We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jason Patanjo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jason , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

I am a professional educator and worked my tail off in grad school to get my teaching license in a handful of states. Moving to Florida and teaching was very expensive due to the low salaries, lack of respect and high debts of trying to succeed in my chosen profession made me think outside the box and start something new.

Most of my family owns their own businesses and are very successful. However, I was always concerned that I would never reach that height of success, until my unfortunate gas station incident. I should have started my RE career much earlier on because then this specific incident would never have happened.

The turning point was a Friday in September, 2019 in which I received my very low paycheck from my charter school. Keep in mind that I worked the entire school day and then the after school program 5 days a week. This lead me to working 13-14 hours a day and going nowhere to get this done. That specific Friday, I had my mortgage and my car payment along with many other bills come out of my account all at once.

I was driving home about 6:30pm, exhausted from the day and irritable because it was a rough afternoon. I was literally driving on fumes in my five year old SUV that was falling apart and went to get gas. The pump denied me from getting the gas because I only had $7 in my checking account. I had no savings and I wasn’t able to buy anything. Luckily, I was able to put together about $9 in change from my car. Of course, gas was approximately $4.00/gallon so I was not getting much gas.

I sat in my car with the little amount of gas that I had in my tank, no money and the fact that I was a college educated individual. My initial thought was “who lives like this?!” After speaking with my much younger brother who owned his own company and was very well off (I had pride, so I don’t ask for money) he told me the best advice that I ever heard. He said “you keep doing the same routine and you think you will get a different outcome.” He said make a change to your life and do something that will bring in money. I have friends in the real estate business driving nice cars, working a small part time job for fun and just enjoying life. They are able to pay their bills on time and have extra money to help themselves.

I ended up using my credit card to buy my pre and post licensing education for my RE sales associate license. Meanwhile, I kept my full time job and over the last five years, I have sold about 4-5 million dollars in real estate. I have had the luxury of buying a brand new BMW 5 Series and have been able to upgrade my home. The future is looking much brighter and I am embracing the hard work that I do everyday to help people find their way home.

Jason , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I love helping people and educating youth is wonderful. As everyone is aware teaching in the US does not pay very well and I was unhappy with my salary. Because I was always having a small carrot dangled in front of me with a tiny raise that usually made very little difference due to inflation. It just wasn’t worth it to keep pursuing an education career.

I decided the best way to help the youth and their families is by helping them find a way to have the security of their very own home. I still work my full time job for the consistent paycheck and the student loan forgiveness as well. However, I give my self amazing bonuses with my sales and my sales associates sales. Once getting my broker license I have been able to collect more income to help with the bills and take my significant other on trips around the world.

I thought about what I had to do to make the change and instead of working a second job, why not run my own business and make the same money in one transaction. Instead of making $5-7K extra over the life of 10 months, let’s make that same amount in one transaction. Now, I am fortunate enough to make an extra $70-80K a year on top of my salary and I am not killing myself to make that anymore. I have the freedom to take a day off and enjoy it. If I have to work at school and they would dock my pay for $250/day and I can go to a closing to make $5-15k in that day. I am going to take that second option. Anyone who was afforded the chance to do it would!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Not everyone can handle this business. It has a lot of moving parts and some people can blow you off and not care. Many reasons that people blow you off can be silly to you, but they are real to them.

I have one potential seller sign with me and I went through the process of making the deal happen. We went through the transaction and they gave me the hardest time about the sale because they were not happy. I advised that we had discussed all of these issues and advised that we could get out sooner. However, the seller was not interested in leaving the deal.

They wanted to complain about everything and make everyone feel uncomfortable about the situation. As soon as we got to closing day, my seller decided that they were not going to sell any longer. After I had advised that they were about to lose a lot of money due to liquid damages that we had already spoken about (they still wanted to go through with the sale) that they could be sued for not delivering the house in the time appropriate. We came to an agreement with the buyer and my seller’s dream home a few blocks over went up for sale and my seller became a buyer for that house.

This business is tough and it can also be shattering to someone’s confidence, but you have to be resilient to get through the day. The sale will go through but be transparent to all involved and make sure that you realize that this is a numbers game. Not every deal will close. Luckily, this time I was able to collect a listing agent and selling agent commission.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had to pivot to something else when I was in my early 40s and realized that my career was a one-way ticket to nowhere. I was not able to pay the bills and do anything extra. I knew that my job just wasn’t paying enough and I had to figure it out to make that change. Today, I get to live the life that I have always wanted too.

I have money in the bank, I meet great people and have a blast doing it. In the meantime, I get the luxury of not having to stress out if I’m not renewed with school. Losing a job is tough but losing a paycheck is even tougher. Being a Florida teacher with no tenure makes life scary because you can have that one principal who doesn’t like you and they can get rid of you for no reason. That was a pivotal moment in my life and changes needed to be made.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jaysellscentralflorida
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/jasonpatanjo
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jason-patanjo