We recently connected with Sal Cerda and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sal, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I just had a conversation about this with my wife last week. Our son who is now 3 years old was telling my wife Frida to be brave while she was practicing roller blading. Frida fell a few times and our son Sebastian said, ” don’t be scared Momma, be brave, you can do it”. I know, it made our hearts warm and fuzzy too. Frida then said, ” it’s ok to be scared, it does not mean you are not brave”. Wau those are some powerful words. It got me thinking of what I have done in my life and all the risks I have taken. I have been told in the past that I appear fearless because I jump into things that others might not dare.

One of the things I have learned about life and myself is that fear is a great motivator. Fear is part of everyone’s life, and it must be respected and accepted. Fear, however, should not deter you from your objectives nor should it deter you from living your best most adventurous life. I have felt fear in numerous occasions, but once I analyzed the situation and figured I had good odds of success, I decided to lean on bravery more than on my fears.

Now, every time I feel fear creeping up on me, I ask myself, “what am I more afraid of? being uncomfortable and growing? or being comfortable and not growing?” This helps me a lot and it is true what they say, true growth comes from being uncomfortable.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Salvador Cerda and I have been with my company State Farm for over a decade now. I was born in San Diego, raised in Tijuana, Mexico from age 2-15 and then came back to San Diego. We reside Chula Vista in the beautiful neighborhood San Miguel Ranch since 2021. I love outdoors, hikes, swimming, music, art, parks to go play with my son and delicious food.

I opened my business in April 1st, 2019 in National City and could not be prouder of what it has become. Not only do we have the best team that goes above and beyond every day, but we also have the best customers. People from all walks of life that allow us to be part of their lives, to hear their wins and their struggles, to talk about our families and theirs. Truly amazing!

I think this is something that sets us apart among many things, being there for our customers, establishing a relationship that goes beyond insurance. We get to know our customers, their families, their troubles, what makes them happy. We get to be there when things are good and be there when things are bad,and they have a claim on their auto insurance, home insurance or a death claim has happened.

There is LOVE in our office and people can sense it. This is what I am most proud of, creating a culture where LOVE is the primary ingredient. We are all humans, we all make mistakes, we all need help here and there, and when you can find a place that will hear you out, help you out, and not judge you, you have found a second home.

We can help anyone in California, Arizona, and Oregon for auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance, health supplement insurance, Rocket Mortgage loans, banking products, pet insurance, and commercial insurance. We are a one-stop shop and we love it!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Like I mentioned before, I was raised in Tijuana, Mexico from 2-15 which you know is the most critical stage for your life. My neighborhood had everything, drugs, ex-cons, abuse, savage dogs that were never leashed, and a lot of poverty. Even though we raised in this neighborhood I always felt like life had more to give. As I grew, I made a decision, I was not going to let circumstances dictate my life, I was going to dictate my circumstances. I assessed my life, accepted me for who I was and slowly started working on letting go of every negative thing that was holding me down. It took years or persistency and commitment to the future self I wanted to be. I have gotten to where I am right now because I have been resilient and always believe in myself. I would advise anyone who has issues, to stay true to the life they want to have. To pay attention to everything you do, even the smallest decisions you take will either get you 1% close to the life you want, or 1% farther from it, the choice is always yours.

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

This is a great reminder of how resilient we can be when we have focused on our objective and will do everything in our power to get there. I made up my mind that I wanted to open a State Farm office in 2014. I got in a program Agent Aspirant that gave me the blueprint of what I had to do to become a top prospect an open an Agency.

Once I had the blueprint, I began to work on everything. Get out of debt, improve credit score, get a 2nd job to help pay off debt and save enough money to survive my 1st year in business, and most importantly, I began to work on myself. After 5 years of working on all of this I was able to put myself in a position where I was the obvious choice to become the new State Farm agent in San Diego.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.salcerda.com
• Instagram: salcerdasf
• Facebook: salcerdasf
• Linkedin: salcerdasf
• Twitter: salcerdasf
• Yelp: Sal Cerda State Farm