Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Welcome to battle, Ray. It's Ricky Chavez. You know, and in everybody's life, there's things that come on and there's some struggles and challenges people go through. It's not what happens to you, it's how you react to and how you overcome things.
And the big thing is you don't know what you don't know. Today we're talking to an amazing young man. He's a cardiovascular surgeon at the Heart Institute. His name is Jorge Miranda. Jorge, welcome.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Hey, Ricky, good morning. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor and pleasure to be here with you today.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: You know, when I started talking to you about being on the show, that's just an amazing, amazing story.
Over the years I've known you and I remember some of our conversations.
But you came from Mexico around five years old, right?
[00:01:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, Ricky, yeah, it's been, it's been quite the story and quite the journey and. Yeah, to your point. Yeah. Born in Mexico and then came over here to the States at a young.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Age and, and your English was not so good back then, I understand.
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Yes, yeah, exactly. You know, funny, when I came from Mexico with my parents, of course, course around the age of five, and I did not know a single word of English, I, I didn't even know how to ask where the bathroom was.
So, yeah, it was quite the. Quite the burden for me initially.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: And, and as, as just in everybody's life, you know, kids are cruel. There's people out there that just aren't as good to other people that, that don't speak language. So I, I remember you telling me there was some challenges with bullies and stuff.
[00:01:55] Speaker C: Yes, Mo, most certainly, as you could imagine, Ricky, you know, everything was new to me. The culture, the education system, even how to interact and meet with people. And obviously I didn't have the language, and obviously there was some language barriers there. But then also kids at that age, you know, there's bullying that happens because of that. So I was definitely very affected from that at a young age when I. We first moved here, and, and one.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Of the solutions to that was a martial arts. Right?
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you know, I, I remember I came one day to my dad. I'm like, dad, you know, I got beat up today in class, you know, just I wanted to use a slide. And of course they were like, no way, you don't even belong here.
And I came home and I was very sad, very timid at that time.
And my dad said, we're going to do something about this. You need to have Confidence, you need to have a way to defend yourself. And that's how we decided to go into martial arts, specifically taekwondo.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: And you did that for a few years, right?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So I started at that age right around five and a half, and I did that through college till I was about 21 years of age.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: And you got a little bit of confidence, I'm assuming.
[00:03:22] Speaker C: Well, you know, martial arts, it's, it's, you know, a lot of people just think it's a kicking in, the punching, and certainly you learned some of that, but it's really a way of life. And the way you integrate that and balance it and integrate that into your life.
And a lot of that is discipline, integrity, self control, confidence.
And all those values that really shaped who I am today, they helped me get through school and to get some of that and to overcome those challenges that I was facing early on when we first moved to this country, you.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Know, I make the joke. When I retired from the army, my daughters were probably 15, 16. You know, I'm freshly out the army, and they're going to come and talk to me about, daddy, I want to, I want to date. And I mean, like, I, after I got through crying and doing my dad thing, right, I said, okay, I'll make you a deal. You can date, but you got to go to martial arts three times a week and fight in two world tournaments. And boy, they did not like that too much. They didn't like that too much. And I tried to explain to them it wasn't about beating up other people. It's just protecting yourself, surprising yourself, you know, you know, and, and, and, and I think that's in our conversation, that's kind of what you. You did it. It was more to learn how to defend yourself, but not to go out and just bully other people. Right? Fight back.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Exactly. And, and that's all it was initially, you know, when people would try to bully me, I would just say, instead of just taking it, I would be like, hey, look, this is your warning. Because that's how, though I was taught in martial arts, you know, and it's like, I'm giving you a warning. I don't want to do anything else.
And, and I, and please stop. And you would ask kindly but stern, and if they would continue and there would be some sort of physical aggression, then at that point, the point is not to beat somebody up, but is just to counteract and subdue him or just, you know, make sure that he's no longer a threat. And I'm sure, Ricky, you've had similar training in the military. And it's just when that opponent comes at you, it's just to neutralize them so he's no longer a threat. But of course not to be mean in any way and hurt them in any way. And that's the way I got taught. And you know, most of the time I try to do that. It, quite frankly, you know, I just did that a handful of times and people learned not to mess with me from after those couple of incidents.
And that gave me the confidence that I said, you know what, I can control my environment, I can make my own journey and I can be more confident in myself. And that kind of really, at an early age really changed the way I thought about things. And I think that really changed my trajectory a lot early on in my life because of those early challenges.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: But you also took that and you started competing a little bit, didn't you?
[00:06:25] Speaker C: Yeah, so, exactly. So, you know, in the dojo that I was in, it was very competitive and my sensei, his name was Master Lee, he immigrated from Korea, one of the big name people in that field in Taekwondo and he trained me and started a very young age. Um, I obviously more and more, I did my black belt when I was 10 years of age and then I went through my several dance and I started competing and I started doing local tournaments.
Then, you know, you start winning and then you qualify for bigger tournaments, so on and so forth. So yeah, to your point, I started doing bigger and bigger tournaments and kind of made that into a career, which actually funny, later that became a challenge in of itself. Is that something I want to continue versus do something more academic. So it was definitely a struggle later on in my life as, as well.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: So how.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: So talk to me about that a little bit, you know, because here you were, you've won some, you fought in the nationals, right?
[00:07:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went to the state championships in Texas and in New Mexico because as you know, when we came, we were in El Paso, Texas, and that's kind of located almost in between New Mexico and Texas. So I did both.
Then after that I went to nationals, which was in Florida at that time.
And then I qualified for the US Open, which in the taekwondo world, that's the tournament because after that you go to Olympic trials and then you try to make an Olympic team.
That's obviously that happened later on in my life when I was around 15, 16 years of age. But yeah, that was kind of the trajectory in the, in the life of Ninta Kwondo.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: So you're doing well, you're. You're having some against maculates from that.
And. And you said you had to make the decision.
Okay, so now you're a cardiovascular surgeon. All right, but you were a competing martial artist. How does that happen? I mean, what's that thought process?
[00:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's funny because I always aspired to be somebody respectable, to do something of good, you know, and that was born out of, you know, my parents went through a very challenging time, and I didn't want that sacrifice to go in vain, to go unnoticed. So I always said to myself, I want to do something that they feel proud of, that the sacrifice that they did was worthwhile.
And that's why to me, I always wanted to do something big and to coming back kind of to martial arts. You know, you really don't do it to beat up people, and you want to help people and make people better. It certainly made me better.
And that kind of went into thinking something in medicine and in healthcare and through high school and college, that evolved into me wanting to pursue a career in medicine.
And so a lot of the foundations that I had learned in martial arts were so applicable because of the trajectory of the path that I wanted to take. It was going to be very challenging, it was going to be difficult.
And so I used some of those tools to that, to pursue that.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: And was it hard to say? So I'm assuming you said you a couple downs. So did you also teach?
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then, yeah, let's get back to that. So I, yeah, I definitely taught. I was still competing very strongly, but then going into medicine, that obviously requires also time and dedication. And at that time when I was competing and doing these big tournaments, I was trained about three to four hours every day because that's kind of the time it takes just to build your stamina, to build your cardiovascular system, your perfect, your techniques, working with different opponents, different tech from different dojos and all that, because, you know, when you're sparring, when you're fighting, you want to see all different types of styles that they can come at you. So at that point I was like, had to decide do I want to keep investing three to four hours a day into martial arts, or do I want to pursue what I always wanted and dedicate that time to studying and to doing good on tests. And so it was very challenging to me around that time, right out of high school into college. But then at that point, I decided to make the transition into focusing my time into studying and to pursuing an academic Career so hard.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: How hard was that decision? Kind of an emotional decision, mental decision. I mean, I think that in itself. And how was the support from your family and what were their thoughts?
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, my, my parents never pressured me into deciding anything. Their only thing was, whatever you do, be successful at it.
And to me, to be successful in taekwondo was, you know, I'm going to make an Olympic team to go win a gold medal, whether that be for Mexico, for United States, because I had dual citizenship at that time, or still.
And I was like, I can make it into a national team.
But at the end of the day, although it had taught me so many things, the satisfaction of the fulfillment, I thought it would be greater for me pursuing medicine and to me being able to help others in a day to day basis and being able to, quite frankly, have that privilege to take care of people, to me it was more important and that's what ultimately decided to do that. And certainly it was a moral thing. It was very emotional.
But anyway, a decision at the end that I made.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: So now you, you finished your residency a little over a year ago, was that right?
Okay. And then you signed with the Heart Institute, right?
[00:12:12] Speaker C: I did.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: And, and so I can remember back when you were a resident, it was like you ate, slept and cut like 24 7.
I feel like every time I called you, when we talked, whatever, and you were always doing surgery. How many surgeries did you do while you were a resident? Do you remember?
[00:12:32] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a little bit over 1500.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: And that's in a. How many, how, what is that five year period?
[00:12:38] Speaker C: That's a six year span.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: That's.
It's crazy.
I mean, how so I'm assuming that the time you spent working on your endurance for martial arts helped you when you were doing that late night surgery after your second or third in the day.
How did that help you?
[00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, Ricky, it's so funny you mentioned this, because I tell these people now all the time, the corollaries of, of something, doing that at something at such a high level, it's the same application, the same principles being having dedication, being disciplined, being organized, being hard working, having, you know, a good moral compass, always trying to do the right thing. And so to your point, yeah, it, it's very long, very hard work. But when I came down to Houston, which is the premier program, I said to myself, you know what? Coming here, I'm going to do the best job possible because I got accepted to one of the premier programs. And so that was just my mentality I said I came here to be the best that I can be. And so I'm going to put the time in. And you know, there's this saying, put in 10,000 hours and you'll be a master at it. And so that was the kind of thought process. And so anyway, that's what I try to accomplish coming to Houston.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: And so I know there's a difference being physically exhausted and being mentally exhausted. How did that help you with the mental side?
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Yeah, most definitely. You know, in a lot of these situations, you're in surgery, specifically my field, you know, a lot of decisions really can be life or death decisions. You have bleeding, you have, you have to control bleeding, fix bleeding. And so definitely being able to control your stress and being able to handle a situation under that level of stress is something that quite frankly, martial arts taught me because I mean, times you're down in a round, you're done, done several points and you're getting your square beat up. And so you want to, you know, control that and be very technical. How can I do it? Because anger is not going to do that.
And so in surgery is very similar when you're under those stressful situation is being very cool, very methodical and working through your steps for your algorithm to take care of that patient.
So, yeah, very, very time intensive, very emotionally difficult, but and to your point, not only physically, but mentally demand.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: So, George, you know, getting ready to go into commercial, tell us how somebody can get in touch with you if they have any needs in the cardiovascular area.
[00:15:28] Speaker C: Yeah, of course, yeah. I'm at the Texas Heart Institute here in the medical center in Houston, Texas.
My email, It's J. Miranda, Texas Heart.org and we have a phone number where patients can call to and establish an appointment with me and more than happy to take care of them in any of the cardiovascular needs, an area of the spectrum of the disease.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: And there's other things at your institute, right?
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Correct. So we're a multi specialty group on the vascular surgeon. We have three cardiac surgeons and then we have several cardiologists in different fields of cardiology, electrophysiology, structural interventional and imaging.
And so we're a large group, one of the largest in the city that offers a multi specialty approach to cardiovascular health.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Well, great. Everybody will be right back. We're going to go into a commercial. George, thanks so far.
[00:16:21] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Paolo, how are we doing?
Hey, welcome back. I have Jorge Miranda, cardiovascular surgeon at the Heart Institute in Texas. Welcome back.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Are you.
Hey, thank you for having me, Ricky.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: On the first Section. We talked a lot about your martial arts and growing up, how you overcame the craziness of bullies and how the sports world and your martial arts helped you with your education.
So let's talk about now. So you're in college. Where'd you go to school at?
[00:17:01] Speaker C: Yeah, so, you know, I went to a small school here in Texas at UT El Paso Public College.
Following that, I went to Texas Tech in El Paso for medical school. And then following that, I went to Baylor College of Medicine for integrated vascular surgery fellowship.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Okay, so how many years is that all total?
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. I haven't even thought about this in a while. Let me see. So the. I'll. I'll go from the front, back. So vascular surgery, six years.
Then medical school is four years, so that's 10. And then college is another four years, so that's 14, man.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: But you don't look like you over, like, 22.
[00:17:45] Speaker C: That's good. Well, you know, I. I still. I'm still athletic. I still like to run and eat healthy. And again, part of those sports, the things that get instilled with you at a young age, and you try to keep doing that.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Okay, so now during. During the school time, did you have any opportunities to. To practice martial arts or how did you. On your own, or was that kind of put on the back burner?
[00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah, so I still try to do it through medical school. Obviously not at a highly competitive level, just more like for training and keeping up.
When I came to Houston, I tried at the beginning. That was very difficult given the time constraints. You know, you're working 100 hours on average per week.
And so with that, you know, all my time and effort was put into becoming a vascular surgeon.
And so if you do the math, I mean, I barely had time to maybe do a little workout, sleep, eat, take a shower.
And, you know, not a lot of people bring in that intensity to the training.
A lot of people have families already at this age. But for me, I wanted to have that dedication and passion that I had put into martial arts to becoming the best vascular surgeon I could be, because I felt like I owed it to my patients when they came to see me in a time of need. I wanted to be the best prepared I could be to take care of them. And that's why I came with that intensity, to be able to do that.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: So now you finished your residency, and I remember seeing you a couple times during your residency, looked like, you know, kind of drained. And now you're working at an institute, at the Heart Institute where. What is the hours difference? I mean, how is that transition?
[00:19:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So it's so funny because now I'm working about half the time. But it's funny because although yeah, physically I'm working about half the time, a lot of it is a mental thinking because when I see a patient, I'm looking at their anatomy and their images.
Our field is all about reconstruction. Right. And so now a lot of my time is spent perhaps not operating, but thinking of a patient. What is the best way to perform their reconstruction and to revascularize something to bring blood flow back or prevent bleeding. And so when I prepare for my surgeries, now a lot of my time is spent doing that. And then in surgery. Yeah, of course there's physical time spent in surgery by 10 hours, whatever you may be. But there's a lot of thinking before it happens, before I get there, you know, kind of.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: So you gotta, you gotta make a game plan.
What did you say? What did you say?
[00:20:22] Speaker C: Twice, cut once, think twice, cut once.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Oh, gotcha. Okay. Okay. Okay. So so now basically 100 hours to 50 hours.
So. So how do you feel that rest of that time and just the education partner or is that still part of the 50 hours?
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Yeah, so a lot of the additional time I do, I try to do an advancements in our field, whether that be research, I do. I'm working on developing different medical devices. I'm working on bringing like people that have. There's communities even within our here in Houston that there's disparities, communities that don't have the appropriate attention.
A lot of that come to coming through the county hospital, Harris Health.
So I do some work there to help those communities in need that don't have the.
Perhaps the ability to pay for complex vascular reconstruction. So I go do that at the county hospital and trying to improve the program there.
Additionally education for people that are now upcoming in training.
And then of course in my health, working out, trying to find better things to eat. And then as you know, getting married. So that's awesome.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: I was gonna congratulate you. Yeah. Getting married in August. Wow.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Wow. That's a big deal.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: It's a big deal. Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'll tell you this one thing, what was always impressed me about you and it's one thing specific, I think you and I were someplace we had stopped to get something and we met a gentleman that was a transpl surgeon.
Remember that?
[00:22:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I did.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: And I always, I always, you know, I'm always very impressed in. In just the way you talk And I asked you, I said, so is he any good or how is he? And, and the way you answered that, I, I still, still sticks in my head is like, he makes great decisions.
And I don't think that anybody could get a better accolade than that from another surgeon. So I thought that's pretty cool.
So. And also, you did a lot of work in the va. How's it dealing with veterans? I bet you were knuckleheads, right?
[00:22:43] Speaker C: You know, I. That's a. Being at the Baylor College of Medicine, that's one of the advantages. Not many people get exposure to veterans and veterans, you know, there's such diversity, obviously, from that one, one thing. And diversity is important in our field because the pathology is different than what we see. And so being well versed in different pathologies in the black community, Hispanic, Latino community, white community, Asian Pacific, the vessels all react differently. And so being able to have a wide scope of training is important. But also people that gave so much to our country, and I think that is important because they deserve the care that should be expected.
And I think, Ricky, you and I interacted in the past in that capacity as well. And there's great surgeons there at the VA that I know at a personal level, and they're making great strides. But I was very grateful for my training at the time there.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Well, I know they were definitely grateful to have somebody that's as dedicated. And that's kind of the key, right?
You always want to go to see somebody that is about the person, not about the money, you know, and that's one thing always struck me about you. It's. I felt like you were more concerned with the health part. The rest fixes itself, basically, you know.
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I, I have always been very adamant to myself, but being technically superb or the best I can be and knowledgeable in my field because I can take care of the patient, money will always come. But if you focus yourself and money, then you will never be good at this, and then you will always do something bad. And in healthcare, as a surgeon, that should be the last of your worries. The patient will always have to come first.
Money comes secondary.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: And, and I, I, you know, and I, and I appreciate that about, I've always appreciated that about you because I know, you know, I've been real. I do real estate, and that's kind of how we met eventually, originally. But I always told everybody, no, don't chase money, take care of people, and the rest just takes care of itself. And that's one thing I, I know about you because I know you see me, you helped me out be in the past and, and, and I always will be, you know, thankful for that.
So tell me, so how is it now going from student resident to now being on the staff of the Heart Institute? I mean, what about the politics, man? Is it politics? Should I even ask that?
[00:25:26] Speaker C: Well, you know, sometimes it's a little bit surreal, you know. You know, the medical center here in Houston is the largest in the world, and the amount of specialists that we have and the interactions that we have is something phenomenal, quite frankly.
It, it's, it's impressive and sometimes it's a little bit surreal. And sometimes I, when I drive, I'm driving to work, I'm like, wow, is this really me? Because I see my name there and sometimes I have like this out of body experience.
So it's. I feel very happy, very content.
And certainly to your point, there will always be differences, especially in multi specialty groups, and there is politics involved with that. But at the same time, I think it brings healthy discussions because I may see something very differently from a cardiologist or a cardiac surgeon or like a transplant surgeon, like you said, but making those decisions together, we can develop the best plan for the patient. And so, yeah, there'll be difference in some. And it's like a family, you know, we get upset at each other, but we always work together and we work things out and at the end we, we get mad at each other because we think one plan is better, but we're trying to do the best for the patient.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: And you're marrying another surgeon.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: That's right. She's also a vascular surgeon.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: So how's that gonna go?
[00:26:44] Speaker C: Oh, that's gonna be fine. That's gonna be fun dinner table talk.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: I'm sure it will. So I know we're getting close to the end, so tell us a little bit. How does somebody reach you?
[00:26:54] Speaker C: Yeah, Ricky, you know I'm at the Texas Heart Institute.
My information there is at a website, if you go to Texas Heart, if you Google that, or if you Google my name, just put Jorge Miranda, vascular surgery. You have my information pop up.
Make an appointment. Just calling.
And yeah, just ask if there's some vascular disease, aneurysms, carotid artery stenosis, issues with limb salvage, non healing wounds, varicose veins, the whole plethora of vascular surgery I treat. And they'd be more than happy to take care of anybody that's interested and yeah, feel free to reach out.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: Well, listen, guys, it's been a Total pleasure having you on, George. And I know we're going to see each other real soon. We'll talk to you guys later. We're going to go on a commercial now.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: Thanks. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Hey, welcome back to Battle Rank. It's Ricky Chavez out here in Houston, Texas, Battle ready. We talk about people and their adventures. We have the pleasure of having Joe Reyes, he's a CPA out in the Philadelphia area that we're going to take the time to do some talking with. Welcome, Joe.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: Hey. Hi. Thank you for having me. It's good to see you.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Good to see you. Also. We had some pretty good conversations as we come into the show, but. So, Joe, you're a cpa. You help small businesses get set up and. And being a small business owner myself. I know, man, it's kind of a. You don't know what you don't know. What's some advice you would give to a starting business owner and some things that they could put in place to help themselves be ready for the taxes.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, if it's just taxes they have to worry about, if it's their first year in business, that's the last of their problems. Right. I mean, going into just starting a small business, if you've never been in the business world before, you know, you've had a job for 30, 40 years and you just want to venture out on your own, that can be pretty scary stuff. You're going from a stable, you know, income, stable paycheck, you know, stable life, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, whatever it is.
And then you're going to start a business where you may not realize this, but it's going to own you for a while until you own it. And you're going to create a whole bunch of uncertainty, you know, so taxes. Yeah. Talk to your CPA or financial advisor from the right out of the gate, what can I expect? It's always money well spent. You know, we can give you great advice as to what you can expect.
The upheaval that your life is going to encounter, because I've gone through it myself for myself and clients. You know, I see it all the time. So we just tell people, you know, just be ready for a lot of uncertainty.
Talk to your accountant or financial advisor to get ready for taxes. If you're fortunate enough to make a profit in your first year, which is a little bit unusual, but if that happens, how to prepare for that, we can give you great advice. You know, CPA that knows tax planning and advisory. Can you Know, steer you in the right direction. But if you're using a bookkeeper who has no real financial education, that's not the person to seek advice from as far as preparing for taxes and stuff like that.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Oh, man, I'm gonna tell you. So I had a very scary experience with a bookkeeper early on. So I came from corporate America to the real estate world, like I told you, and it was an, it was just amazing. But I, I went on, I used one of the online bookkeepers, and I felt like I was doing so much extra work and I didn't know what to do or how to link my accounts, and it was just a nightmare. And then when taxes roll, I ended up having to do everything all over.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: So I, I was just.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yeah, but I will say this. The one thing you said that really hit. It resonates with me is not only is it money well spent, but it's also tax deductible.
[00:30:54] Speaker C: Right?
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Of course. Yeah. So the after tax dollars, if you spend a thousand dollars talking to somebody, the after tax dollars really comes out to be maybe $750, let's say. So, you know, if you understand the true cost of what it is you're doing, deductibility, you know, that can factor better into your calculus about whether, what is this person costing me? You know, and. But if you're looking at an accountant or financial advisors, what are they costing me versus how much value are they bringing to the table that you're looking at is the wrong way, you know, 100%.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: No, I totally agree with that. I, what I was thinking is what, what are they going to save me? You know what I mean? Because I think one of the cool things about having done this show for this, this time so far is I'm, I'm meeting a lot of people, and you don't know what you don't know, so you don't know what questions to ask, what things to do.
And, and that's the, the beauty of working with somebody like yourself. You know, we sit down and, and kind of lay out what we're going to do. Like, for example, me as a realtor, I mean, there's all these realtors coming in business, you know, less than 30, are really, really making money right away or even at all making money. But the ones that are making money, you know, they sit down, talk to you, and you kind of give them, okay, these are the things you need to do. What would you do in a situation like that? Is there some guidance you would give them as far as how they keep records or what they need to do.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So we, well, we would just tell somebody even if they're, you know, right out of the gate, you know, you're setting up a business, you know, let's say it's a restaurant, right. So you got to buy tables, you got to chairs, you got to buy the stove, you got to buy all this stuff.
On that list of things to buy should be the services of an accounting professional, right? Set me up from the get go with a QuickBooks Online account or a free, there's some free bookkeeping softwares out there. So set me up with one of those, link up my bank accounts to the software, and just from day one, just get that out of the way. Because once you get going, once you open your doors, it's going to get so busy hopefully that guess what takes the back seat. Right? Takes the administrative stuff, takes the back seat. So the bookkeeping is considered administrative work. Right. So, but if you, if you're not proactive about it, it'll get away from you. And the worst thing is if you're not watching your money and your financial statements every single month, which means you got to keep the bookkeeping going every single month, you could actually be running yourself out of business because you may have made a mistake in pricing of your products.
And every time you sell that product, and let's say you're selling it for less than what it's supposed to be sold, every time you sell that cup of coffee for a penny less than you thought it was, that it should be, it should be, you could be running yourself out of business, right? So you have to have those financials every month, watch the cash flow. And this is stuff right out of the gate, you know, so an experienced person from that business person would know that. But a lot of people start businesses, they, they don't know any of this stuff. You know, it's all new to them and they just think that, you know, we'll figure out the, the, the money later on. But cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. You got to be on top of that. So as a business person, we just tell people, got to watch the money every day. I, for me, it's not like wait to the end of the month. I mean, I've been in this business for 15 years almost. And the first thing I do every day when I come to work, I still watch the money. I check my bank account, I check my credit card account. What hit, what didn't hit? You know, I'm checking every single day. But I was like that as a teenager. So, you know, growing up the way I did, I'm so used to watching the money. So it's a good habit and it keeps you out of trouble, I think.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Man, you know, I'm sitting here listening to you talk about this and I'm having like, I don't know, withdrawals because sadly, stay. I haven't even done my taxes for 24.
So that's, it's like I've been, like you said, putting it off, putting it off, putting it off.
And, and that's a horrible thing to do. So, you know, watching your money, that's a, that's a good thing to say about to tell my wife that because we definitely have to get better at it for sure. But so let's. So have, have you dealt with realtors before? Any realtors with their businesses?
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, we' I, we've done a lot of real estate work and stuff. And whether it's tracking 30, 40 rental properties or you know, buy and sells, you know, and treating inventory, treating a property like inventory, which is a big mistake a lot of real estate people make. They think I bought a property so I can treat it like passive income type of property and I'm really not going to rent it out. So therefore you should be treating it like you would car dealership treats a car Right. But when people don't know what they, what's going on with real estate, they make all kinds of mistakes. So we've got good, good experience with real estate. 1031 exchanges, you know, Delaware statutory trusts and financial planning on the, and tax planning on the real estate. You know, we're pretty good at that. You know, it's a, it's a great way to make money, but it's also comes with great tax breaks.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: So talk to me about tax planning. So what's, what's something that somebody should be looking at in and in their tax planning?
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So the first thing, you know, like for instance, we're in, we're midway, believe it or not, through 2025. Right. So a lot of people, yourself, myself included, we, you know, we're on extension. Right. We haven't done our 2024 tax returns yet. I mean, I know, I have an idea what it's looking like. It's this is my life. But let's say, you know, you don't know what 2024 is going to finally look like. Well, we don't know what 24 is going to look like. It's kind of hard to plan for 2025. So what we want people to do is just let's, let's get a sense of where 2024 is going to land. Even if the 24 tax return is not ready, we have financial statements we can look at.
But, you know, 2024, we can look at your 2025 year to date financials and start getting a sense of what direction are we going in here. You know, are we making money this year? Maybe you're, as a real estate guy, you're buying another property or two, you know, and maybe a 1031 exchange is in the works or whatever. And we can start talking about, here are some moves that you can make. So if you're making a boatload of cash, right, you need tax planning because we can, we, we can kill tax. We know how to kill the tax, right? So, but if you wait until you go see your tax person after the year is over, and, you know, 2025 comes and goes, and then you go to your tax person say, here's everything you need, and do my tax return. Well, the, the one thing your tax person is not going to be able to do is save you a whole lot of money on taxes, right? Because here's over. Most tax breaks are done with at 12:31. There are some things that can be done in the, in, in 2026 to impact 2025, but the number of strategies that are available to somebody pretty much go away at December 31, 2025. So right now we're in the middle of dealing with a bunch of clients and referrals who want planning that, you know, the word is getting out that we know how to do some planning and big ticket stuff. We're not talking about saving $10,000 in taxes, even though we can do that. We're talking about saving like 100,000, $200,000 in taxes. And they're big ticket items. If you look at the IRS code, it's like 70,000 pages tall, right? Well, buried in there is all kinds of little nuggets that a lot of people don't know about. The average CPA tax preparer, they're not into the planning side, which is cool. We need compliance. We need people who know how to do a tax return and whatnot. But you also need somebody who knows how to shave off that tax dollar so that it's in your pocket and it's. And then we will be considered a profit center for you because we're bringing value. It's not like you're just paying us to do your Tax return.
I saved one client.
He got his check a couple months ago. We saved him. He got a check for $850,000.
And, and here's the kicker. He's a W2 employee.
He doesn't own a business.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: He got a 3 million dollar W2. And he was referred to me and he said, is there any hope?
I said, this sure is. And we did some tax strategies and planning for him. And you know, his withholding was $1.1 million. And we got him, wow, $850,000. So there's this hope for the W2 person as well as the business owner and the real estate guy. We just know how to maneuver the system perfect.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Joe, before we go on the commercial, tell us how somebody can reach out to you.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: My website is raise accounting.com that's R E Y E S as in SAM accounting. So raiseaccounting.com and 215-525-2976. That's my phone and all my contact information is on my website.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Well, beautiful. We'll be right back. Talk to Joe about some tax help.
Hey, welcome back. We're talking with Joe Reyes for Reyes Accounting. Joe, welcome back.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Hi. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
[00:40:20] Speaker B: And we had a pretty interesting conversation on a little quick break in between.
So we were talking about taking your money early, you know, so tell me about that. You know, I'm 62 years old, I qualify for Social Security.
How much money can I make if, if I take my Social Security, I.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: I don't know the exact dollar amount. That's somewhere like 28, 000 or something like that. But for when you take it too early, like 62, you get penalized like a dollar for every $2 that you make over there. The limit, whatever, it's like 25, 28,000, I think it was. And so you have to calculate that into, into the, into the formula, right? But if you're retired and you're sick and you can't work, you take the Social Security, you take the early benefit. Right. If you're healthy and continue to work and you're making more than 30,000 a year, 40,000, you know, yeah. You're going to get penalized. So you have to ask yourself, and we recommend using a financial advisor who has, they have these Monte Carlo simulations, they have these programs, they can plug all this stuff into it and figure out, you know, what's the wisest move to make with Social Security and you know, along with other things you have going on. But, you know, it may not make Sense, maybe you're not going to make much on your return, let's say taking that. So maybe it's worth waiting another three or four years to take it. But certainly you can't ignore it. It's free. It's not free money, but it's money that's sitting there and it's available to you. It's like having an annuity that pays you monthly.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Right?
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Because that's what Social Security is. It's an annuity, Right.
[00:42:05] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: So, so you just have to calculate, you know, let's say married, you know, both spouses make, have an income, healthy, 62 year olds, whatever, you know. Should we take the Social Security now? Well, you know, can we put that money to work? Right. So depending on your, depending on your risk profile. So if you're very conservative and careful and afraid to make a financial move, then you're likely to just wait till you hit full retirement age or worse yet, 70.
Or if you're a risk taker, like I'm a risk taker, right. I started my own accounting practice and I went from corporate America. So that right there makes me a risk taker, right? So I can get very aggressive. I said, you know, as soon as I'm able, I'm taking it. I have my insurance, insurance agent tell me that's the worst move you can make. Like you're taking Social Security too early. Leave it in the, don't take it. And then by the time you get to 70, you'll get 8% on your money more, right? I'm like, well, first of all, I may not make it to 70, number one. And number two is I can take that money now, put in the stock market and bitcoin, I like bitcoin. I can put into investments and be aggressive with the, with the growth and that money. I can beat 8% every day of the week and twice on Sunday, right? So the S P500 brings in around 10 to 13 annual returns per year.
So if you want to be careful, take it and put it to an S P500 or invest in AI, invest in all the hot technologies and pretty soon exciting things are going to be happening with space, you know, and Mars and all that. So we, we're in a position right now where if you have available funds, you should be taking that money and investing it carefully, but investing it in, you know, the new industrial revolution, if you will.
So go ahead.
Now we're just telling people, don't, you know, just talk to a financial advisor and just remember that the average financial Advisor or insurance agent. They're trained to be careful with you and not to take you on an aggressive path. So you learn from them and then you have to think about, you know, what are your options here and what's the market telling you.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: So, and, and meetings. Do you recommend that this, both spouses are there in the meeting. So y' all talking together?
Yes, because I, you said talk about a risk taker and, and somebody that's maybe not. So that's kind of me, my wife, My wife's like, yolo, you only live once, so let me go do what I got to do. And I'm like, I need some money for a rainy day. Oh, man, what a, what a change.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: You need that? Yeah, sure. But, yeah. So my wife and I are direct opposites when it comes to money, you know, and if I had left it up to her, I would never have started my accounting practice and been on the road that I'm on and would, which is far better, far more lucrative than being a paid CPA in corporate America, you know, so, so I, I, I take the risk and I'm, I keep, I keep my eyes wide open. But any salesperson will tell you, is being trained that if you have, if you have a product that's being sold to a husband and wife, you want both of them there, you know, because things get lost in the conversation. If I have a meeting with you and then you go and you talk to your wife and she's starting to ask you questions and you don't have to or you may not have thought of. So a good salesperson is trained to talk to both, both spouses at the same time if at all possible and then answer whatever question. So it's always a good idea to have both because it's going to affect the family. Right? I mean, if you're making a big financial decision and they're entitled to be included if you will.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: I definitely get that. I mean, I know that just in my relationship with my wife, we think of things different. We ask different questions.
I mean, it's just, it's, we care about different things. I think that's the biggest thing, right? It's like, yeah, I'll, I'll tell her something and pass. Like, I talked to so and so and so and so they're getting divorced. The first thing out of her mouth is why? I'm like, I don't know, because it's not important.
You know what I mean? But she wants to know why. What happened with this, with that.
And I'm like, you know, so with the finance, which is much more important obviously to the family, she'll, you know, they'll ask all the questions and, you know, I just, I want to know what the bottom line, how much do I need to put where, what I need to do with this? And she's more like, well, what happens with it after that? You know, So I think you're 100, right? Both people gotta to be involved. So let's talk about your journey to get to where you're at. So we talked. You have a degree in theology, right?
[00:46:37] Speaker A: Yes, sir. Yep.
1997, I went to a Baptist seminary to study the Scriptures. And, and I got a master of arts in theology, Biblical studies. And I wanted to get into the science of it all, the archaeology, the history, the reality of it all, the historicity of it all. So that was important to me. So I went for it. So I left my corporate America work job and moved to Pennsylvania and did that. And then in the interim, I started working at different jobs and worked for the university. And then they offered a free degree in finance.
I took that. So I did both at the same time here and there. And in 2007, I graduated with my master's in finance in May, and then in June, I graduated with my master's in theology.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Wow. And. And you said Baptist University, but earlier you also mentioned that, that you raised Catholic, Was that.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, big time. But my parents came from Puerto Rico. Strict, strict, devout Roman Catholic Lower east side of New York City in Manhattan. And that's how we were raised. Went to Catholic school for most of my life. I have never gone to a public school in my life. It's always been a private school of one sort or another. And then, then I went to, I wound up at Pace University. And yeah, so I got my bachelor's degree there and you know, that's the road. And public accounting is my bba. And then of course the finance degree with Drexel. So I like to say I specialize in death and taxes because, you know, I know scripture. I, I can talk, okay, spirituality to anybody. And, and at the same time, I could talk taxes to you. So. And what are the two certainties in life? Right, right.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: 100. Wow. So what was the decision process? Because with the degree, did you ever thought to get in, into the church more? Was it just for your good? You know, was it a big decision not pursuing that in the, in the church world and then coming to start your own business? How did that process go?
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah, so, so I went to seminary with the, with the number one goal of is this for real?
Right. It was just bugging me to no end. I'm like, is this for real? So I, I went to find out for myself and while I was there it was on the table to go into full time ministry or part time ministry. So full time ministry was not, didn't materialize yet. And in the meantime I'm like, well, I, I could do, you know, ministry work on the side and full time work. Like the Apostle Paul was a tent maker. He had a business, right? He, he made sense and sold them. So it's a, it's a model that's in the scriptures, in the New Testament. So I'm like, I could do that. Instead of being a full time pastor or something like that, I could do something else like that. And then the opportunities took me one way or the other and I wound up at working full time at, you know, at a university in Philadelphia. And then I got a finance degree and I just pursued it and I was hot into education.
I, I just have a hungry mind, you know, so I just can't consume enough and it drives me nuts a little bit because I don't sleep so well sometimes, you know. But yeah, so that's what so, but I did, I did, you know, Roman Catholicism is something that I walked away from. My parents weren't happy about it, but I decided I wanted to be an independent thinker, you know, so. And then the Baptist, you know, seminary I went to, I walked away from that too. I'm like, you know, I'm not so sure I agree with everything you guys say, you know, but I think they were basically right about a lot of things. And every denomination has its issues, to be honest with you. Okay, so.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: And now you're on yourself, and now you're big time into educating people about preparing their business so they don't lose a lot of money.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: Right?
[00:50:31] Speaker B: Is that right?
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, cash flow is everything in a business, right? So if you're not careful, you're not tracking it, you're not budgeting for it, you're not watching what's going on every single day.
You got to wake up in the morning thinking, be expecting to be surprised.
And most small business owners when they start a business, they can all relate to this. You wake up in the morning at 2:00am with the cold sweats, you're both terrified and excited about what the day is going to look like, right? So you're always wondering what's going to go wrong. Because you have to be prepared for. For that as a small business owner. And the biggest mistake you can make is the cash mistake. If you're not watching it, if you don't make a payroll, you know, you're toast, right? Employees are gonna. Employees are going to leave you, you know, so you just. The one thing you have to watch every day is that cash and not wait until the end of the month to find out you got a problem. And a lot of business owners, they're good at what they do. They're great at cooking. They're great at building. They're great at this and this and that. And they. They're not good with numbers and financials. And they. They walk away from that thinking that we'll take care of it later. But as a business owner, you have to be comfortable with financial statements or have a financial advisor who walks you through all that and keeps you looking, keeps you from getting into danger, you know, okay. Mess up the cash, you mess up your business big time.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: Well, Joe's been a pleasure having you on the. On the show today. I appreciate all your insight, and thanks again. We're running out of time. Thanks again for having Joe Reyes with Reyes county, and we look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks a lot.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: All right. Great being with you. Thank you.
