Monica Madrid | Overcoming Setbacks: Monica Madrid's Journey from Music to Real Estate Success
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If anybody would ask me about success, one of the very first things I would tell you is get up early. The mornings are everything to me. What became Monica's because? My story could later help people get through such a devastating loss. I didn't know who I was without it. And that was the key.

Everyone has that moment or that thing that really makes them identify their because. All my friends now are doctors and lawyers and have houses. And I'm starting from now ground zero with no education, zero. So I had to learn a lot of, I think, valuable lessons. And I had to compare me to me, not me to them. How can you individually have a better day tomorrow than you had today? And what are you doing to set yourself up for it?

that. 100%. That philosophy made me not only better, but survive. Everyone always says, I want to be great. I want to be great. But they forget how to be good, Monica. Monica, you can't be great until you're good. One of the first things that I always told my boss is, I'm always going to be consistent, and I'm always going to give you the numbers, and then some. Because I knew what it took to be great. ♪♪

Welcome to Mick Unplugged, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations. Buckle up. Here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today's guest has navigated the incredible highs and lows from near stardom in music. We're going to talk about Tupac in a minute. To battling addiction. She's now empowering others through her memoir, The Next Quiet Voice. And her bold brand, Football is Sexy. Please join me in welcoming the courageous, the creative, and the inspiring. My friend, Miss Monica Madrid. Monica, how are you doing today? What an adventure.

What an amazing intro, my friend. Wow. Thank you so much. Wow. You got me on that. I forget sometimes about a lot of the stuff with Tupac. You know, I've been talking Niners and Chiefs for a long time. But yes, it's been a great journey so far. I'm so excited to be here and talk about it all with you, my friend.

I am totally glad that you're here as well. We could talk Niners and Chiefs, but one of those teams aren't having a great year thus far. So let's just skip that. And let's go to Tupac because I know a little bit of the story, but I'd love for you to expand on this. And for the listeners and viewers, Monica's multifaceted. We're going to talk about all the faces of Monica Madrid here today. But when I first learned about Monica, she had this music audition and

And she was ready to sign a big contractor, so she thought. And someone else got her deal. And that someone else was this little known rapper by the name of Tupac Shakur.

And Monica was devastated. Monica, let's talk about that. It still hurts to this day. Yeah. So I have this big musical background. I was a dancer. This is the early 90s. And even then, back then, I remember quickly realizing there was two things that were pivotal in my life, and it was sports and music. I was pretty good. I was short, though. And

And I remember even, I love playing basketball. I even played flag football. But I remember even thinking then, what am I going to do? All my friends want to go to college and universities to become this or that. And I never had that. I never wanted that. I always felt a different calling. And I remember literally going, well, I love sports, but I can't make any money in sports.

I remember literally saying that there was no WNBA at the time and I was a pretty good point guard. And so that just literally catapulted me into, I'm like, well, let's go for music. And so I was a pretty good dancer and I ended up on soul train and back

in the day, if y'all don't know, you youngies out there, Soul Train was the thing. It was like, everybody stopped, right, Mick, on Saturday mornings? Saturday mornings. And when I grew up, Monica, it was the Jackson's cartoon and then Soul Train, right? Like, back to back, it was the most amazing Saturdays ever. It was...

we all look forward to it. It was just like, oh, and so to be on there and to be actually on the center stage was like a dream come true, you know? And so, um, I also was there because I knew I wanted to be in music and network. I knew that that was a smart place for me to be. And back then, don't forget Paula Abdul had made it out of soul train. Jodi Watley had made it out of soul train. So I was like, I'm about to make it out of soul train. Like I was dead set on it. And I

You know, long story longer is I ended writing because I was a songwriter. I ended up writing songs and it's a whole thing. But and I would write for a couple of the groups that were coming out of Soul Train. And these groups, girl groups, by the way, wouldn't show up. They just wouldn't show up. So here I am. I'm like, well, I wrote this song and we had the studio time. Well, why don't I just go ahead and record it? And at least I'll demo it for them. And that way we can, you know, cut down some time.

And then it just dawned on me, well, if I'm writing the song and now I'm demoing them, I'm not the best singer, but this is during the time of Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, like you didn't have to sound like Mariah Carey Whitney and I can dance.

I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this myself. I'm going to do this myself. So I put it together, a cassette back then, back to back, four songs each side, written, produced by yours truly, and started going to knock on doors. And the first place I went to, and I only knew this address because

because I used to deliver food to Interscope Records. I hated it so much, but you're young, you gotta do what you gotta do. And I hated going into all these record companies delivering food. And I'm like, I just wanna be here one day. Long story short, I knew the address of Interscope, so I went there first with my little package, did all my photo shoot, all this, walked in, talked to a guy named Mark Benesch.

And he said he had three minutes for me. And that three minutes turned into six hours. And I walked out of there with the manager, a lawyer, and they loved everything I was doing. And I thought that was it. I had all these packages still on my passenger seat. I went home. I'm like, I'm about to do it. One and done, Mick.

One and done. But then the phone calls stopped getting answered and I could tell something was wrong. Next thing I know, get a call. It's Mark. He's like, Monica, I'm so sorry. He's like, we had three meetings about you and you're six months too late. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, right when you came to us, we had just let go of all of the pop...

acts because we have to spend so much money on promotion and we're not getting that money back. But there's this new genre that we're going forward with called gangster rap. And

we just can't sign you right now. We're just moving in a different direction. And I was like, oh my goodness. And he goes, so, and he had shown me a video that day, that long six hour day. He's like, what do you think about this person? It was, we were chilling, hanging out. And I'm like, oh, he's dope. And they had like this video of him and I now know who it was. And he goes, yeah, you know, so instead of signing you, we're signing an unnamed artist by the name of Tupac Shakur.

We didn't know who he was back then. And I just, I didn't care about his name. I was just like that, whoever he is, he just took my deal. But I was like, wow. And he's like, I'm so sorry. And you know, I was devastated and that kicked off another journey. But you know, I guess if you're going to lose to anybody, losing to Tupac, it's okay. Like,

hindsight, you know, hindsight. And it's so weird. Cause I remember being on the dance floor and knowing for all those years that that could have been your music. It was a, nobody would believe it. You know what I mean? Like it's what, like nobody would believe it. And, um, you know, to be, to walk out of there and have like the, literally Peter Lopez was the biggest attorney at the time, having him represent you. It was,

a wild, wild time. But I made it through wasn't easy. But that's why the book is called the next quiet voice, you know, and where broken dreams can lead to spiritual freedom. Because through that process, I really had to dig deep and find out what my meaning was what my purpose was. Because when you feel like your name was meant to be in lights or whatever, you really had to look at that

and find out why. Why did you want that? Why didn't it happen? And how are you going to move forward in life? I can't imagine how many athletes don't make it to the NFL, how many singers don't make it to the record, you know, the record store, or nowadays streaming or whatever it is you so to know your why was really important to me to survive such a painful letdown, really.

Yeah, I love that. And I want to unpack a couple of things that you just talked about with the book. But before that, if Monica could go back in time and you heard the call or you're face to face and they're like, hey, we're going in the direction of gangster rap. Would you not have just like started crip walking right in front of them right then and said, oh, I can. Had they given me a chance, I could rap.

And that's the, and you know, what's funny is I actually did the songs that I had. They all had raps in them. Like I was rapping, like, don't get me started. I can rap, man. You don't want me to do it for you on this podcast. But that's why I think he said it was a really hard decision because they had three meetings about me. And when he said three, it was Jimmy Iovine, the

I think the other name was Dave. He was the co-founder, I think, with Jimmy and Mark Benesch, who was like, he was kind of like the A&R guy who believed in me. I would have rapped. I would have spun on my head. I mean, you just tell me what to do. And I was ready to do it, you know? Yep, absolutely. So what I want to unplug is a couple of things. So, you know, you talked about finding your purpose. And I'll make them plug. I call it going deeper than your why and being rooted by your because.

And I feel like everyone has that moment or that thing that really makes them identify their because. So I'd love for the listeners and viewers to understand at that moment, what became Monica's because? I didn't know at that time.

But I knew enough to know that my story could later help people get through such a devastating loss because it was a loss. This is your dreams, man. This is I didn't know who I was without it. And that was the key. And

And drinking kind of kickstarted after that because I was, you know, trying to drink the pain away. Because don't forget, all my friends now are doctors and lawyers and have houses. And I'm starting from now ground zero with no education. Zero. So I had to learn a lot of, I think, valuable lessons. And I had to compare me to me, not me to them.

And I had to also just really understand that my journey is my journey. Nobody else's. Whether you have a house and you're married with kids or not, my journey was meant to be different. And that's okay. And my calling was different. And having a lot of family and friends around you that support

hoarded you and reminded you, but you have this thing. It's something special. Go, go do that. Go find that, you know, but financially I put me in the hole, you know, because I had, you know, put money into myself and I don't regret it, but it was a, you had to come out of, you had to climb out of that cave, you know, of, of really being here. And then just, woo, it's all gone. And now what am I going to do?

And so I ended up in the real estate business and I ended up doing really well for myself. And you were a beast at that, by the way. You were a beast. I know you won't brag. I'm going to say it for you. You were a beast. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I became one of the top loan officers in the United States when it came to doing that.

And again, I attribute a lot of this stuff to sports. Having that competitive spirit in my parents. I had two dads and a mom and a sister. But I always just had that mentality. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. Otherwise, I'm not going to do it. That's why I don't play volleyball, Mick. I'm not a good volleyball player. I'm short. It hurts me. I'm not doing it. You know what I mean?

I just don't like doing things that I'm not going to be dedicated to or that I'm not going to be good at. That's just my personality. So even if I had to switch from music to real estate, I was like, okay. And I put all my, all of my energy into being the best at that. Like I'm going to be the best that I can be at that. And I did, like you said, pretty well. So now I have, I kind of caught up, like I have a financial, something I can lean on. I'm not

poor anymore, right? But there is still that lingering, you know, devastation of not being quite where I wanted to be. And the drinking was still was still going on. And so in 2008, you know, I had to look at that. And you know, the mortgage business came crashing down. And again, here's the thing. Now I have to

figure out again, what is my purpose? What is my identity? Because music was taken away from me now. And now the real estate is taken away. So everything I laid my hat on is now taken away from me. So again, I have to go back to man, like I can't go through another like breakup, so to speak another heartbreak. I mean, it was devastating managers that I looked up to were literally ending their lives because of the loss.

loss of home, loss of money. And I really had to like think about that now too, is like, okay, I put a lot on my finances. I had lost my way. You know, at that time you couldn't tell me anything. And I always say, you know, I only cared about the comma on my paycheck at that time. And I had lost my way spiritually. And that was another defining moment. And that's the year I decided to get sober and find my way and realize again, what is my purpose? I love a couple of things that you said

one is finding yourself and competing with yourself, right? I think, especially today, it's 2024, you know, everyone, especially with social media, it's really easy to see what other people are doing. And so it's really a quick determination to try to emulate someone or something. And I have this quote, Monica,

And that quote is, be yourself because everyone else has already taken, right? I love the fact that you said that. Your competition has to become yourself, right? The introspect and reflections that you do on a daily, weekly basis need to solely be about yourself and how you can get better. I don't care if you're an athlete, entertainer,

leader, entrepreneur, or just an everyday good person, like what you should be focusing on is how can you individually have a better day tomorrow than you had today? And what are you doing to set yourself up for that? 100%. That philosophy made me

not only better, but survive. There were times when I was like, you know what? I was on Soul Train. I met a lot of people. I got to spend time with my idol prince. You know what I mean? I'm good. Maybe I'll just check out and call it a day. Look how much I would have missed out on, you know? So I understand how some people could get to that place. Totally. And another thing that I want to talk about

because I know you're an amazing leader. You're an amazing entrepreneur. But I think people focus on the wrong things when it comes to leadership and entrepreneurship and just striving to be the best that they can. Everyone always says, I want to be great. I want to be great. But they forget how to be good, Monica.

Monica, you can't be great until you're good. And you talked about just the consistency, right? And to me, that greatness becomes the consistency of being good. You got to string along a whole bunch of good days, a whole bunch of good performances, a whole bunch of good whatever to be considered great. But again, social media makes it very easy for people to assume that greatness is, you know, a step up, right?

To go from good to great takes a lot of damn work, right? To go from good to great takes a ton of consistency. It takes a ton of practice. Again, whatever your craft is, it takes a ton of practice that people just don't see every day. It's the behind the scenes thing. So I'd love for you to talk about that and how consistency and just being good was a key for you and especially for folks that think that they may want to be entrepreneurs or leaders out

Absolutely. And I love that. And when you were talking, what was coming to mind was even in the real estate business, one of the first things that I always told my bosses, and I stayed with, you know, my companies for a long time. But when the few interviews I had, I'm so here's what you need to know about me, you never have to worry about me, I'm always going to be consistent. And I'm always going to give you the numbers and then some that is I am

that check that off your list when you sign me. And you know what? That's exactly how it was because I knew what it took to be great. Um, the mortgage business also on top of the Tupac deal and the Prince, you know, all of that brought me to where football is sexy is now as an entrepreneur. One of the first things I remember was going into that mortgage company. It was a big, a big national brand. I won't say who it is, but it was a big national brand. And, um, I instinctively knew I wanted to get there early. And,

And I got there early, huge building. And there was always three cars. And the same cars were like nice cars, Mercedes, Benz, right? But I realized, let me go see who's in here. And there was just three guys. And I was like, hey, who are you? What do you do? And why are you always here so early? And then I found out they were the top in the company. And I

I'm like, well, if they're here early, I'm gonna be here early. And it really started the journey of like being the first there, being the last to leave. And just based off of that and executing changed my whole life. If anybody would ask me, talk to me a little bit about success. One of the very first things I would tell you is get up early. I can't, like the mornings are everything to me.

to me. Getting up early, getting that routine. I used to wake up when I used to drink. I used to wake. I missed the mornings. First of all, I missed the mornings, right? Because I didn't go to bed till whatever, right? So I missed the mornings and I'm so grateful for the mornings and to get up and say, thank you for another day. All right. God lead me to where I'm supposed to be today. How can I be better? What do you have planned? And how can I help? Like all

of that, I did so much by 10 o'clock that by people were strolling in, I had already closed six deals. I had already closed. And so there's so many things I could say. And in fact, I used to love to talk about sales because I put this whole thing together. I used to call it the fight club. And they're just really specific things that I learned in sales on how to close a deal and to know when to not close a deal. Because not all money is good money. Not all clients are worth working with.

You know what I mean? Things like that. I always say this to make you might appreciate this. Almost every time, how it starts is how it ends. 99% of the time, you could take it in your relationship. You could take that sentence to work. Use it however you want. But almost every time, how it starts is how it ends. If you're already off to a bad start, look at that and be like, do you really want to spend your time the next six weeks dealing with this person? Not worth it.

Next. And because you as an entrepreneur, you as a salesperson, you get to decide who you want to work with. Know your worth. Know your value. And so since we're talking about entrepreneurs, and I want to come back to the Fight Club method in a second, but I think that last tip is the biggest, most important tip for entrepreneurs out there. So if you're starting a business, if you're trying to scale a business, my

First tip and Monica's first tip for you is know who your ideal customer is and go after them. It's real easy to get distracted by low hanging fruit. It's real easy to get distracted by easy win. Right. Because you want to win. You want the confidence. But I promise you, to Monica's point, whatever seems easy, especially in sales and business, there's a trap door and you probably are the sucker. Right. And if you keep falling for the okey-doke, right.

then you're working harder in your business than you need to. You're not going to be able to scale because you've got those 200 customers that take up all your time and energy and you can't go get the five that really will bring you the income that you want. Monica, I'd love for you to break that down for us too. So absolutely. In my sales career and when I became like a manager and I started to teach what I had learned, this is just me. In my opinion, I came up with, there was like six different people that you had to learn who to sell to. Six.

And just like you mentioned, the low hanging fruit, I called them the desperate borrower, okay? The desperate borrower. Yep, I'll do it, I'll take it. Okay, whoa, like that was just too easy. Well, there's a reason because they have been turned down so many times. So you need to uncover these things through asking some questions in the beginning so that you don't go down the line and waste a lot of time and realize there's no deal there and don't waste their time either, right? So it's a mutual thing. Then you had your, what we called A,

client. That is your multimillionaire lawyer doctor. They are a different personality. They don't want to hear your story. They don't care how nice you are. What can you do for me? Okay. So to me, what I have found out the perfect client was that motivated borrower who qualified that middle ground borrower that right. And so you had to figure out who you had on the phone. Of

quickly and then ask the appropriate questions and then bring it home. To me, my pipeline was filled probably 85% of the motivated borrower who qualified and getting them to the finish line because the desperate people, that low hanging fruit, like you say, I watched it all the time. Other loan officers, oh,

They got it. They would just spin their wheels for a week and then that deal would fall out. And that's all you had. You had to learn how to answer questions for the motivated borrower. They're ready, but you have to answer, what's your rate? Why should I go with you? Why are your closing costs higher? Why don't I just go to this bank? You had to learn how to overcome objections because that motivated borrower is gonna ask those questions. The desperate borrower doesn't care. You get what I'm saying? So you could fill your pipeline with that

but you're not going to close because there's a reason why they're saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Same with the A. They were always the hardest ones. So, you know, I had a little bit of everything, but the majority was learning how to overcome objections with the borrower who's qualified and motivated. Monica, I could talk to you all day. You know that. Oh, me too. This has been fun. Yeah. So I want to go rapid fire with Monica Madrid. You ready? Okay. Bring it on.

All right. So for the person that's starting a business or is new to leadership and they're looking for a couple of tips to to break through, to break in, what are two tips that you'd give that new entrepreneur, new leader? My number one tip is if you are going into business with somebody else and it is your idea, I beg of you. This is just my experience. Never, ever do 50-50.

Never. Like 51, 49 at minimum because somebody always has to be the decision maker when it comes down to it. So many businesses go belly up because they went into partnership. Friends, family, doesn't matter. I promise you it does not matter if you go 50-50.

and you guys get stuck, that business is now done. So in my opinion, if it is your baby, then treat it like that and give yourself a little bit of percentage extra to protect your hard work, your vision, your dream. That would be my number one. Number two, be ready financially to be able to carry yourself for two to three years. Be ready.

Do not go into business if you can't eat right now. You can, but just be prepared because how you want it to work very rarely works the way we want it to work. Unforeseen things will happen. So in my opinion, it would be great to have, and even in real estate, I taught me, you know,

six months to a year reserve, have that extra money set aside. And I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying just be, if you can, that would be great. Cause I know there's been some stories where they didn't have a dime. They were able to figure it out, but I'm just saying it can take time to really scale a business.

And that's why in my world, we don't even lend to people unless they've been in business at least two years. That's a normal standard thing in the world of real estate because we know there's usually losses in the first two to three years. Yep. Good stuff. And follow your heart. Next question. Yeah.

You've experienced highs, experienced lows, experienced the highs back, and you've persevered, which is one of the things that I appreciate the most about you. One of my core pillars is to keep going, and I believe that that's you. So for the listener or viewer right now, that's where you were at some point when you were at one of your lowest lows or you were getting to the lowest of lows. What's some advice that you want to give the listener or viewer to turn it around or to know that, hey, it doesn't have to stop here, right? There is something on the other side of you.

keep going. 100%. I literally went through so much and what got me through were five things that I did every day. And I literally said first, right when I wake up, literally, I say thank you. Thank you for another day. First thing. Second thing, a quick

Okay. Cause I'm, let's say you, you stress, you got financial stuff, whatever that is. I'm going to like sit here and go, okay, wait today. I'm okay right now, right here. I have a roof over my head. I have a way to get from a to B some sort of transportation. And then I go down to who's still in my life. I still got mom. I still got, you know, family, whatever. I go through that. Like, okay. And I do a gratitude list. Literally. Okay. I have this, I have that. I have

instead of going what I don't have. And then I go, okay, what can I do today to tackle whatever's in front of me? And let's go do that. And I'm a note person. I should definitely have a sponsorship with Post-its because I am a Post-it girl. I know all these youngins. I'm a big believer in writing things down and crossing them off. And that's where I get my satisfaction.

And so I go attack the day. And then the last thing is before I go to bed, I'm like, I look at that list. Did I do everything I could to write off that list? And then I try to help somebody along the way. Somewhere, somehow I try to give back, whether it's through a conversation, motivating somebody to hang in there, whether it's somebody on the street who,

maybe needs a meal, like I've got to give back somehow, some way, because as bad as my life might feel right now, there's somebody who's got it 10 times worse than me. And it's really important that I try to do that as well. And if I could do that every day, say thank you, gratitude, help somebody execute, I can be like, okay, I can make it to tomorrow and do the same thing. Repeat. There you go.

All right, top 30 seconds. Extreme rapid fire. One answer only. I know the answer. Favorite NFL football team. They'll get better. Top two, your two all-time favorite Prince songs. Oh my God. Adore. There's so many. Adore and I guess I got to go with When Doves Cry maybe? There's so many. That's a hard one. Okay, I like that. One thing about Monica Madrid that no one knows. Let's go. Hmm.

that no one knows. It can get lonely. When we do part two of this episode, we're going to go into that one. You're not going to be lonely anymore. I got you. Promise. I understand how you could do some things and still feel lonely. I really do get that. We're going to overcome that one. I got you. I'll be your support system. I said it live. Last thing, you got eight bars. Give me eight bars from Monica Madrid. What?

I wasn't prepared, let me think. Eight bars? Okay, okay, let me see. Can we play a little game of imagination? For once close your eyes and forget the situation. Let me set the screen to the crashing. No one's in love with you. No one's in love with. Oh, yeah. Halfway around.

Something like that. That was going to be on my record in 1992. That was going to be the first single. Damn, you took me back, Mick. I was like, do I rap or do I sing? I should have rapped. Whatever. Rap on next part two. I'll be ready for the rap. All right.

All right, part two, it's all you. I used to freestyle, but I don't freestyle no more 'cause my style ain't free. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't wanna get down. ♪ Your face and now you're a fool ♪ ♪ Because I funked your place ♪ ♪ And what you know now and what you didn't know then ♪ ♪ You could take away my image ♪ ♪ Never take away my base ♪ ♪ Please, we could be here all day, Mick ♪ ♪ We gotta hang out ♪ ♪ Can we smoke some cigars? ♪ ♪ Okay, let's do it ♪ Let's go. I might be in the Bay soon, so I'll come see you. We'll do it live.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Monica Madrid. This is part one of probably part 10, but we got a lot, man. Thank you so much, Mick. Wow. I had an amazing time. I'd love that you anytime I could be here and talk with you. I'm here for it. We're going to make it happen. I promise you that this has been an amazing time.

amazing episode. I know you're a busy human being. I just thank you for taking some time out of your busy day to spend with us. Man, no, I'm blessed. I needed this. Football is great, but I love to talk life. So anytime we could talk some life, please, I'm here. Thank you so much. Love what you do, my friend. I love what you do as well. And for all the listeners and viewers, remember your because is your superpower. Go Unleash It.

Thank you for tuning in to Mic Unplugged. Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose, and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.