trust up front, but if it's measurable and I've seen it.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Okay, let me verify.

[Preston Brown]

If I can verify, I will trust. You were so robotic in it. And it's funny because we're the polar opposite. I'm the salesy flamboyant. I can do the robotics, but I'm not gonna last long. You're the robotics, you actually can do the salesy, but you don't Last long. It's like each one has a different energetic. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about working with your polar opposite. I always hear this, like, I love catch lines. The customer's always right. Do you agree with that?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No.

[Preston Brown]

Like, it takes money to make money. Do you agree with that?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No.

[Preston Brown]

How about this one? Opposites attract. Hell, no. And I want to frame this. I want to frame this. Like, opposites compliment.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

That's a great way of saying it. Yes, definitely.

[Preston Brown]

I don't think, like, look, like, as much as you disliked me, I mean, I didn't dislike you, but I could not understand with the way that my operating system operates, why you were you. When we first met, I was like, oh, God. I mean, rather than sit down and process all this information and handle all these things and run all these tasks and like, you were like a node. You were like a nerve center. You were like a brain for a business that was doing all this monotonous that I considered boring. And I was like, I would literally rather a beehive than have that job for a week. And like, I have never wanted to. A beehive, okay. Like, it may be sex, but I don't recommend it to anyone, you know? And like, we were opposites. Like, I didn't dislike you, so I didn't have that frame, but I did not understand you. And I don't think opposites do attract. I think, like, if you want to talk marriage or relationship, there's maybe a polarity of energies where they, you know, masculine is attracted to feminine, feminine is attracted to masculine. But if you have people with polar opposite personality types, that's not a detraction. In fact, it's a cautionary, like, emotion. Would you agree with?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Definitely. Yeah. And I think that's why it was super hard in the beginning. Super, super hard to even understand why you were you. I mean, especially since I didn't like you and I couldn't. I literally.

[Preston Brown]

That was your prejudice.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, totally. And I. I mean, I'm perfectly fine with that because it's totally different now, of course. But working with you, I had to learn a lot about myself because I needed to learn how to communicate with you and how to learn how to deal with you. It wasn't just figuring out, okay, well, I just need to do my part and he can handle his part. Literally, it was, we had to bring two different types of ideas together and have them work.

[Preston Brown]

And regardless of which personality type, mine or hers, that you would resonate yourself with more, there's a lesson in this that I hope everybody is hearing. If you are the visionary leader and, or you are the person trying to work with that visionary leader, you need to make sure that you're hearing what she's saying right now. Because there's, there's a key in any business of communication is really the solution to all your problems or the cause of all your problems. I think we both agree on that. And I guarantee you there's a lot of high level entrepreneurs out there, and if they're smart, they're sitting there and saying, I wonder if anyone in my staff is thinking about me the way she was thinking about him at that time. And I bet you there's a bunch of staff members that are sitting there and thinking, do I not like my boss because of a prejudice and I'm projecting something negative on him because I just don't like something about that personality because it's different, or do I not like them based on results? And I think that's a wildly common theme in the marketplace.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. So based on results. That's a good point. Because when we first started working together, you spoke about big things and, oh, my God, we're gonna make all this money and we're gonna close all these homes. I'm like, yeah, right, dude, of course I wouldn't say it to your face, but I didn't believe you. But I learned to like, okay, I'm just gonna accept what you say. That's. The trust thing came into play. I'm not gonna let you in yet. You need to prove it to me first. And then I started making more money, and then you gave me a raise and I started making more, and we were closing more. And then you gave me my first bonus of $100,000. And it was like, this guy was right. I may have already let you into my trust circle, but at that point in time, it was like I was bought in. I was bought in 100%. But I had to learn. It wasn't just, you know, because I work hard. I literally had to learn how to manage you. That was a big part of it. And even till this day, like, when speaking to my other, you know, my dos, I. I need to learn. I learned how to speak to them, each in their own way. It's not, it's not me. It's. I'm a reflection of them and I need to learn. I had to learn how to speak their language. And you speak about that all the time. And that's where I've learned it. But it's not just speaking Plumber. It's not just speaking electrician or land developer. It's literally speaking to each individual employee and how they receive your message. You know, we had an incident yesterday where, you know, two people were having an interaction and weren't able to communicate. But because they weren't communicating literally, it just means talking to somebody. And a lot of times when you don't like somebody or if you feel like they're not paying attention, which I did feel like that with you in the beginning. I had to overcome that and just speak up and say something. And a lot of times people don't do that.

[Preston Brown]

I only didn't pay attention when you were saying something wrong.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I disagree because there's times even today where you think I'm wrong and I let you have it and then later you're saying, you're right.

[Preston Brown]

That is true.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

You're right, I fucked up.

[Preston Brown]

But you know what? I would purposely ignore you when you were saying something out of fear. So. And I remember doing that when you were like down talking. What I felt was a goal, I would like check my phone or do something to piss you off because I knew it caused a reaction. And like, so I would. Anytime that we were on the same energy, I would reward it with focus. And anytime we were off, I actually did do that. I'd like pull out my phone, just like, oh, wait. And I'd kind of ignore you and you'd keep talking and I could feel your frustration. But then I'd come back and I'd revert back to the conversation. I'd recede like I'm a psychology and economics guy, so I had to play with it. But. And there were definitely times that I probably did actually ignore you that I'm sure seeded some other beliefs there. But like, I remember ignoring you on purpose when it was fear based.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Thanks.

[Preston Brown]

You're welcome. It worked out.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Sure. Okay.

[Preston Brown]

The ends have definitely justified the means.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Most definitely. Most definitely. I mean, the stress, the stresses will always be there. And man, there were some stressful days and long nights and, you know, phone calls at 9:00 clock at night talking about color selections and, you know, it took a. It took a lot because it wasn't just work, it was home life too. Home life played a big part and it was a big shift from what me and my family were used to to, you know, being a part of Zia Homes and managing and owning it to before it was night and day. So it wasn't just the stresses at work, it was the stresses at home.

[Preston Brown]

Let's Talk about that. And you and I have talked about this off camera. Everybody out there loves these taglines about like, work life balance and all this that employees or entrepreneurs or maybe lucky Sperm club can go say. But like, not anybody in the real world. There's no such thing as work life balance. What there is, is there's such thing as priorities. And there's times where we will tell each other, hey, I have to go focus on this right now.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

But there's also times where we'll tell our spouses, like, look, we need to really give the business time. Like this is what we need to do. And how do you underwrite which time is the best time.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

By train wrecks? I think if the biggest problem is the prioritizing and figuring out what it is. So with us, me and my husband always set time apart for each other. Because if, like I was saying earlier, if he's not my rock, I can't do it. So having that time just for him and I, you know, him and I go on trips by ourselves. We don't take the kids because we need to reconnect. Because without him, without our relationship, everything falls apart. So that's direly important to me. But with that, he, we're able to compromise. And he understands that if I'm, you know, working on whatever it may be till 9 o' clock at night, you know, because we have to catch up because our contract coordinator, you know, vacated the spot and she sucked ass, you know, and I have to, I have to pick up the slack. I'm going to do that. And he understands that because he knows when it's time for him, it's going to be all him.

[Preston Brown]

I know a lot of. I think it's probably refreshing to people to hear this. And there's so many gold nuggets that are coming out of this. Like, A, in the way that people are looking, B, in the way that people are communicating, C, in the work life balance frame, D, some of the values things, I mean, all of those are critical pieces. But there's one more area I'd love to kind of dive in with you because, I mean, I've coached some of the big corporates on Wall street and that was kind of toxic. And I didn't love it because I realized real quick, Wall street sold out to the money changers. And there's no heart, there's no culture. And I don't want to say always there are probably some firms where there is, but dealing with some of the corporate grind and the hustle and Grind culture that was the big corporates. I met Some very big CEOs and C suite executives and high performance people. And you would be surprised at how the family life is in so many of those folks. And I gravitated when I did my coaching time to small business where people could have some semblance of character and it wasn't all about money and they could focus on doing the right thing and they could honor their employees over their shareholders if that's what was needed at the time, you know, and you are probably the best CEO, like from a standpoint of humility, not ego. From a standpoint of frankly, success and net worth in most cases as well at this point for inability, very short time that I know. Let's go into some of the principles that you, you see as, as a CEO, you must do what, you must look for what, you must manage what, what is the key for a CEO, Because I think this is a big formative part of your learning over the years as well that you have adapted to.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Amazingly, one of the biggest things is listening. When I was working for Ron, he'd never listen to. I would try and, you know, explain myself or, you know, give reasoning to why things are a certain way, and he wouldn't listen. And I've learned that as a CEO and getting people to buy into what you're trying to do, you need to listen. You need to listen to what they have to say. A lot of times people just want to be heard. They don't even want you to, you know, give reasoning or even, you know, ask for anything. They just want to be heard. And I get that a lot. A lot of people come into my office constantly just wanting to be heard. And I just sit there and listen. And it takes up a lot of time, but I don't mind it because at the end of the day, when I need something, they're there.

[Preston Brown]

Do you listen to everyone or do you keep it within a smaller group that is manageable?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I listen to everybody. Yeah, because a lot of times, unfortunately.

[Preston Brown]

I'm asking for them. I already know, but I want them to hear this.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

People, unfortunately, people are scared of me. I don't know why and probably because I had a resting bitch face, you know, but even if, you know, I always tell new employees, my door's always open if you need anything, if you can't get the answers you're looking for, let me know, I can help. And anybody who's wanting something or to be heard are more than welcome to step into my office. My door is always open outside of.

[Preston Brown]

Listening, which I think is critical and wildly important, because if you don't listen, you cannot learn. And I think listening is a key function of learning, and we agree that that's like, a main priority. But outside of, like, listening or listening and learning, what are some of the other things that a CEO needs to make sure they are doing extremely well?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I think buying into what you're selling, I need. If, if I'm telling you, hey, we need to build 350 homes. If there's a gap in the process, I'm going to be stepp feeling it. You know, I'm going to buy into what I'm trying to sell. When I'm trying to sell every. All of my employees. You know, I don't want to just give a directive and sit back and let them do all the work. I'm going to get in the trenches with them, ensure that everything is working like it should be. You know, I don't want people to feel like they're off in an island by themselves.

[Preston Brown]

We're. We're doing that right now. Actually. You and I are running one of the departments of our company because we let go of some people that we felt did not do that department or did it in a way that was only honoring them. And, you know, maybe they were trying to get kickbacks or something. We don't really know. But somehow they did nothing in 60 days. So we were like, ah, you can go. And how much have we say we're running our costing department? We have lowered costs in the company and created systems and attached CRM systems and updated software and, and, and, and we've lowered our costs. If you were looking annually by what, $250,000 in a week.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, hundreds of thousands.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, hundreds of thousands of dol. Savings. And have we gone and cut anybody's throat or negotiated anybody down? No, not at all. All we've done is messaged everybody in the market and said, hey, we have work. Do you need work? What's your price? And you know what magically happened? The people that need work are cheaper than the people that didn't need work. And so we were like, oh, wow, cool. Like, there's a whole bunch of people saying they can do this for a buck 30 and we're paying a buck 40. Wow. Well, let's get those people to come do it and. Or at least one or two of them, and then we'll just let our other people know that, hey, you know, we're going to add more people at the buck 30. And, and it's funny like the market is dictating like that, that that's all it is. We've done nothing other than ask than step in, do the work, organize the process, leverage each other's talents. Like you don't get on most of the phone calls, but you don't let me do any of the paperwork.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No paperwork. Excel. I'll, I'll handle it.

[Preston Brown]

It's okay.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I'll add the context to the CRM. Don't worry.

[Preston Brown]

Thank God. But let's also tie in because we're co CEOs. Yes, I think I could do this with you, but it would not be anywhere near as efficient. Would you agree or disagree with that statement?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I agree, but it also works the other way around. I wouldn't be able to do it.

[Preston Brown]

Without you because there's a different efficiency each of us brings.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Right. And your innovation is very different than mine.

[Preston Brown]

And I think there's a critical lesson that every leader needs to learn that I mean whether you, whether you're doing this with a virtual assistant, whether you're doing this with a co CEO, you have to have an ego that you can compromise down enough to share in success and rewards to balance out the, the parts of your personality type that don't work. Like, I mean somebody out there might be like, well, you could have done that with a virtual assistant. You could have done that with just a high level assistant, maybe. But a high level assistant would have never been rewarded enough and motivated enough by the rewards, in my opinion, to want to go out and form things and change things and create things and like you create an innovation to the optimization in our company that I couldn't do. And I create innovation in the external things like the software, like different, like unique processes or product types that nobody's seen that you couldn't do. And without one another, I think we would both be wildly successful, but far less successful than we are. So let's dive in and we'll end on this. How do you go about. And this is key because I like, I love you like a sister, but do we hang out every weekend?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No.

[Preston Brown]

When's the last weekend we hung out? Like a year ago.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I think it was for Valentine's.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, Like, I think we had you guys over for dinner on Valentine's Day. Yeah, we cook a big meal on Valentine's Day for people that we love and we don't go out. I don't need the government to sanction a date night for me. So we make a date night for other People. But, like, that's the last time we, like, hung out. Hung out?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

Like, I mean, I'd consider you a friend, but we're not friends in the traditional way that people are friends. Like, you're more of a family member than a friend.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

Like, there's times where I'm like, God, I don't want to hang out with her. I'm exhausted. And I'm reasonably certain you'd feel the same way.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Well, yeah, Sometimes I don't answer your phone call on a weekend.

[Preston Brown]

I know, bitch.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah.

[Preston Brown]

So let's dive in to balancing and working in a relationship where the polar opposite of you is exactly the thing that's going to complete you from an opportunity standpoint. What. What are the fundamental needs there? And let's end on that because I think that's a key that many leaders are missing right now in the marketplace.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

So you're asking me, how do I work with you?

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, I'm asking you to paint a formula for how you go about working with somebody that is the opposite of you and, and, and leveraging that success and still accepting, like, the differences. Because it's a unique. We have a very unique relationship.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah. And I think it only works because it works both ways. You know, I'm a certain way and you're a certain way, but I understand how to communicate with you and how to manage our differences. But you know how to do that, too. I think if it was only me trying to do it for my boss, we would never get anywhere.

[Preston Brown]

Mutual respect, definitely, I think, is a value that has to be there in that relationship. And I would say mutual respect and mutual understanding of the differences. Like, I'm much more public, you're much.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

More private, and that's fine with me.

[Preston Brown]

I love going into the boardrooms. I love doing the coaching sessions. I love doing all that. You like efficient meetings?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Some people like efficient meetings.

[Preston Brown]

There's a place for both.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, totally. And I, I think if. If I wasn't your co. CEO and you had me as, you know, assistant or executive assistant, it wouldn't be. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't give you as much as I give you now. I wouldn't have bought into the business. So if you weren't going to value me, I wasn't going to value what, what you're trying to do. I feel like I'd be back in the same situation I was seven years ago.

[Preston Brown]

If you had to guess what percentage of the population doesn't feel valued at work right now.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Oh, man.

[Preston Brown]

Because you know, and that's been the common theme that we've recirculated, too, over and over and over. What's the trigger like? Triggers can be positive, triggers can be negative. What's the trigger? And this is not necessarily something I want you to answer, but it's because we know what's the trigger that your people need to feel valued by you. You, like, I have found a way to leverage my time and create an extreme level of freedom, you know, by giving you an opportunity that you absolutely would have wanted, absolutely had the ability to do. But there were things about it that you would not have taken. You would have not taken the limelight. You would have not done any of the social media. You would have never been out pushing on bank meetings. But at the same time, I couldn't have done the other side. Does that make sense? So in that piece, the key component was at least occasionally. Not that we couldn't argue, fight or debate, cuss and discuss whatever you want. We had to express that there was a value to the other person.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yes.

[Preston Brown]

I feel like we have made a good amount of space for the thank you or I appreciate you meetings, whether it's just a lunch every now and then or a conversation or an attaboy or a good job. And I think we've done that really well. Mutual respect, mutual value and understanding. What else? Is there anything else you find?

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

No, I think that sums it up very well.

[Preston Brown]

You know what? Last one.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

What's that?

[Preston Brown]

For the most part, unless we identify an issue the other can't see, we stay in our lanes.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, you've gotten really good at that. You used to be the bull in the china shop and aw used to irk the shit out of me.

[Preston Brown]

I had to for the innovation. But now you're in your lane. I'm in my lane. If you see something wrong on my side, you point out the numbers and you're like, hey, this is here and we need to go figure out what is it. And I can go dive in and figure out the psychology pieces of it. You know, if I see something wrong in the process, I bring it to you. We don't dive into each other's lanes in a way where we're not. Not intentionally. And sometimes, you know, if we, you know, accidentally dip, we with grace, like, honor each other and help the other one out. But, like, we work diligently to stay in each other's. In our own lanes.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Yeah, that's how we're so successful. You know, I don't go out there and try and sell homes and you don't come over here and try and build them.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, I don't sell homes anymore. I get to sell the bankers and.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

I get to sell the landlord in the beginning.

[Preston Brown]

Yeah, but, but gosh, I love this, Viviana. This was magic. Thank you for taking the discomfort of getting in front of this camera and telling us your story. And you know what's really cool is I've known you now for near 20 years and I learned a few new things about you today and I love that.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Great.

[Preston Brown]

I appreciate you. I love you. Thank you for coming on the show and for all you listeners. I just gave you a golden gift. I gave you Viviana Ronquillo Herrera, somebody who is not going to come out, not going to get loud, not going to share this wisdom in a public space. And I gave you something that I think you can leverage in your partnerships. She gave you something you can leverage in partnerships. The way that you work with your teams, the way they work with you. If you're an employee trying to step up, I'll bet you resonated with some of what she said. I think you might just be my favorite episode to date because, man, this one was personal. Guys, we love you. I hope you all have an amazing day on purpose. And if she ever gets a social media, I'll give it to you so she. You can follow her.

[Viviana Ronquillo Herrera]

Thank you, Preston.