From Homeless to 9 figure real-estate Mogul Saving Children Around the World: William Fonseca

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I'm right in the path of this place where all these people are trafficked. You see a lot of kids that are taken for the sex industry.

And it takes me back to that store where I worked as a stockboy for $25 a week, would tie me up and touch me in a walking cooler. And I didn't have anybody to go to.

Homeless, on the final stretch of my three years, they reached out of the window and offered me a piece of paper with an address and scripture verse.

Knock on the door of this place, and this guy opens the door. Trying to convince this cat that I need five bucks to eat.

And this guy wants to feed me, but I want the five bucks because with a five dollar rock, I can just boom cure myself for the next five seconds. That's an everlasting year, you're chasing that devil.

The guy tells me: if you give me a year of your life, I guarantee you that God will restore you a hundred percent and then more. They took me into the shower, they bathed me.

Never seen a human being so loving. All it took is somebody to give me that unconditional love.
I've decided to dedicate my life to helping others.

Hey guys and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast. This is Paul Alex and today we have another phenomenal guest guys.

But before we get into it, I just want to say thank you for the 4 million downloads that we had previous, this previous month, back in what month are we in Emilio?

September, yeah. So we're in September right now going into October guys.
So we're expecting about 5 million this this month.

But Because of you, we rank top three in all categories and number one in business guys.

So we're going to be bringing in phenomenal guests to hear their stories so you guys could get inspired to level up in your life.

So today's guest, he is a Miami local, actually from the, he's seen the Wynwood District area through all its stages.

And I can't wait to interview this guest. He goes by the name of William.
And William, welcome to the show, brother. Thank you for having me.
No, absolutely, man.

So, William, let my audience know who you are and what is it that you do right now.

So, I am a developer,

born and raised in the Alapata area,

developed about 1,000 doors in my career, mainly focused my career in neglected areas. My colleagues got to do a lot with fallen men,

people with issues.

access, how do you provide?

Why don't you want to just be in this particular area? So I'm a pioneer from the Wynward, the Alapata, the Overtown, Liberty City area. So that's mainly my main focus.

And I've been at it for 27, 28 years, literally. After a thousand doors, I kind of like

hung my gloves and involved in ministry.

So my background is faith

after a turmoil that occurred many years ago. So

being or given the opportunity or my calling being in neglected neighborhoods,

spiraling out of control, falling, getting back up, I've devoted for the past 25 years

the reach to help others, men that are fallen. I love that, man.
Love that. So you're faith-based, and now you're going into

your beliefs to help other people.

So let's talk about your humble beginnings, okay? How did you end up getting into real estate?

So

mainly it's just the environment you're raised in,

your community

access.

I'm kind of like not satisfied with no. It's like no is a very powerful word.

Not satisfied with the interpretation. But if you tell me no, then I need to find out why and why

takes me to being curious.

So mainly my career started in that type of neighborhood, neglected neighborhoods just because my colleagues decided to go to Coral Gables in upper-scale neighborhoods, and that didn't make any sense to me.

Yeah, and at what age did you get into real estate? So, I'm an electrician by trade, so I got into the construction business at 17. I did an apprenticeship program.

Not very good at going to school at all.

I just couldn't, I could not dissect in school a teacher trying to teach me how to use a calculator when I didn't need one.

So for me, it was like, no, you're going to stress me out, so I'm just going to get out of school. So I did an apprenticeship program that led me to the building industry,

and that took me into the development. Wow, so at 17 years old, you got into construction.
Did you graduate high school? Yeah, I graduated out of night school. Night school?

But just to say that I graduated,

I like that.

That doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, because some of the best entrepreneurs that I've met, like, they've had a hard time either at school or they've excelled.
It's either or.

There's no like medium. Yeah,

it's like you're telling me to read this whole book and I don't need to go through the whole book. It's just give me a piece of the book and I can just tell you the whole story.

And if you can't dissect that, then I'm not the proper student. So let me just walk out.
So for me, it was like, okay, I'll do night school because it's part of the apprenticeship program. I'll go and

I'll BS my way through it and that's it and just get it done. Taking in perfect action, brother.

I love it. I love it.
Would you say you're more of a visionary guy or implementer? Well, I'm a pioneer, so yeah, it goes hand to hand.

Yeah, how can you go into a place that's highly distressed when nobody wants to be there because you're going to get killed or there's a lot of dope going on? It's like, it's a challenge. Yeah.

It's a challenge. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Okay, so 17 years, you get into construction. Did you end up having a mentor while you were doing construction? No, it was just an opportunity

to look at

these particular areas with a different lens. And

I just like somebody invested in me and looked at me and said, well, I don't see that fallen man in you or that fallen human. I see something else in you.

And I said, well, you don't have a crystal ball. I don't know who you are.
And it's the same thing. I looked at a particular area not too far from where I was born.
And I saw so much potential.

It's Proud of 595. It's got downtown Miami.
You incorporate, you're born with that. Yeah, no, absolutely.

So you end up getting into the construction game, and then how many years were you doing construction before you started getting into the next level of the market?

So I had a successful electrical business for many, many years.

And across the street from where I lived,

so I lived in Cutler Ridge in an area that a big developer here in Lennar, at one time or another, had developed the area and had left scattered lots.

And there was an old man there, Vincent, in his 70s. And he would build these cookie cutters.
And that kind of attracted me.

And I used go out to the field, you know, 5:30, 6 in the morning till around 2 o'clock. And I mean, I struck a deal with him.

And I said, Look, listen, if you can just teach me mechanically how to do this, I'll go ahead and I'll give you my time on the weekends and in the middle of the day, and you don't have to pay me, and I can learn how to run with it.

Yeah. Yeah.

That was the biggest gift I ever received. Beautiful.
And then

what happened next?

I take off with

that particular scene. And

since I'm living down south, I spot an area where it had potential to erect probably a couple hundred homes if you did the entitlements right, if you did the rezoning right.

But you needed one key thing. I had a successful electrical business, and you have the liquid to do the transition, to do the acquisition.

Now you have a little bit of time and training in the building industry, and you are an electrician, so you have a lot of knowledge in the interpretation of construction documents.

And what happened was I put my eye on this particular parcel and

I bought into

what was the disaster that took me to success. The intent to buy this parcel to erect these homes, you need the upfront money.
It's what they call

the upfront money to go to the bank and get the construction loan. And you dump all this ton of cash into escrow and these are your friends and they're attorneys and they bail with your money.
Wow.

And there it starts. That's where the success starts, when disaster starts occurring in your life.
And that took me down the path where

made me who I am today.

So I

bought into that particular scene, wound it up, broke, and instead of folding and attaching to the law, it decided to liquidate, make everybody whole, and Wanda broke.

At what age were you? So you're dealing with 2122. So at 21, 22, everything just goes to shambles, man.
It starts.

It starts.

So that was the beginning of like the bigger issue. That was the beginning of the successful story.

But one of the things that I like as I go around the the world or around the country speaking and uplifting fallen men is that everybody comes now into your life and they want to see what's already done.

I call it the result. It's the process nobody wants to talk about.

They see what's there. So that takes me to

a relationship that takes me down a path that it involves, obviously, drugs.

And I started to smoke cocaine. Wow.
Yeah, wow.

So would you be able to walk us through? So at 21, 22, you're going through all these issues in business.

And I always say this, you know, when you're like a true entrepreneur, a true entrepreneur, and you have employees, you have assets, you have, you know, cash flow coming in, and then something massive happens, like your first critical incident in business, it really shows who you are.

Like how you handle pressure.

So for me, for me,

the opportunity of edifying or lifting myself up on the impact was not an option.

That wasn't an option. It wasn't on the table.

I couldn't have asked for it today as a result that it has.

I would not change anything.

The wounds are there. The war stories are there.
It's what helps me communicate or transmit the message of

kind of like dictating the result. Just because you're in the rut doesn't mean that that's where you're going to stay.
So for me, that particular moment,

was there an exit strategy? Yeah, for sure. Did I take it? No.
I needed to allocate value.

The knowledge was there, so you can't strip me of that. But I wanted to look at the other side of the fence.
I just had

no idea what was on the other side of the fence, which

I've got a good saying, God doesn't call capacitated men, God capacitates you. So I had no knowledge of that.
What was that was going to happen? So as that turmoil kicks in,

you get into this relationship. There's this component that's going to spiral out of control, and it's going to put me in a very unique area.

It's going to put me in an area where I'm going to acquire a penthouse, the most beautiful penthouse I've had. I had it for about 37 months under the 17th Avenue Bridge.

Waterfront, you couldn't ask for a better position. There,

there, I met the most interesting human, fallen men men and women. The talent that was embedded in these humans was amazing.

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Now,

what delays the blessing is the disobedient not allowing that particular hump. So I speak a lot about the hump.
What does the hump do for you? It directs you in the right way.

If you give yourself the opportunity to look at the hump, the hump is full of treasures. Success obviously comes from that disaster.

You allocate value to that particular disaster and you're going to look at that hump has full of treasures. That turns out to be the human that you are today.

That hump took me to that particular human that reached out of the window and offered me a piece of paper with an address and a scripture verse.

Homeless. On the final stretch of my three years, I started walking towards that address to ask for money.
I hadn't slept in probably a few days because you can't sleep under a bridge.

You can mimic it, but it's so dangerous and so dark.

And you meet humans that are actually, I call them the gremlins, come out at night. I mean, it's like, wow, the environment, the dynamics just change.
Yeah.

Yeah. So you've seen both sides of the world.

I've seen not having anything coming from a middle-class family where my dad had two jobs. So my dad

was a union delegator for the HALTA industry in Miami Beach when Miami Beach was a different scene.

A brother going to medical school. and the firstborn, everybody's going to focus on the firstborn, on the black sheep of the family, the middle one.

and then the younger sister, and we're being cheated out of this whole scene. And everybody's focusing on paying my brother's tuition.

And hey, we're out in the cold, and who are we, you know, chopped liver?

So coming from that environment to taking that leap of faith to going out and becoming an entrepreneur and experimenting with the private sector and launching that campaign to

taking me to being homeless is like,

wow, if you were to make me another offer to

change time, no, not in a million years, buddy. I would not take you up.

What an experience.

It's actually a component that makes me who I am. So

I don't come from a wealthy family. I come from a middle class family.

So they're going to cut the light today because we got to send $20,000 up to my brother's medical tuition, that kind of environment. And what are we?

I got to put rubber bands on my socks because they're slipping down because the elastic is torn out, That kind of a scene. So, I mean, I come from that environment to

taking that leap of faith to if you can't handle the conditions in my house, I'm the head honcho. And if you don't like it, well, you got to leave, and I'm going to take you up on the word.

And you're 17 years old and you're leaving home. And what's the effect that's going to happen when you're 17 years old and you're leaving home?

All you're going to do is crash and burn, crash and burn, crash and burn. So that's non-negotiable for me.
There's no money.

There's nothing that you can offer me to change that because I wouldn't for nothing.

nothing it's part of who i am today and those are my wounds to others but those are that's where i found success yeah in the rut in the gutter that's i call it the hump that's where success lies because without the hump you can't tell the story to have a beautiful result man i i feel like i resonate with you so much brother because you know i'm hard-headed So, so I had to go through my humps, you know, throughout my 20s, throughout my teenage years.

You know,

the very first time I actually wanted to become an entrepreneur was at 18, all the way up to about like 24. I was actually in the nightclub industry.

And not a lot of people know that, but, you know, I was I was very decently successful in the nightclubs for that age, brother. I was bringing in, you know, good amount of money.

If I had the right mentor, if I had the right person to tell me like, Paul, instead of using that money to go to Vegas, to go spending on girls, to go buy the cars, to go live that lavish lifestyle as a kid, kid, which we see it a lot here in Miami, right, with the kids.

Man, I'd probably be in a different space right now. But at the end of the day, you know, I went back to the nine-to-five, man.

I went back to corporate America because I remember my parents telling me, like, hey, give up on your dream, give up on your dream about owning a nightclub and go back to that nine-to-five, right?

Security, right?

That nice umbrella. So with that being said, brother, so you go through this turmoil, you go through this hard times.
What happens next? So now I'm hooked on Dova.

I'm homeless, and I'm on my final stretch stretch of

looking at this little piece of paper. So I'm a result of a piece of paper, an address,

and a biblical verse. It didn't make any sense to me.
It said John 3.16. I said,

I don't care who John is. I don't care what 316 means.

I don't care about these little hens. So I've gone from a middle-class family to a successful businessman.
I've gone into the rut. I'm not a very good thief.
I'm not a very good crook.

I'm not a very good criminal. So

mainly my survival mode was what kicked in so people

misunderstand when they look at society that some people are actually not given the opportunity to live they're actually obligated to survive and there's that's two different things there's it's it's two different worlds

Now I'm coming from learning how to survive into this little piece of paper.

I'm going to go down Flagler Street here in Miami and I'm going to head to 35th Avenue and there I see a church and it's all closed and it's fenced and I say, well, you know what?

I'm going to knock on the door and I'm going to ask for five bucks to eat. And if I don't get five bucks to eat,

I'm going to find something here because I'm Jones and I'm really Jones and

I'm smoking Coke, I'm free-basing cocaine. And I'm broke, it's a $3 bill, I'm 100 pounds wet.

I haven't bathed in about three days, and

I'm literally heading towards destruction more at a mode where the only thing that actually kept me from shooting myself was

maybe it's just because I'm I'm brave or maybe I'm I'm a coward but at the end of the day that particular scene didn't kick in so I knock on the door of this place and this guy opens the door and I tell the guy

after I had jumped that five-foot fence I go to the door I knock on these two big doors 3501 West Flagler it used to be an old Christian church now the Brazilian bought it a few years ago now I'm in front of this white-headed dude and I'm telling the dude dude, I'm trying to convince this cat that I need five bucks to eat and this guy wants to feed me, but I want the five bucks because with a $5 rock, I can just, boom, cure myself for the next five seconds and go on that mission again.

And if you were in law enforcement, you know that that's an everlasting, you're chasing that devil. You're chasing it.
You're never going to get that satisfaction.

But now I don't come from that environment, but I'm in that environment and I'm trying to dissect this thing.

Why am I wanting this than food when this guy walks out and I go on the backyard on the back parking lot? This is a huge property. It's on 35th and Flaggle.
You can go there if you want.

Brazilians have a church there. But anyway, I look at this prayer chain, but I understand now it's a prayer change, but there's these old ladies just chanting, and I'm sitting.

They asked me to sit, and they're talking about this cat that's going to walk into these doors that's a self-made, successful millionaire that is dragged dragged like a mop all over the street and is fallen.

And I'm looking at these people and I'm thinking, what is this? Are these people into witchcraft? What's going on with these? These are Puerto Ricans. That's why I love Puerto Ricans so much.

Makes sense. Makes sense.
Now,

now they're chanting all of this stuff and the guy comes out and tells me he wants to talk to me.

He sits me down.

I'll never forget it. It's one of the most beautiful scenes I've seen.

I see a bowl of rice with chicken rice i don't call you i looked at it and i said damn i'm gonna take them up but i'm still chasing the five dollars

the guy tells me this is the exact words that the guy told me he says if you give me a year of your life i guarantee you that god will restore you

a hundred percent and then more

i said damn

It's either the streets or I'm going to take this cat. And when this cat makes me the next offer,

I'm going to jack him and I'm going to go to the pawn store and I'm going to go and run to the shoeshine boy and he's going to sell me my dope and I'm run

but something happened at that instant Paul that transformed my life forever so forever

I'm heading up to Chicago next week and I'm going to go and talk about John 3 16

because it's not that particular scripture. It's the meaning behind it.
It's the unconditional love.

He says, if you come and you stay here and every day at 6 in the morning you open the temple and you vacuum and you clean the toilets and you take the trash, God will restore you.

And I said, oh boy, this is the biggest scam.

I took him up on it. I went to a ranch three days.
They cleaned me up. Never seen human beings so loving.
They took me into the shower. They bathed me.

Now I can relate it.

When Jesus washed the disciples' feet,

it just broke me down.

I started to cry. And I said to myself,

where am I at? I'm out in Homestead three days into this mission. On the third date, boom, the cat calls me back and says, look, listen, now I want you to stay here for real.

And every morning at five o'clock, you get up to the altar and you pray. I said, what am I going to pray for? It goes, restoration.

I said, I'll try. If you teach me, I'll try.

So the component to success has to

do with giving yourself the opportunity. So I gave myself the opportunity to choose between

the street or that roof where it didn't rain and I wasn't going to starve. And I can get

new clothes and clean clothes. Pretty sure they came out of the goodwill.
God knows where they came from, donations

or anything. All the Rolex says, all the cars.

You're making all this money on a monthly basis. You come from a housekeeper to cleaning toilets.

This is not any better than what it is because now I feel like I've made a commitment and I'm here and how do I bail? So on one of the nights

I decided to go to the basement and I go to the basement and there's a studio, recording studio and I looked at the walls and they were full of plaques. They were all gold records

and I looked at the name on the record and it was just The whole wall was full of these gold records. I go, there's somebody here that's a musician.
This is a recording studio.

I'm going to rip off all these instruments or maybe that keyboard and I can probably probably score a $20 rock or whatever, whatever.

And every time I grab the guitar and every time I grab something and I put it on the door,

I wouldn't want to take it. And I would go around the block and I would wind up in the same parking lot.
And that was the opportunity that I gave myself.

So we're all born with the same opportunity, but the result cannot be the same.

So I gave myself the opportunity to listen to somebody. and humble myself and when I looked at the name, I noticed he was a Puerto Rican salsa singer, famous salsa singer.

And he took me under his belt and he made me an offer that transformed my life forever. He said,

if you allow yourself

to allow God to redirect your life and put you

where you need to be, because the knowledge that you've acquired in such a short time, just imagine if you do it for the kingdom of God. I said, said, this is a bunch of gibberish.

This is a bunch of storytelling. I'm not going to buy into this, but I'm going to give myself the opportunity.
And I started to look at failure as success.

I started to look at all that situation of hunger and smoking dope and being homeless as part of the successful story.

And I took that leap of faith, and when that year clocked on, I said, well, what am I doing now? Am I going to seminary school? He goes, you're insane. You're not going to become a pastor.

You're not going to do none of that. You're going back out there.

He says, what do you need? I says, well,

I need an apartment. I need a car.
He says, buddy, no apartment, no cars. You can come back here and you can sleep in this side of the building.
They used to be called winners.

There I met a couple.

Albert and Carmen, they fed me every day, every day.

Used to go out to Flagler, grab the bus, and go out to make $7 an hour.

And I looked at the owner of that electrical company and I said, damn, if you only knew that I can poke your eyes out with just my tongue, I can rip you.

I can do it 10 times better than you. You're lousy at what you do.

And one day I'm walking into a Wendy's. So that's my favorite meal.
I don't care what it does to you. I'll always eat a Wendy's hamburger.
Always, forever. I think I had one two or three days ago.

Forever. And sitting down at the Wendy's restaurant, I heard a conversation, and I dropped into that conversation.

and that guy was talking about building. He needed a builder.

And I knew what Vincent had showed me and I knew all of these components into the story.

And I wrote my phone number and my name on the napkin and three months later he called me. Wow.

I had no idea that I was going to wind up in Little Haiti. But

now I'm in a $1,500

white Econo line van.

When it passed 30 miles, the front tires would shake. I said, damn, this is not getting any better after being in a Bentley.

I don't know, there's something weird with this picture.

And I walked into a guy's life. His name was Jerome.

And Jerome said, I'll sell you the lot for $1,500.

I'll hold the paper on it. And when you're done with your project, you make me hold 10% interest on the land.
It balloons in 12 months.

And I went back to my hero, my dad. So my dad was a union delegator, had

a lot of political connection, a lot.

My dad was a very well-sought individual because he rattled people's cage. If you wanted to become a commissioner in this particular area, you'd go and get my dad, and he'd make it happen for you.

That's how much he pulled. I went back to dad and I said, I need your friends from the building department.

And I walked in with a set of plans.

So this individual that called me said 50% interest

and 50% of the profits. I said, I'll bite you.
He said, I'll control the money,

I'll launch you,

and we're going to have a beautiful relationship. And we did to the fourth house.
On the fourth house, I had stashed all my money in a launch box. I still have the lunchbox.
It was a Barbie

lunchbox. And in there, I stashed enough to buy the fifth lot.

And that fifth lot

took me to a thousand doors.

So I focused in neglected areas. That particular scene took me to focusing on why is this area neglected?

Why is it that we

identify success by the size of your pocket and not the size of

who is willing to dedicate a little bit of time of their life to uplifting you. So I will never have the finances to compensate this human, this famous salsa singer.
His name was Bobby Cruz. Wow.

Shout out to Bobby. Shout out to Bobby.
If you're forever listening to this,

everlasting. Watching this, man.
Yeah.

So from there, what age did you get your fifth door, your fifth lot?

So

in

2001, 2002,

I started to build in the little Haiti.

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By that time,

I had already

analyzed what it would take me to corner that particular market. My passion,

not knowing it, not giving myself the opportunity, is in giving access to those neglected because of whatever condition that they have, whatever demographic, whatever culture they come from.

I decided to use some of the contacts that my dad had left behind to give me access to home ownership.

Now I am into giving access

to people for lack of funds, lack of credit, and I revolutionized what the home ownership program was. I found out that most of these people, nothing against them,

most of these people that get parachuted that are executives hold a large sum of money in their financial institutions, CRA money.

They don't like to disclose it. It's for first-time buyers.

I walked into a bank in Coral Gables and I said, you know what?

I'm here to let you know that if you do not give me access to that, I'm going to the Miami Herald and I'm going to disclose those $30 million that the feds gave you for first-time buyers.

And I looked at home ownership with these eyes. If you're going to give me a Section 8 voucher,

$1,000, $1,500, why don't we allocate that CRA money for first-time buyers? So using these contacts, I wounded up at the building department again into community development.

And there we got access to community development money for the end user, not for me.

Now I'm in my fifth house. I got a little bit of money.

I've hooked up with an amazing woman. the pillar of my life.

Wow. The pillar.
Why would you call her the pillar of your life? Because there's only two things in my life that have occurred throughout this whole story. Jesus,

because

I come from an environment where I need to touch and feel to believe.

Now I've taken the leap of faith of buying into this story if you give me a year of your life. Now I've bought into the story that God is going to restore you.

But they're not giving me the components of why somebody would allow themselves to be hung in that fashion. What is the purpose behind that?

For me, I've I've identified it as unconditional love, meaning I'm going to do something for Paul, but I don't expect nothing in return from Paul.

So I'm going to plant this boatload of seed that I'm getting capacitated into people's lives that are just looked at and shied at just because of the condition, because either they smell bad, they look bad,

and people want to just reject them. just because of their condition.
It's like we're going in society today through a situation of identity.

So when I was 10 years old, before my dad poisoned me, honestly, because he was the one that poisoned me with alcohol. So I'm allergic to alcohol, so I'm not, I don't condemn anything.

I just, I'm allergic, so I don't want to be around it. That's a choice I've made for the last 20 plus years.
I've recognized that I'm allergic to it. Same, I'm allergic to cocaine.

I'm allergic to certain... components in my life that I've got to keep away.
So now I've identified that the worst enemy is me. So I've got to get grip of this.
So I'm into this whole situation.

I'm building these houses. I've got three or four houses under my belt.
I've got a little bit of cash. And I walk into a dealership and I buy a jag.

I'm in a jag again. It's a little beat up.
It sounds good looking, but it's a jag. So I'm going down to Palmetto and I see this blonde chick.

And there goes the old William and roll down the window and starts honking the horn.

Start asking this chick for the phone number. She's rejecting me.
She's resistant. So I throw the jag and I pull her over.

And I'm in the middle of Palmetto, I bumper to bumper, and I reached over and I asked her for her number.

Needless to know,

no number. So I gave her and I dumped it into her seat, wrote it on a paper, dumped it in her seat, and she called.

One of the things that was magical for me in selecting, so that's another thing that I found in my life that

choosing is of key component. It's an instrument that we use on who you sit and dine with and which fights to pick.
So I'm selective in those aspects.

I select who I want to sit and talk to, and I select what fights I want to pick. So I'm very selective.
I love that.

So,

in back in our days in Keybiscane, we've got a strip of big pine trees there, and people go there to raise the temperature and get kissed and do all this kind of thing.

I'm taking this chick, Maria, the love of my life. Oh my god, Maria, wow.

and I'm I'm talking to Maria

and the first thing that crosses my mind is that I've been in a situation without a relationship for a year so I've done that sacrifice so that I can redirect my life

and taking somebody up I want to call him my mentor with not so many words I want to call him somebody that gave me what I call agape, which is the unconditional love of God, which is not expecting anything in return.

He said, when you get back on your feet, I'm not even going to want nor the mops nor the brooms in your closet. And I said, whoa, mind-blowing.
This is a ministry.

Most of these ministries are in for the cash. This guy's a movie star.
This guy's a salsa singer. This guy

has

surrendered his career, breached the contract in that label to serve and to go and serve humans and preach the gospel. And what do you know?

I'm there talking to Maria Maria, and I can just feel the Holy Spirit just ministering to me and tells me, talk to her about me. And I said, talk to her about who?

And I gave her my testimony. And when I started to tell her where I had come from,

she started to cry.

And I asked her the question again a few days ago.

What allowed you to use those specific lenses to see a little bit further in my life

than what you actually were looking at. You were looking at somebody that was getting off again

and I invited her to a party. Party's on Sunday.
It's at 11 o'clock in the morning. It's going to church.
So we went to church.

I usually get down and I meditate a little bit and I pray and I thank God for this particular experience. And when I looked up, she had her hands raised at God and she was praising God.

And I said, this is the chick.

She's the one? She's still the one. I took her to an auction, tax deed, because I bought a a lot of tax deeds.

And I told her, Let's go to the auction. You've never been to the auction.
I took her to the tax deed auction,

and on the top floor was the place where you get married and applied for a marriage license. I says, This is the opportunity of your life.
Let's get married now till this date.

I've been married with Maria, very happily married. How many years? So I've got Maria since 2002, 2003.

So yeah, so about 23 years. My man.
man. A beautiful, beautiful relationship.

There's no secrets. Very transparent, knows everything.
So there's nothing that anybody can go to Maria and say, look, listen, we know this about William because she knows it all. So that helps Maria.

23 years of marriage. Man, that's a beautiful thing, brother.
Beautiful.

All right. And then now you were able to

go ahead and rebuild yourself again, and you're on your path to building these thousand doors.

Anything in between that you think you can think of that happened that dramatically changed everything for you?

Did you get into any critical incidents? Did something in your life shifted or did you hit a milestone?

No, it's

basically what it is is the understanding of the hump. So so I'm always going to be an ambassador of that particular scene.
It's got to do a lot with

my faith. So my hero of the faith talks about that all moments of tribulations are momentarily.

They don't last forever. They're momentarily.
They're there for a purpose. And at the end of the day, it produces glory.

So I know that when I'm on the hump, I just got to be cautious because the hump is a very tricky place.

The hump is,

there's so much treasures in the hump. The hump allows you to look.

from

the top down to see what the surroundings, what took you to the hump.

People have a misunderstanding of what crashing and burning is. Crashing and burning is one of the most beautiful things that has happened in my life.
That's where I got my strength from.

I didn't get my strength from being successful. I got my strength from crashing and burning.

Obviously, my crash and burn was catastrophic for my life because it put me in a particular situation, which I'm grateful for that.

But all dynamics, all situations that do occur, Paul, in my life

have a purpose. It's all purpose-driven.

I don't find myself with the largest stuff. So I lost my hero on earth, which was my dad.

You want to look at your parents as

these individuals. For some, they're good people and for others, they're evil.
For me, my dad was an evil human being because I didn't understand him as a communicator.

So for years, Just because he was a bad communicator doesn't mean that the message was wrong or the message

wasn't the truth. You just rebel against that and you, you know, you twist it to benefit you because everybody wants to tell the story as to

you want others to view it. No, the more transparent you are in the hump, the better it is.

You have control how long you're going to be in that hump. It's your personality, it's the me factor that doesn't allow you to leave that hump.

For me, it was like, how catastrophic can it be if I was nowhere and then up on the hill and then boom, you're back on the ground and even worsely, you're less than zero?

You have to understand that the foundation starts under the earth. If you don't find firmness, if you don't bore and find rock, you're not going to be solid.
You're going to be always shifting.

So the hump is always going to be full of springs in the bottom. You're always going to be shaking.

Watch it when you think you're firm because you're going to fall and hurt yourself. What is that catastrophic scene does for me?

It gives me the opportunity to view and allow me the opportunity to say, what got me here? Stop, think.

How do I wiggle out of this situation? Versus allowing my emotions that don't edify. My emotions don't do anything for me.
It's just distorts. It's a phantom.
It's a figment of my imagination.

It'll last a fraction of a second, disappears, the emotion is gone.

My life doesn't revolve around that particular scene. What happens is

you tell a story as transparent as you can with the evidence that overlays the result. If there is no result, there's no evidence of a result, it's not a good story.

It's a make it up story.

It's like Harvey the Rabbit. It's a figment of your imagination.
It doesn't list. Boom, you made it up, and that's it.
No, you need the evidence.

When I go and speak, I need somebody in the audience because you're always going to have somebody question it. Get up, raise, question it.
There's the evidence right there.

The pillar. My wife, she's seen it.
She's heard it from others. You testify, you raise the dead.
That's the evidence. It impacts, that's the message.

Yeah, so what happens is I encounter this relationship with this woman that I'm thinking with my emotions as this is going to take off the temperature. Here, she's a pillar.

Now we're going to start this venture in neglected areas and we're going to start helping people that are

categorized, neglected, marginalized. They're being

labeled. So, let me toss

this whole picture around and let me

recreate this program. So, I'm going to get you in with subsidiary money, the ones that you guys want to use to bail out,

and I'm going to make you a homeowner instead of being you a tenant. Yeah.
So, I revolutionized that industry and I impacted neighborhoods.

Now, they've turned out to be amazing neighborhoods. There's a beautiful picture.
I love that. I love that.
It's beautiful. Impacting just human beings.
That's what I'm in it for.

Because all it took us was somebody

to give me that unconditional love.

I'll tell you the story again, quick. I don't want the brooms or the mops in your closet.
All I want to use you as a testimony that I planted this seed in your life and look how you shine.

That's nothing in return.

Just imagine how much he shines and you can't even, people don't realize.

It's like when you walk into a room, you can just look and scan and you can tell who's who that's revelation that's discernment that comes from from the spirit you you know it's like if I want to get into your pocket if I and I can tell the loudest one is the weakest point in the room I mean you know I can rattle your cage all day long because I have not lost the knowledge.

What I've done is I've turned the tools that are given to me.

One of the tools that has been very important in my life is what happened when I was a little kid, when I was molested.

That was one of the things that impacted me the most of not having any adult figure, mom and dad, to talk about that. Yeah, it's huge.

Yeah, so I'm writing a book and I was just telling somebody about that book. It's just like, I built a school in 1990 to help my dad with a vision to serve the community.
And I just bought into them.

I bought them back and I closed them down. I remodeled them and I just

opened them back. And

particular schools are packed to capacity. But what's interesting in that book, it was missing that particular phase.
So it all starts at your childhood. I know for a fact that

everybody is born with an opportunity, but the results cannot all be the same. So now I'm looking into childhood behavior.

So for the past 15 years, I've been looking at supporting ministries or being part of,

I feed 650 kids a day in Honduras. What attracted me to Honduras? An invite.
I go to Oropoli. It's on the border of Nicaragua.
Human trafficking. What they do to these kids, how they prostitute them.

How do you feel when they tie you to a chair and they touch you and you don't have no one to go to?

Then you have an identity problem. So I've used that hump to define who I really am today.

Obviously, my vision that's given by God to me is not financially futile, so I don't do it. I've got plenty of money to do that.
So I serve humans for the benefit of

just one investment that was done on me. They planted a seed,

reaped, sow, and I communicate the same effect to humans. I help kids.
Now I'm involved with kids.

I've got two schools in the Wynwood area, Wynwood Daycare, that obviously that particular scene is attracting kids that are in bad situation. I'm dealing with DCF.
Yeah.

a misplaced child, parents that are abusing their children. So I've just scholarship a bunch of kids to bring them in free of charge.
I'll fund it myself.

At the end of the day, it's like, why is my right hand going to know what my left hand does? I'm not in it for the money.

I've got plenty of that where that came from, so why not reinvest it into that, into humans? So I'm here to impact. So nothing's really shifted, but

I've learned that even though Wall Street does make a lot of people wealthy and healthy,

the kingdom for me in helping humans has a better result percentage-wise. I'm here to impact.
I travel out of my pocket. I speak out of my pocket.
I want nothing in return.

It's a model based on a crusade that I went. Another individual that called me, it was...

2,500 people called me from the stage and said, you with the white cap, you with the white cap, I'm hiding there.

I go up to the front of the guy and the guy tells me, look, listen, I know for a fact that God will restore you. But when God restores you, he's going to call you back in.
So I'm receptive.

I've given my opportunity that I've gotten more out of helping others

because

the evidence there. And I've got anything and everything that a human could want.
It's just I'm in a phase of my life where I only want what I need,

not satisfaction of my wants. I like the cars.
I like the houses. I like all that I like, but it's not a priority anymore.
That's not a task. The task is perforating those fallen men.

So I've decided to dedicate my life to helping others. I love that, man.
I love that. And what are your future plans for helping the community and helping other people?

So now

I've encountered a situation with DCF. There's a lot of misplaced children.

I was telling the story earlier today. I just got approached by

DCF, Department of Children and Family.

There's an Amber Alert that's about two weeks old. Guy stabs a mom.
They're doped out. They're working out of a dope police.
Stabs the mom, takes the kid, goes down I-95 north.

Helicopters chasing him. There's an Amber alert.
Boom.

She shows up at my place, tells me about this little kid. She goes, do you know about the story? I go, no, I'm not familiar.
I don't really keep in touch with those things.

Well, one thing leads to the other. She calls another DCF police.
So they're actually the police.

They're just into extracting kids from dysfunctional homes, abuse, sexual abuse. So I'm very heavily into that.

She starts telling me the story, and I tell her, look, listen, the building next door is open.

The building next door is going to go under a massive remodel. Can I give you a spacer? She goes, well, I've got 500 cases.
So now that door swung open.

So now I'm going to start working with kids that are misplaced because I hate the fact of foster homes.

Future plans stay with the Honduras Ministry.

The human trafficking portion gives me a little bit of acid indigestion. I don't like the concept.

I understand more the human, the child development stage because I gave myself the opportunity.

to look at that aspect, where it starts. And believe me, I can actually look at a kid and tell you what's going on at home.

The abuse, I see them all the time with the makeup. I have to deal with that on a daily basis.

So I've given myself that opportunity to launch a massive campaign, weave myself into humans that are representing that sector. That's powerful.
When I go to Honduras, I mean, it's rural.

I'm right in the path of this place where all these people are trafficked. And in those things, you see a lot of women that are taken from there for prostitution.

You see a lot of kids that are taken snatched that are used for the sex industry.

And it takes me back to that walk-in cooler where the butcher at that store where I worked as a stockboy for $25 a week would tie me up and touch me in a walk-in cooler, and I didn't have anybody to go to.

So that impacted me. And I was just, it's a chapter in my life.
that I'm very expressive. I express myself.

I'm telling you, it raises the dead because I go to these places and it's the parent that's with the child in the community and I'm talking to the parent and I know for a fact that when you drink that half a bottle of rum you're touching your child and you're crying and you're molesting your child and that has impacted my life in such a positive way that I've decided that my wealth will get buried into that.

This is not a financially stimulated thing. I've made a commitment with God and my wife that it will stay in that environment.

Result, I have a daughter, Alex.

She's an attorney. Very smart.
Now look at the story, how dysfunctional is, and look at the result as to how the love

has catered to allow her the opportunity to be a successful lawyer.

Beautiful wife. So the result can be

modeled in the eyes of the communities and the public that's being neglected.

You're just not giving your time and the opportunity to feed this hungry community of the possibilities that you can get out of that rut you're in. And I've decided that that's a fight I want to pick.

So I picked it.

Is it hard? Yes, yes. I never thought that being a man of faith, Being a man of an advocate of the gospel or preaching love was going to be easy.
I I thought it was going to be hunky-dora.

I thought it was, hey, listen, the negative died. It's going to be a breeze.
No, it just got narrow and spinier and bumpier.

It's like, wow, how much tolerant can you be to being in these places where all these kids, all these humans are destroying themselves? How can you neglect people? You know,

I was, this is around four in Chicago because there's a lot of need in Chicago. And I was invited out to Chicago.

But sometimes we tend to walk through the savvy and there's a diamond in the rut, but we don't know what potentials that diamond when you polish it. Here it is in front of you, Paul.

Paul, I was trash and garbage, stunk like a dog.

Sorry for the dogs. I stunk three days smoking fuck cocaine.

How can you smell? I mean, you smell like chemicals. You don't brush your teeth.
You don't bathe.

And somebody sat sat with me and said, if you give me a year of your life, I can do this. So I bought a ranch.

I fund places that feed.

That's what took me to Southeast Asia because I wanted to know.

I've been five times to New Delhi. In New Delhi, people want to fight about

denominations of faith and stuff like that. I go to a place that feeds 350,000 people a day, buddy.
They're sheikes.

That's a wow. 300 for free.
350,000 people a day. Just imagine.

Just imagine feeding 650 kids for pennies. What does that do?

I just bought

about 10,000 thermal thermometers to ship them out.

Pennies. Ship them out.
Ship them out with batteries.

What an impact. A thousand backpacks.

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500 pairs of sneakers every November,

100, 200 bicycles. These kids have never seen that.

What does that do for me?

My wealth grows. It's the best return.
People talk about interest rate. People talk about the returns on hedges.
No, buddy.

This particular action has a return that'll blow your mind. It's not grabbing to go broke.
No.

It's knowing how to allocate value to what matters. So if that makes any sense, the return is huge.
For me, it has been. Fulfillment.
Fulfillment's everything in life, man.

You know, I've been there where material things does not do anything for me anymore. So at the end of the day, you do have to find your fulfillment.

You have to be passionate about what you want for yourself in the future. And if that brings you fulfillment, brother, because

it builds you up, especially from coming from a hard place like you have, dude.

That's what I'm talking about, brother. So at the end of the day, it's that type of investment.
What do you sit with somebody and talk to them? They can transform them.

We were sitting with a cat about a month ago.

He says, I have an intimate relationship with my bathroom. I lean on the tile.
I take all my clothes. And my bed is my toilet.

My wife does a lot of collecting with clothes. We ship them out to South America.
I mean, a lot of clothes. She washes them and irons them.

And

I live in a unique place surrounded by salt water. So that tells you how humble we are in that aspect.
And it's not flashing or wanting any credit for it.

But the guy just tells me, listen, if it wasn't for this particular moment, I was about to put a bullet in my head. And I said to myself, wow.
Yeah.

Wow. Yeah.

So that moves me. Everything else?

No. Yeah.
I'll pass.

I'm in it for that, buddy. Yeah.
I'm going to do the long haul. That's good, man.
You found peace, man. You found peace and

you're enjoying life.

You know what I always say? Living life by design, man. You're living a life by design now.
I love it.

I love it.

You're living with your core values and what you believe in. And that's a powerful thing, man.
So what would you say for the listeners and the viewers that are listening to this right now?

How do they find their purpose? I think

when the vision gets distorted out of anxiety or out of emotions, it's just stopping and giving yourself the opportunity like I did. I gave myself the opportunity to just look.

Just look for a minute and see

what actually had value. Did I want to stay in that situation? Or did I,

I'm in this situation, but I have not given myself the opportunity to reach out to somebody that can help me.

At the end of the day, it has to do with giving yourself the opportunity to stop and think for a minute. Is

this where I need to be? Is this my calling? Is this

what I'm all about? And that defines a lot. It gives you a better understanding.
It's called the hump. Anybody that's got a distorted vision, it's like I say, I used to be blind, now I can see.

The message really has to be with giving yourself the opportunity.

You have to give yourself the opportunity without prejudicing, without...

See, Paul,

the opinion of others doesn't define the final product. Who defines the final product? It's the designer.
It's God himself.

It's giving yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror, taking an inventory. Is this where I wanted to be? I looked in the mirror and I said, do I want to be with a glass pipe?

Do I want to be a millionaire again? And if I do want to be a millionaire again,

what am I going to do with it? Am I going to buy 20 cars?

By the way, I like cars. I love cars.

But that has nothing to do or doesn't interfere with my calling. My calling is something that I've recognized that has to do with defining what my purpose is.

And when you look in the mirror and you take an inventory, you look at where you are now and where you want to be. I designed it.
It's tailored. It's like going and getting my suit tailored.

I designed it. I don't want to be here anymore.
That's not

what's called a purpose. I want to be here.
Do I want to be wealthy? Yes. What am I going to do with my wealth? I'm going to do the same thing that they did with me.

I'm going to inject it back into the kingdom where I I know it's going to edify and uplift others. How is the return? Am I going to go broke by doing that? Well, let's give it a shot.

So I gave myself the opportunity. And the more I inject it into that,

tell you a long story short. The reason why I like Wendy's is because one night I was hungry, and a guy by the name of Frank approached me.
And I said, Frank, I'm hungry.

I was already living at the church. And Frank approached me and bought me a Wendy's hamburger.
So I'm always going to eat that Wendy's hamburger. Thanks for Dave.

Frank,

after many years in recovery and after many years in ministry, is going through an accident.

His house burns down, no insurance.

And the only thing that I couldn't, that I, that could cross my mind is that day when he fed me that double-stack burger. and he had the opportunity to sit and talk to me.

And when Frank identified that it was in a Miami Springs hotel hotel

with his children, I could always remember that hamburger. And I said, it took probably $10 for me to look at that case.
And I looked at it and I said, I'll build it for you.

He says, yeah, but I got no insurance or I got no money.

So an $8 or $10 investment moved my heart to building him a brand new house and telling him, here are the keys.

So does it have a return? That was his investment. So what's my investment?

The opportunity that I gave myself to look at life, that the knowledge of building a thousand units and becoming a multi-whatever,

because we know that if we build a thousand units, you know that the numbers are huge. What does that do for me? Am I going to give it back? Am I going to leave it behind?

Am I going to find a truck big enough to take it to the grave with me? Am I just going to live it, give it to my daughter? Because my daughter is a lawyer. She doesn't need the funds.
She's well off.

So what am I going to do? I'm going to invest it in humans. So at the end of the day, what are the returns? The fulfillment.
The transformation. What transforms.

I can look at somebody that I went to Chicago three weeks ago that was sleeping in its four-wheel rubber condo and actually grabbed them and said, here, go and rent yourself an apartment.

Now he lives in an apartment. Now he's furnished.
The same thing was done to me. So why not do it to others? So is the investment in Wall Street healthy? Yeah, it's beautiful.
The return is beautiful.

The money is beautiful. But it didn't take me out of the hump.

That's one thing it could not solve. The riches,

the wealthiest could not bail me out. Yeah.

Yeah. It took time and word of wisdom to give me the opportunity to look and take an inventory and say to myself, this is not where I want to be.

So if there's something that I'm going to tell you, stop, think, and give yourself the opportunity. That's the biggest leap of faith you can take.
That's powerful, man.

That's what we call the level up guys. Will, where can my audience find you, brother?

So one of my conditions

in my walk is that because of my personality, I didn't want to be nor invited, financially motivated, and I didn't want to become a superstar. So that's got that component.

It's just that, unfortunately, in age, we decline. So I've been around the world.
We've traveled Southeast Asia over five times. So we've done a lot of crusades around the world.

And as time has declined, I've looked at this possibility of this particular scene

so I've created a room with the missing components

I own two schools I've got an email I know that if I were to sell my story I can become a superstar and there I'll crash and burn again yeah so I'm not going to do that I don't want to become a superstar have I thought about

creating something to give me more exposure.

I've given myself the opportunity to explore that because being a dinosaur and wanting to have human interaction at a physical level has limited that.

Yes,

I got an email. You can expose it.
You've got a phone number. I will expose that.

I'm a 24-hour dynamic human being. I'm always out to serve human beings.
I own two schools in the Alapato Wynwood community. It's Wynwood Daycare.

Paul, you can publish my email if you want. I would love that because if it's got to do with helping others.
But I've always been

humble enough not to want to become a movie star. I don't want to become a movie star

because of what I've seen in miraculous ways, how I've been able to fuel my vision without having to receive anything in return. That's the unconditional love.

the part that I struggled with a lot. Unconditional love is something that you give and don't expect anything in return.

So I struggled a lot with that because you're out in the business and the secular world wanting to buy real estate and get money in return and that's all fine and dandy. I love it.
It's beautiful.

But this particular sector of my life is planting seeds in people's life and the return. It's a transformation.
So Paul, you can expose my email. I mean, I've already said the Wynwood Daycare.

You can go to winwooddaycare.com, send me an email if you want. Paul, you can publish my number.
It's going to blow up

I love it I love it but um

yeah I've limited myself to that I love that I love that living life by design we got will over here guys from going through adversity at the age of 17 starting construction guys to transitioning from construction to then going ahead and investing in real estate at 21 to 22 to lose it at all and then to gaining back again now to go ahead and actually find his fulfillment, which is helping others, building schools, and giving back to the community and his faith.

Shout out to your wife, Maria. She's a gem dude, 23 years of experience.
Much, much respect, brother. This is I'm a year and a half into marriage.
That's not my first son. Beautiful.

So, so it's a beautiful thing, man. I'm excited.

But with that being said, guys, if you guys enjoyed this episode and you guys actually want to get a hold of Will, I'm going to go ahead and drop his email down in the description below.

Make sure to go ahead and check in with him. He's based out of here at Miami.

He's a wonderful man, wonderful story, and it's going to inspire literally millions of people throughout our channels and our platforms.

With that being said, guys, we are currently top three in all categories on Apple Podcasts and currently number one in business because of you guys. I want to thank you guys, okay?

We are here to serve and to help you guys level up every single day. Make sure to leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and on YouTube, guys.
We are here to level you up.

This is Paul Alex, the Level Up Podcast. We'll catch you on the next one.
Peace.