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

Andy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

The education system that we all know needs to be thrown out and revamped. I truly believe that you do not need a traditional education to earn a living in America. Through the advancement of technology, we now have access to information like never before. Each year we continue to see younger and younger people start successful businesses with the information they learned on YouTube or online. If that doesn’t tell you that there is a problem with the education system then I’m not sure what will.

I believe the part of the problem starts at home and is heavily based on your upbringing. For most of us, our parents’ beliefs influenced us into adulthood. For example, my parents were not born in the United States so upon arriving here, they had to figure out how to a living for themselves by starting a business. While some of my friends grew up learning about their parents’ careers. I was learning about finances, credit, money, entrepreneurship, and home ownership from my parents because I had to translate a lot of information due to them not speaking English. Even though I did end up going to college, I always challenged it. I grew up with self-employed parents so I understood that there was another way to make a living. I ultimately followed in my parent’s footsteps and open up my own business due to my exposure early on. I was able to prevent some of the financial mistakes that most young people make due to the lack of guidance. I believe that I have a business now due to the exposure I received from my parents. I was able to see first-hand that there were other ways to create a living for yourself. The other problem is that we learn in school that the only way to have a fulfilling life and career is to go to college and get a degree. While that works for some. It doesn’t work for all! We continue to see people drop out of college and try to learn untraditional methods of earning a living by starting their own businesses. While it comes with risk, I personally believe that it provided you with a better quality of life. Technology is outpacing our outdated education system. Young people now have options, and they are betting on themselves. Aside from learning the basics of reading, writing, and math; the majority of us are not properly prepared for life. We are failing our students by sending them out into the world with information that once helped the generations of the past.

The effect of the failing education system can be seen in society today. Students continue to chase down an education system that continues to fail them. We have students entering the real world not understanding their finances, credit, money, entrepreneurship, student loans, home ownership, or how to properly interview for a job just to name a few. Now I am not saying that everyone needs to open a business but I do believe that life operates as a business. Those that understand how to run it efficiently have a better chance of succeeding. The current household debt of an American family is in the trillions of dollars and most people cannot afford to live the American dream that was promised. There are current talks that the next crisis in America will be the student loan crisis. While the government is trying to find ways to mitigate the issue. The little that they’re doing is not really enough for those that have already amassed large debt due to the lack of proper education. The sad part is that these decisions will affect families for generations and generations to come.

The solution is to start shaping the minds of our students at a very young age and exposing them to real-life issues. For what they are unable to learn at home from their parents they need to be taught at school. Doing this will prepare them for success. There needs to be a mandatory class that teaches students how to prepare for the real world such as understanding their finances, credit, money, entrepreneurship, student loans, home ownership, or how to properly interview for a job just to name a few. Implementing classes such as these will start to open the mind of students early on in their life to give them a fighting chance during their life journey. I say this because most students do not start getting exposed to these areas until after high school and by then it’s too late.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Andy Saintilus. I got into the Real Estate industry by attending Lex Levinrad’s Real Estate Training Program. I specialize in buying outdated houses and renovating them to sell, or rent. In addition, I train individuals that are looking to learn how to buy, fix, flip, wholesale, or Airbnb houses. I help renovate houses in the community while helping individuals understand the importance of home ownership. What sets me aside is that I am a local investor that’s buying houses and training people locally to invest in the surrounding community. I am most proud of the homes I am able to provide to those looking to invest, purchase, or rent.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Juggling school, work, and trying to build a business is the definition of resilience. I made the decision that I wanted my life to look different and I went to work. I had to put myself in a different place mentally to get where I am now. I remember working from 7 am to around 4 pm then going to class from 5 pm to about 7 pm then going back to work to do overtime from 8 pm to about 9:30 PM. Then when I got home from work, I would spend a few hours doing school work and working on starting my Real Estate business. On the weekends, I was working overtime in the mornings and worked real estate in the afternoons. If I wasn’t at work then I would be attending Real Estate Investing training boot camps. This was pretty much my life for about 8 years. During this time, I missed out on hanging with friends, and family, and pretty much had no personal life. I saw it as a means to an end! While it was a very stressful period in my life, I believe that pressure makes Diamonds. The hard work eventually paid off because I graduate from school. The additional hours at work helped me get a promotion at my job so I no longer needed to do overtime and I had more time to focus on building my real estate business.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Funding my business all came down to life choices. During this period of my life, my main focus was to increase income and decrease expenses. I would work as much as possible to save money from my day job. I was also consistently reviewing my expenses to see if there was any possibility of cutting expenses. I made the decision to live at home with my parents for a few years longer than I wanted. I traded in my car for something less expensive with no payments and all these decisions led to me having the money I needed to purchase my first rental property.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: andysaintilus
• Facebook: asaintilus
• Linkedin: Andy Saintilus