From Goldman Sachs to Making History in Government | Vanessa Baird-Streeter on REAL Mentors Podcast EP 89

From Goldman Sachs to Making History in Government | Vanessa Baird-Streeter on REAL Mentors Podcast EP 89

Vanessa Baird-Streeter grew up in one of the most segregated areas of the country where her family could afford a better neighborhood but was never shown those houses. That experience became the lens she has carried into every room she has entered since. She started her career as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, spent a decade in finance and then made history as the first woman of color to serve as Suffolk County Deputy County Executive. In that role she managed a $3.7 billion municipal budget, chaired New York State's most comprehensive police reform plan and led the COVID-19 response for Long Island's most underserved communities. Today she is the President and CEO of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island and she is still doing the same thing she has always done, which is changing systems from the inside out. In this episode Vanessa and Sean get into what it actually costs to be the first in rooms that were not built for you, why success means nothing if you are not opening doors behind you and what it looks like to build a decades long career rooted in purpose over recognition. If you are interested in leadership, public service, generational wealth, breaking barriers or what it takes to create real change in your community this episode is required watching. This Episode Explores: ✅ Growing up in a deliberately segregated Long Island community and what that shaped in her from the start ✅ Building her career on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and what finance taught her about access and power ✅ Making history as the first woman of color to serve as Suffolk County Deputy County Executive ✅ Chairing New York State's most comprehensive police reform and reinvention plan ✅ Leading COVID-19 response efforts for Long Island's most underserved and vulnerable communities ✅ Why she turned down grad school at University of Chicago and what that decision actually gave her ✅ How always leaving on good terms and building bridges became one of her greatest career strategies ✅ Managing a $3.7 billion municipal budget and what that level of responsibility requires ✅ Why AI is eliminating entry level jobs and what education needs to look like going forward ✅ What it means to lift others up without losing yourself and why she believes that is the secret to a fulfilled life 🔗 Connect with Vanessa Baird-Streeter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanessa.b.streeter/ [https://www.instagram.com/vanessa.b.streeter/] Health and Welfare Council of Long Island: https://hwcli.com/ [https://hwcli.com/] Follow REAL Mentors Podcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast [https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast] Host Sean Martin: https://instagram.com/theseanmartin [https://instagram.com/theseanmartin]

She Managed $40 Million Before Age 22 | Alexis Morgan on REAL Mentors Podcast EP 88

Alexis Morgan founded her first real estate investment fund at twenty years old. By twenty one she was managing over forty million dollars. No Wall Street connections. No family money. Just a young woman who figured out how private lending works and built her own version of it from scratch. Today she's the founder of Peach State Capital Group, a private lending and real estate investing platform with over two hundred funded transactions and consistent double digit returns for her investors. She also runs masterminds and education platforms built for the people the financial system was never designed to include. In this episode Alexis breaks down exactly how private lending works, why relationships are the real currency in real estate investing and what it actually takes to raise capital and scale a real estate fund from zero. She gets honest about early money mistakes, the events that changed how she saw the industry and why she says yes to every first invitation. If you are serious about real estate investing, private lending, raising capital or building generational wealth this episode is required watching. This Episode Explores: ✅ How to start a real estate investment fund with no Wall Street background ✅ What private lending is and why real estate investors need it over traditional banks ✅ How she raised and deployed tens of millions through Peach State Capital Group ✅ Attending dozens of paid events in year one to build high value relationships ✅ The $30,000 event that showed her what real estate investing looks like at scale ✅ Using LinkedIn and Instagram to build investor trust through transparency ✅ Why private lenders hold the most leverage in any real estate deal ✅ How to transition from residential to commercial real estate investing ✅ Building wealth and access for people Wall Street was never designed to serve 🔗 Connect with Alexis Morgan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexismorganinvests/ [https://www.instagram.com/alexismorganinvests/] Peach State Capital Group: https://www.peachstatecapital.com/ [https://www.peachstatecapital.com/] Follow REAL Mentors Podcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast [https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast] Host Sean Martin: https://instagram.com/theseanmartin [https://instagram.com/theseanmartin]

The Truth Is Funnier Than the Lie | Esther Acosta on REAL Mentors Podcast SP 87

Esther Acosta didn't see herself as a comedian. Then one open mic she flourished and found her calling. Three years later she's sold out over thirty shows, performed at the Laugh Factory in Chicago and built one of New York's most authentic comedy platforms from scratch. But before any of that, there was a family secret she didn't find out about until she was twenty one and a pattern she kept repeating in relationships without knowing why. A mother who saw something in her daughter before her daughter could see it herself. Esther's comedy comes straight from her life. A Cuban household, the bad boys, the restaurant kitchen and the things Latina women live through but rarely hear talked about on stage. When she tells a joke she's telling the truth and in this episode she brought all of it. This Episode Explores: ✅ Growing up Cuban in Hialeah and the family secret that changed everything ✅ Why she kept choosing the wrong men and what she finally realized underneath it ✅ The open mic that launched everything and the comedian who refused to believe it was her first time ✅ The Latin comedy legend who inspired her to just start ✅ Building Out of Control Comedy into thirty sold out shows ✅ Running Rincon Criollo, the family restaurant from Corona Queens to Long Island ✅ Why we spend our adult lives chasing what we never got as kids 🔗 Connect with Esther Acosta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estherthecubancomic [https://www.instagram.com/estherthecubancomic] Rincon Criollo: https://www.rincon-criollo.com/ [https://www.rincon-criollo.com/] Rincon Criollo: https://www.instagram.com/rinconcriollo76/ [https://www.instagram.com/rinconcriollo76/] Follow REAL Mentors Podcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast [https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast] Host Sean Martin: https://instagram.com/theseanmartin [https://instagram.com/theseanmartin]

A Drug Dealer From Facing 60 Years to 8 Figure CEO | Kelly Siegel on REAL Mentors Podcast EP 86

Kelly Siegel grew up with alcoholic parents who beat him when they came home drunk. He learned early that showing fear meant weakness and that survival required toughness. By college he was shipping weed on planes and slinging hundred dollar bags of dope to pay tuition. Then he got arrested, everybody testified against him, the college threw him out and the system threw the book at him. He looked in the mirror and said he did this. Then he negotiated his way back into college at twenty years old while fighting criminal charges and did four months in county jail. That moment in a jail cell is where he decided he was never putting himself in that position again. Today Kelly is the CEO of National Technology Management, a high seven figure company approaching eight figures, a motivational speaker and author of Harder Than Life: Weaponizing Poverty, Addiction and Violence. His message is simple: you can learn every business system in the world but if you don't do the work between your ears none of it matters. In this episode Kelly and Sean get into generational cycles of abuse, what it actually means to heal, why scaling yourself is the only real business strategy and the TLC framework Kelly swears by for winning in every area of life. This Episode Explores: ✅ Alcoholic parents, childhood beatings and learning to exile fear to survive ✅ Shipping weed on planes and selling drugs through college ✅ Getting arrested, facing 60 years and everyone turning against him ✅ Negotiating his way back into college at twenty years old from a jail cell ✅ The mirror moment, which is taking full accountability with no parents to run home to ✅ How street survival instincts kept him small in business for years ✅ IFS therapy, exiled emotions and why you can't push out the bad without pushing out the good ✅ The first person who genuinely offered to help him and how that changed everything ✅ Why you are your best investment and bleeding on people who didn't cut you ✅ The TLC framework: Training, Learning and Coaching as a daily operating system 🔗 Connect with Kelly Siegel Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelly.siegel.71/ [https://www.instagram.com/kelly.siegel.71/] YouTube: youtube.com/@harderthanlife [http://youtube.com/@harderthanlife] Website: harderthanlife.com [http://harderthanlife.com] Book: Harder Than Life Follow REAL Mentors Podcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast [https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast] Host Sean Martin: https://instagram.com/theseanmartin [https://instagram.com/theseanmartin]

Homeless, Handcuffed in Front of His Son, Then Found God | Jonnie Parsons on REAL Mentors Podcast EP 85

Jonnie Parsons had the $70,000 truck, the four bedroom house and the white picket fence. He gave it all away chasing a void he couldn't fill. What followed was meth, opiates, fentanyl, eighteen months in county jail inside a two year stretch and getting arrested in front of his son and his girlfriend who barely spoke English and didn't have a license. He was a firefighter risking his career to get high two days before his shift. He was a construction worker making good money at eighteen and spending it all on drugs. He kept coming back to the same bottom in different cities, different jobs and different circumstances because the problem was never the situation. It was him. The turning point came in a spiritual dorm behind bars in one of Florida's toughest counties. For the first time in his life, Jonnie says he was in chains and felt completely free. That's where he found God and where everything actually changed. Today, seven years removed from homelessness and addiction, Jonnie is the Executive Vice President of Alliance Land Development, author of the 365-day devotional Unshakable and a man who refuses to waste the life he almost lost several times over. This Episode Explores: ✅ Growing up in Fort Pierce with a Vietnam vet father and a mother who never missed a day of work ✅ Making good money at eighteen in construction and finding meth and opiates on the job site ✅ The void that no amount of money, sex or drugs could fill ✅ Eighteen months in county jail inside two years and getting beaten by cops on the last arrest ✅ Being a firefighter and using cocaine two days before shifts knowing he could be drug tested ✅ Fentanyl taking him to his absolute bottom ✅ Getting arrested in front of his son and girlfriend with a warrant out for his arrest ✅ Finding God in a spiritual dorm in one of Florida's toughest county jails ✅ Getting married with $11 Walmart rings because the pastor paid the $85 marriage certificate ✅ From homeless drug addict to Executive VP in seven years 🔗 Connect with Jonnie Parsons Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonnie_parsons_official/ [https://www.instagram.com/jonnie_parsons_official/] Book: Unshakable 365 Day Devotional E-Book: 5 Daily Disciplines of Personal Development Follow REAL Mentors Podcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast [https://instagram.com/realmentorspodcast] Host Sean Martin: https://instagram.com/theseanmartin [https://instagram.com/theseanmartin]