Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Laura Casillas Morales. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

There are a lot of things that I think my parents did right and have helped me overcome obstacles and shape the way I am and the life that I live.

The core 3 things that they preached and lived that I believe are the ones that have marked me more are these ones:

1. Honor your word
2. Work hard
3. Have faith, it will all come out the way it’s supposed to.

Growing up my parents always emphasized the importance of committing to do what you said, what you promised. I remember playing Monopoly when I was around 8 years old and a property in the game was auctioned. Everyone started bidding over it and suddenly without thinking about it I jelled a number which was way more than the property was worth, girl, you know who ended up with an overpriced property and no money left to play. Even when playing we were reminded of the importance of this.
Several years later I can tell that sticking to my commitments, even though sometimes that meant not being profitable in some projects or working night shifts for weeks to complete a project, or other kind of sacrifices to make up for an error, served me well in business. We were trustworthy as a company and that brought many clients, and great relationships with some of them, it resulted in commitment from my employees, and great relationships with suppliers.

The working hard was lived by my father in his several entrepreneurial adventures, and by my mother in taking care of 5 very mischievous kids and keeping meals healthy, hot, and ready. I’m still waiting for those mom’s superpowers and patience to come to me…one of these days I hope….

The second and third point I mentioned are very correlated, work hard, do what you know you need to do, and the rest is not up to you, its God’s will (destiny, energy, you name it for you). That gives me peace and keep me focused on the task I need to tackle and avoids overwhelming with things out of my control.

Writing this few points, I understand I could write a whole book of the lessons learned from my parent since I have memory until now and I’m sure I will continue learning from them.

By the way, my parents’ names are José Luis and Christina and they did several more things right and keep doing them right until this days.

Laura, 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 was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. I studied International Business and worked for a short period of time at IBM. Then I moved to Spain to study an MBA, I ended out meeting my husband there, lucky me! I returned to Guadalajara and started a business importing double-glazed windows from the USA. That helped me learn a lot about what I do today. I had all hats on, sell, buy, install, bookkeeping, customer service, HR, and the list goes on. Fast forward 15 years, my husband and I took the decision to sell the company and move to the USA.

I had a fresh start here and I became obsessed with real estate investing and financial freedom, I read, listen, and took classes about the subject (still do) and started my journey applying some strategies that I learned. About a year ago I got my real estate license and my passion is to help people buy their houses by sharing what I have learned and offering other ways to see their house purchase, in a way that they can see it as a step to reaching wealth. I also try to focus on helping Hispanic people to really change their life and achieve much more than they could in their country of origin. I know how important is to understand the steps and processes that are involved in a real estate transaction, that’s why I like to keep current with the market and strategies available.

I’m proud to have a network that helps me bring more value to my clients, I have the support and advice of very experienced investors, brokers, agents, attorneys, lenders, and marketing professionals. The service that you can expect from me is professional, committed, honest, friendly, casual, creative, and committed to bringing the most value possible to help you achieve your goals.

I help people to buy houses, sell them, find investment properties, analyze them, fix and flip, analyze short-term rental properties and manage them. I’m always happy to help and find solutions.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

One of my favorite things about a business is having a team, after all, if there is no team the chances to grow the business are null.

From my experience good and open communication is one of the most important keys to being able to manage a team, also having systems and processes that allow everyone in the company to know what and how to do their work. At least in the kind of business that I know (building and installing windows).
Be open to explaining where is the company heading, and the problems that you are facing to reach a goal or to stay alive. Also, recognize the effort of each team member. personally give them a few words like “great job”, “thanks for the extra effort or time” we all want to feel seen and recognized so do it with your team.

Finally, focus on solving issues, and have everyone in your team focus on the same. When something wrong happens don’t waste time looking for an excuse or a person responsible for it, you will have plenty of time for that later, now focus and make everyone focus on solving the issue. What is the next step that will take us out of this one?

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I actually pivoted both business and life at almost the same time. My husband and I made the decision of selling our business and moving to the USA to pursue better opportunities for our kids. We sold our 14 years old business, packed our stuff, and moved to Texas. I didn’t think much about the process, to be honest, I just had in my mind that it will work and that’s it. I tend to think about action, I imagine point A and point B, and I just start walking. If you wait to have everything solved and for you to be ready nothing is going to happen. Take action. You will change on the way, you will prioritize different things and probably you will realize that point B is no longer where you want to go and that’s ok. You can change, you are allowed to. Don’t be so hard on you, build resilance, learn patience and realize that the journey is actually the goal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/laura.casillas.morales
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laucasillasmorales/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lau.casillas.morales
• Other: https://laura.teifkerealestate.com/

Image Credits
Andrew Joseph Roberts Kat Pinson