Wendy Davis & Cesar Martinez | Real Estate Power Couple on Leadership & Grit | Coffeez Ep. 305

Coffeez with Joe Shalaby

Wendy Davis and Cesar Martinez, a real estate power couple, share their journey from high school sweethearts to building a successful business empire together. They discuss morning routines, entrepreneurship, leadership,

Key takeaways

• Morning rituals boost focus and success

Transcript preview

One two. I'm going to have an Americano, a cinnamon Americano, a little bit of cream and light cream please. Okay? What about you? It's a nice coffee, fun. Okay, I'm going to walk you guys. Let's meet Joe. an entrepreneur and runs one of the biggest teams in Southern California. We're also sitting with Caesar Martinez, the founder of We Trained Fitness. This guy has built gems. He helps gyms basically go from A to Z, builds him up and then basically helps them figure out a strategy to scale. Please welcome our very two special guests. Thanks so much guys for jumping on the show today. Well, thank you for having us. Thank you Joe. I'm excited to be here with you. Likewise, likewise. And how is the driver from here to LA? So you know how it is in traffic here around here in Orange County. It's not too bad actually. Carpo helped us a lot I appreciate people coming down all the time and I know people hate coming to Orange County from LA But you know we're gonna make it worthwhile for you guys today Well, thank you I like to start the show off with the same way I start every show and what is your morning routine? You can take the question first Absolutely. Well I think that your morning routine really sets your day. So I wake up every day I say my affirmations a prayer a prayer a prayer that I listen to in the morning and I write down what I'm thankful for. Literally have a journal for gratitude every single morning and I say a couple of words out loud and really jolted into my body and and off I go. I'm sure that's been a big reason for your success. Oh 100% yes. Recently I used to work out early in the morning alongside getting up. Oh and the one thing that I do that I absolutely believe has changed my physique, has been that I drink a glass of water with lemon in it and a little bit of a Himalayan salt. Oh, you do that, huh? Yes, it actually works. Really? Yes. What do you think it has changed your physique as a result of doing that? Well, you know what? It really, I think, stimulates, lowers my sugar, and I think with inflammation and it's just helped me out a lot. So you see you listen to a podcast, I'm hoping that podcast is that podcast is coffee with Joe's with Joe Shalavie, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. it's definitely going to be copies with you. I listen to No Days Off with Brian Grubernock. Have you heard of him? No. Yeah, he's a good one. He comes from like the real estate world. I've known him since he was like, I don't know, in his young 20s, way back in the day. He launched his podcast about over a year ago and it's pretty awesome. It talks about personal and business and really sets the tone for the day. All right. because I came out with like I had discipline in certain things in areas but I daily rich on the morning about preparing myself not really I just got up and I'm a person that gets up at four in the morning no matter if I have to work or not it just happens and but what I learned to be successful where it's changed around was be intentional throughout the day and starts in the morning basic routine I'll get up before my dogs there waking up with me walking out the door and I start my coffee and I start my coffee and I start and I start with basically the prayer of the morning just guide me through the day and do the right things very simple right very simplistic to maintain that physique though the physique well that's started a long time ago I mean but the ritual is this in the morning I prepare it's something very simple some just boiled eggs nowadays it's just three eggs I eat and it's just a piece of toast no longer do I prepare like I used to where I used to have a half a cup of old meal my egg whites you know so be a competitive bodybuilder so those days are over but lifestyle is still there so it just changes everything water like she said it's one of the most important thing you need to have. Do you do the lemon water? I do lemon water I don't do the salt so not as much as she does ritual but I do have at least now a half a leader I've influenced him just a tad yes and I feel better and I feel better and I feel better and I feel better and I feel better. The inflammation is gone that's one major thing that's changed just the hydration early in the morning everything else, my body just functions better. More alert, less pain, knees, ankles, stuff like that, it's gone. All right, I gotta ask, just because you're a beautiful couple and you know, you're gonna get married very soon. How did you guys mean? Well, Wendy, she's great to telling the story. I'll let her start. We were high school sweethearts. Oh, wow. Yeah, we were high school sweethearts and dated all the way up to college. Then we went our separate ways. Many ways. Many years passed by. He got married, obviously I was married. We had children and in 2018 he deemed me on Facebook. Yep. And he said, I'm interested in real estate and would love to talk to you. I see that you're in the industry world and would love to know how to get my real estate license. And I was like, Caesar. And so I said, hey, let's jump on a call. So we got on a call, that call was about two hours long. He got all. about how to become a real estate agent. I thought he was BSing me because he was just trying to get my attention and he actually followed through. I said to him, look, I'm going to launch a team and would love to have you a part of my team. So let me know when you're done. And he did. He texted me and he called me when he got his license and he came on to my team, the Wendy Davis group. However, he states that there was no intention about dating me about dating me. there was a rekindle anything and I do believe that I do believe that because you were in that state of mind way back then yeah I was coming back from launching in gems in Mexico with Ray Wilson the Ray Wilson family fitness and when I came back I kind of wanted to take a break of fitness and you know I was thought of real estate but I didn't know how to go about it right there's so many people out there there's you know we here you have friends you have friends you have you have people for friends you have people you have people But why not to ask the person that knew me better, right? Which was Wendy. And so she was in that world for 20 years. That's why I called. To honestly just get the information about her about that. And obviously I was very serious about it. And once you told me, hey, you fit that mold that you could do excellent. I said, okay, gave me the information. And I couldn't give my license fast enough. I was taking I was really not busy. So that whole course, like it took forever because I was I was and it would allow me to take the test. So it was one of those things that I was very anxious to get it done and soon as I was able to take the test. I took it and I told her I passed and she said what? I said I'm going to take me serious. I said no. I didn't. So many people are always saying I'm going to get my real estate license and it's just a whatever. You know that. Yeah. Yeah that's the story of her life here in our industry. And a couple months into it, you know, I started sensing that, I started sensing that like, I'm like, I'm. looking at me a little longer or like I saw him in the corner of my eye you know and and he asked me out and I said no I don't you know mix you know work with pleasure I'm so sorry and I actually was in a state of mind at that time where I was just not ready I really wasn't ready I didn't think I was ready for love I had been divorced for you know over 18 years and just raising my kids all on my own Yeah, I was very unique and special and I just, you know, put my head down and just worked my ass off to, you know, to get the girls through high school. And so when he came around, I was like, shoot, if he asked, if I go out on a date with him, I know that this is serious, am I ready? One day? He asked me on one date, October 7th in 2020. And that's it. Yeah, y'all have been together a long time. Yeah, almost six years. Yeah, so, you know, man and man, did you get your license because of her? Well, have any good things you got to study, right? Study the game, study what you have to go after and the course did it and prepare me to make the move. But honestly, Joe, I had no attention to actually start a relationship with her. My mindset was, get myself back and track where I want to do and be successful. But I made the right choice. The choice was getting, you know, together with Wendy, learn about real estate, and it happens to be. And did it not only gain a new business venture, I also gain a new partner in my life and I love in my life back with her and, uh, twofold here. And it just allows me to be a better person. I have been since I met her, you know, started seeing my Wendy again six years ago. So. Beautiful love story actually, guys. Thanks. But it. But it did. But it did take a long. to get married. I'm like that's okay. I know it's like you guys are really dragging it out. No it's okay we enjoy our live we see ourselves grow. We're getting married this year. And Jill you know how it is everybody's traditional right? They got to do certain steps. We did it all backwards. We bought a house together, we bought cars together and we were now going to get married after the fact. Yeah. Doctrineated financially together. So at what point, when you did you realize that you're building. you're actually starting to build like a real estate empire? Wow, I think I realized that when I was actually working under somebody else's shadow. I built five franchises, real estate brokers with nothing. There was no building, there was no agents, there was no staff. It was literally just a business owner who said, hey, I'm going to raise capital. Can you help me launch a business? And I said, absolutely. And I said, absolutely. And I'm going to raise capital. At that time I really didn't know what I was getting myself into and after I looked back you know I was like wow I just helped build five real estate brokers and I think I started believing in myself that if I can build someone else's empire I can build my own and that's when I decided to say you know what thank you so much but I'm not going to launch any more brokersages I'm gonna focus on building the Wendy Davis group and that was in 2020 a lot of courage to do that. So in 2020 you stepped out on your own. Yes. And walk me through that process like how did it feel to start your own company? What really set you off to start your own company? Because whenever anyone ventures off on there and that's a big risk. So what was running through your mind and you know the failure that you could have faced as a result of going on your own? Well I was definitely scared because I you know you never know what's going to happen in the real estate industry. you know this being in the real estate business it goes up it goes down you're not really sure what you're betting on and so I just mentally prepared myself and I financially prepared myself I put money away I actually gave up my Mercedes I gave it back yeah it was really rough actually because you know in real estate they sometimes you get like judged by the car you're driving but I didn't care I was like you know what I need to minimize my expenses I'm gonna go all in I had money in the bank saved and I borrowed a car from my mom and I said to myself I'm going to lower my expenses I'm going to make some money and when I earned the right I'm going to get back in get myself a car and so forth and thank the Lord that in 2020 as you know the real estate market was booming I mean interest rates were at 3% they dropped to 2.5% yeah I mean you know this yeah that was the best years ever ever I'm still living off that money at a time where the real estate was booming so I got a little lucky I guess you could say but I knew what I was doing I had built so many other people's businesses and coached so many real estate agents on how to build a business I think that is the difference between me and so many other real estate agents is that I never looked at myself as just a real estate agent I was like I want to build a business of my own I want to be a business owner and when I built these five franchises I was like I was like I can do this. So I just took a leap of faith and I believed in myself and prepared before I took that leap. That's really important. You know, entrepreneurship is one of the most difficult things and it's really like a struggle for people mentally because to go from being an employee to being an owner of a company is really hard and you can't really teach that. Where do you think you started to understand that entrepreneurial spirit or at what age did you really start to understand that you wanted to be an entrepreneur Wow I would say in my young 20s. In my young 20s when I got my with my first marriage I was a stay-at-home mom because I had twins and so at that time you know I stayed home because we didn't want to pay for daycare and so at that moment in my life I decided