People Person

An extroverted optimist

It’s nice to meet you! If we haven’t met yet, my name is Julius Agonor. I’m originally from Omaha, NE but I live in Chicago with my partner Oriana Alvarez. I have always loved writing! In fact, I preferred writing to reading when I was younger. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate how much more I love to write now that I have incorporated reading. This is how the idea of a blog came about. I will never forget the first time my dad told me I was a good writer, it has stayed with me to this day and it’s a skill that I’d love to sharpen. 

My brother said to me the other day, “that’s something I’ve always admired about Julius, he’s got confidence.” For a long time I didn’t consider myself to be confident. With the help of some therapy, I’ve identified the moment it started and I’ve been working pretty tirelessly not to let myself feel that way again. I’ve been extremely lucky to say that for the majority of my career I’ve been wildly blessed with incredible leadership! This has given me the confidence to take chances, make mistakes, and grow. Now, don’t get it twisted, I’ve always been optimistic. Like, wildly optimistic. However, these amazing leaders unlocked more in me than I knew was there. 

Where I’ve always found confidence was with people. Whether I’m talking sports with a stranger throwing darts for 3 hours or surrounded by thousands of real estate investors talking about a different game, I love being around people. I love connecting, building relationships, and helping people, help people. The most I’ve ever enjoyed the work I was doing was during my time as a career coach at Salesforce. I’ve done really cool work since then and some of the best work of my life since then, but I found my calling during that time. 

I am really excited to be back doing that work again!

Entrepreneurship

Building teams is my obsession

I won’t lie. One of my aspirations was to become the CEO of a company. If I’m honest, I don’t recall if it was ever for the money, although trust me, I also would like the money. For a while I thought it meant that I would get to be involved with all the big ideas. I’ve always been one for the big picture and for grand ideas, but that’s also been my demise when it comes to the small details. Well, let me rephrase that. My demise was that it took me a long time to realize I didn’t need to do it all alone. It was one of those aforementioned leaders that I mentioned that finally cracked the code. They gave me my first taste of real leadership and that’s when it hit me.

I don’t really care about the title, I love the role of building teams! So I became a CEO. 

No, like seriously. I got laid off around the same time most of the rest of the people who got laid off during the whole tech layoff spree. Now at this point I was ready to swear off corporate America and stick it to the man – Start my business and be infinitely successful! I’m not so optimistic to think it wouldn’t be tough, but I had no idea how tough it would be. They definitely leave that part out on Instagram! For the first couple weeks I would wake up early, hit the gym, come home and shower, make breakfast, eat and then sit down at my desk, ready to conquer the world, then I’d sit there dumbfounded. I wish I was exaggerating haha but I was just clicking around on the screen, opening tabs and scrolling in and out of neighborhoods on Redfin.

No matter what I’ve learned, the books I’ve read, the experience I’ve had, nothing accelerated my ability to be successful like leaning on my incredible business partner and our remarkable operations assistant. 

I remember early in my career, my fellow recruiters and I at the Young Professional events would have to remind people “we’re the fun HR.” I was recently having a discussion with someone about AI and technology and while I contend that it will clearly reduce some jobs that are out there for humans, I firmly believe that the best businesses invest in their people. I have a lot of crazy ideas. The most exciting thing about that for me is that I’ll be able to build a lot of unique teams.

Money & Financial Literacy

Playing a different game on another level

I’m very lucky that I had a father who really preached financial literacy as a young boy. I would get lectures about saving and investing as a 10 year old when I started washing my neighbors cars and mowing their lawns to buy pokemon cards and comic books. This concept of financial freedom may have been popular when I was younger, but we didn’t have Insta, Facebook, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and more to inundate us with the messaging, so I’ll just speak for myself that I didn’t learn about this concept in high school, college, or even my early career. Today, it’s a staple in my life. Everyone is looking for financial freedom and I’m right there with them. 

You are not greedy for being motivated by money!

I have never been one to be motivated by money. Before I continue on this path I need to get 2 things off my chest. One, there is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with being motivated by money! Don’t let anyone convince you that, that’s the case. 

There are a lot of people who believe there’s a fine line between being motivated by money and being greedy. This brings me to point two, there’s a vast cavity of space between greed and being motivated by money. We all want money – To have a life where we don’t need to check our bank accounts when faced with emergencies or even minor inconveniences. 

I am one of those people that believes money will just make you more of who you are today. If you’re greedy, you can be greedy with very little. Those who are giving and gracious who desire more money will just do more of the same with that money. So, who are you?

With that said, while I’ve never been motivated by money, I definitely desire a lot of money! Of course having a high net worth is great, but like nearly everything in my life, I have goals around my financial capabilities. I have big dreams of what I could do with what I like to call “stacks”! That all starts will building my financial literacy and I look forward to growing in this area and hopefully I can share my learnings on this topic with you all. I recently had the opportunity to invest as a private lender and while it doesn’t come risk free like many influencers would want you to believe, passive income is real and I think with the right education more people would become private lenders. Right now, leaving your money in a savings account, even putting it into your 401k, you’re letting the banks invest your money for you and they’re charging you aggressively for it. Instead, my goal is to teach more people to become the bank!

Real Estate

My foundation

My first memories talking about real estate date back to my days as a 7th grader. My dad was looking to upgrade our home that we had been in as long as I could remember. We would drive around and look at places together. I remember picking out rooms that would be mine – It still remains to this day as one of my fondest memories with my dad. 

The next clear memory came during my senior year of high school when my dad was explaining to me what was going on in the economy and how he was researching buying some property in places like Arizona and California where their value had been wildly depressed and how it would benefit him in the future if/when those values rose even just to where they had been a year prior. For context, I graduated high school in the class of ‘08.  

When I graduated from college I had no job despite working my tail off in college with both internships and jobs. So I did what so many other millennials did, I came home and moved in with pops! By this time, while he didn’t ever upgrade his house, he did add investment properties to his income stream and I noticed that he might need a little backup. This was now my first exposure to the behind the scenes of running a real estate business. I helped with some small maintenance projects, listing and helping show the property, and even part of the candidate screening process. I fell in love! 

Today, I own 2 properties, one here in Chicago and a second in Crystal Beach, TX. This year we plan to add 3 more to the portfolio. When I first started I thought I would want like hundreds of units, then I learned haha. Now that I understand the business much better, I know that the ideal portfolio for me would be roughly a dozen domestic and international properties in total. I love real estate, I believe with confidence that it’s one of the most dynamic assets in the world that can enhance any wealth building strategy. However, real estate for me is my foundation. I love the idea that real estate can fuel my entrepreneurial dreams and I look forward to building a dynamic portfolio that can help me fulfill my personal and professional goals.

Life

My momma raised me to work hard & play hard

My mom was the first person in my life to tell me to work hard and then play even harder! I have been highly influenced by my parents to work exceptionally hard. When I started my career, I was so heads down about making a name for myself and growing my skills but I always found ways to have fun and celebrate wins. Some of that was lost when I started my business. A part of that is because of the drastic reduction of resources I had soon after starting my business when I was laid off. However, today, I can’t function without making sure that I make time for breaks – I can’t say how much value a 5 minute break or 20 minute power nap will do for me when I’m feeling the burn. 

I have big plans for myself. I have big plans for what I want to do to leave an impact on the world. I have huge dreams of the things I’d like to create. I’m very well aware of the amount of time, energy, and effort that will go into building the business of my dreams. I am prepared to work my tail off, but I also plan to enjoy this blessed life that I’m living.