Latest / Own More Doors / #30 The Life-Changing Lessons I Learned as a 10-Year-Old Newspaper Boy

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#30 The Life-Changing Lessons I Learned as a 10-Year-Old Newspaper Boy · Own More Doors

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's up everyone?
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Juan Weezar here with the Own More Doors podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This specific episode was first shared on our YouTube channel, Sage Real Estate.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Check it out.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we're excited to bring it to you here.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: What if I told you that the key to my real estate success all started when I was a 10-year-old and I was selling newspapers door to door?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not only did I learn about sales, customer service, responsibility, but I learned about much, much more.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Tune in today where I'll tell you a unique story of what it was like for me to be a newspaper boy, not just for uh as a kid, but I was a newspaper boy since I was 10 until I was 18.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I quit, the only reason I gave up my newspaper route that I loved was because I had to go off to college.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share this special story today, and I hope you like it.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of you know my story of coming from Mexico, having to pick garlic and work in the fields in the hot summers and making$10 a day.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've shared that story, but one story that I haven't shared that really, really defined who I am today was the story about me being a newspaper boy.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so where this starts is a lot of my siblings had more than one job.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the summers, we were picking garlic, working hard in the fields, and during the year, you know, there's just that summer harvest where you do the job.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my siblings all had multiple jobs.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now they also studied and got good grades because my parents, we didn't want to let our parents down because of the sacrifice that they gave for us.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And my oldest brother Marcelo had a newspaper route.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And once he got a little older, my brother Antonio took over the newspaper route.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So around age 12, Antonio has this newspaper route.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I would go along with Antonio.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is, if you could imagine this, this is where you fold newspapers every day, you put them into this special newspaper bag.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, although you watch movies and the newspaper boys put that bag over their head, that's not really what we did.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, we would wrap the bag around our handlebars and we would go and we would deliver the newspapers after folding them to the folks who subscribe.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I was 10, I get home, and my mom tells me I'm rushing off, she's rushing off to the hospital because my brother Antonio, who's 12, and he's kind of like the closest brother to me.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're best friends at that time because we're so close in age, has broken his leg playing tackle football at school, and she has to go to the hospital to be with him.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, and I'm like, well, then I have to go.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want to see him, I want to make sure he's okay.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: She said, No, you need to stay here and deliver his newspapers.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: His customers expect this.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So my mom made me essentially start my newspaper career.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And because I always went with Antonio, I knew who got the newspaper.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what ended up happening to Antonio is he ended up being in a double cast, his feet up in the air.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was he was in seventh grade during during this time.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was unable to ride the bike, he was unable to deliver the newspapers, and so I took over his route during that time.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: During that time, I got used to folding the newspapers, putting a rubber band around it, and stuffing it in the bags.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now there was a lot of things that I started learning.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: One thing was delivering the newspaper.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then certain customers would say, Would you please put it next to my car?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please throw it behind the gate?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please put it on the porch?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one part was delivering it, the other part was knocking on the door and collecting the$6 that we would charge for the newspaper route.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that if I provided them good service, they would give me tip.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So they would give me the$6.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was all cash back then.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, this was 1989.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: They would give me the$6, and sometimes they'd give me a couple quarters, a dollar, maybe$2.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of money back then.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I started realizing as a 10-year-old, oh my gosh, if I'm nice, if I smile, I'm gonna make a little more extra money.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So customer service was something that was really, really ingrained in me at an early age.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now there was another thing that being a newspaper boy taught me.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: There was several newspaper boys in the city of Lamore.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lamore is a population of 17,000.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the the route that I had was a certain part of the community that they would give me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And every now and then the area manager, so this is typically a male who had a van, he would drop off the bundles of newspaper onto your porch.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Us newspaper boys would fold and go deliver, okay?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I delivered the Hanford Sentinel.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But every now and then they wanted to get more subscribers.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they would ask us if we wanted to go knock on doors and sell newspaper subscriptions.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how they got me to say yes.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: They said, if you go, we'll drop you off at a neighborhood, you go knock on doors, and if you get two people to sign up today before a certain time, you earn pizza.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And growing up in a Latino household where pretty much every meal was rice and beans, we wanted pizza.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so the motivation for us to get subscriptions was I'm gonna get pizza, and not just any pizza.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you remember, I'm from the Central Valley.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The best pizza in the Central Valley is Miannette's pizza.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: There happens to be one here in Southern California on Lakewood, which is just as good and it just reminds me of back home.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that's where they would take us.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I now don't forget, as a kid, I had a severe stutter.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the I had to get over this fear of uh speaking and asking people if they wanted to subscribe because I had this motivation of man, I'm gonna get pizza and a lot of it, pizza and soda.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the best.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I start getting really good at sales, going door to door.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Juan.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And typically, back then my parents weren't concerned that we were gonna get kidnapped, and maybe you shouldn't go knock on that purchase.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't care.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: We would go knock on every door and we would go down every single street, a bunch of us kids, and we we would support each other.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: When someone got their two uh two sales, we knew they were gonna get pizza, they were gonna help us.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I start getting really good at sales.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it gets to the point where they have they have this uh new thing.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you get 14 subscribers by a certain date, during the summer, we're gonna take you to Disneyland.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had never been to Disneyland.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: We grew up in a very poor household.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was never gonna go to Disneyland, okay?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Unless if I got 14 subscribers.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So during this time, my brother is now out of his cast, but he's he's on crutches.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's having to learn how to walk again because both of his legs weren't cast.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I was super motivated.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like the fact that I was gonna get to to Disneyland on a bus with the Hanford Sentinel, and they were gonna drive us kids down who earned it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was that was my target.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in a very quick time frame, I got all 14 subscriptions, uh, 14 subscribers.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that my brother was getting closer to walking.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what I did is uh without telling him, I continued going with the area manager, and I got another 14 subscribers.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that by the time he was walking, it was gonna correlate right with that summer, summer of 1989, and I think it was late July where where Antonio and I got to go together to Disneyland, and it was because I was able to sell my 14 and his 14.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, they they talk about success leaves clues, and I look back and I'm like, I was selling as a kid, as a 10-year-old.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had goals as a kid, and now and now that I look back, I'm like, I have goals now, and now I'm still selling, and now I realize that if I if I if I do the right thing, if I have the right attitude, if I'm sincere, these are all things that I was doing as a kid unknowingly.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what I didn't know now is that oh, you never stop doing those things.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: The sales, the customer service, the being myself.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up delivering the Hanford Settle from age 10 till 18.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I was the captain of the wrestling team, and I still had a newspaper route.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It always, that newspaper route to me always gave me enough money.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now listen, when I look back, I was probably making about in a month from that newspaper route about$150 a month.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I never needed to ask my parents for money because I was always making my own.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That brings me into what I also learned about independence is learning to take care of myself, learning to go create my own income.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was on the wrestling team, sometimes I would be away on tournaments.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so during that time I had my younger sister who had just watched all of her older brothers deliver the newspaper.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now sometimes I would say, Candy, I need you to deliver my newspaper route these next three days, and this is where they like their newspaper to be placed.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll split the com uh we'll split the tip with you when I go collect.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up being a newspaper boy for eight full years.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was a senior and I still had a newspaper route.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the saddest day came when I finally had to call the area manager and say, I'm going away to college.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going away to college, and um here's here's the newspaper back.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that I that I still remember is when I would fold this bundle of newspapers, I started reading the paper.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Still to this day, you know, people, my family teases me, Juan, you're like an old man.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: You you love your newspaper, right?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now I read the LA Times.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a terrific paper.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized I love holding the paper, but I had eight years of folding the Hanford Sentinel.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And during that time, actually, during that time, I I liked getting money.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I ended up finding that there was another area manager for the Fresno B.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up having two newspaper routes.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I delivered the Hamford Sentinel and the Fresno B.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time I had the bag of newspaper stacked so like sometimes the bag was so heavy, my my dad, who was getting ready to go to work, would have to help me wrap, wrap the bag around my bag.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I remember throwing a newspaper, and I just I was too heavy.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up tipping.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was unable to pick it back up.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I was 10 years old, and the only thing I could do is, well, it's just gonna stay there.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would just grab a bunch of newspapers and then I would run, deliver them until that was light enough for me to pick it back up again.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I share with you this story today for a couple reasons, and I want you to comment below.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that you did early on where we say success leaves clues?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of clues that were being left behind: sales, customer service, follow-up, relationship building.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: These were all clues that were happening, and now that I, you know, I'm in my 40s and I look back, I'm like, what a special moment in my life that I got to earn all, uh learn all these things, make a little bit of money, help my parents, and just develop these lifelong skills.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you guys to comment below.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you you enjoyed this story, and until next time.