Explore Pamela Bardhi's journey in the Real Estate Industry

Totally. That’s my life. My family and I went from Albania to Italy to the US. So, my parents were the ones that ripped their own roots where they were and came to establish themselves here. I think that’s where it all started in my generational line. ‘Rootless’ to me is someone who is able to plant themselves in different locations. You start off as a seed and then you grow. Anybody who has the ability to take these seeds in different places and grow, is tremendous. I think entrepreneurship ties a lot into that because you have to adapt in a way. I think my parents coming to the U.S, completely pulling themselves from everything they knew and be able to come here and flourish was amazing. When I think of the term ‘rootless’ I think of what my parents did. They sacrificed everything, pulled their roots and planted them happen here which shows you that you can create the life that you want. You’re not bound to your roots; you can create them in different places. To me it means that ability, creativity, new beginnings, rebirth. – Pamela Bardhi

Let me tell you the story of how my parents got here because I don’t think it was even supposed to happen but it did. So, we moved to Italy when I was six months old because when I was born, the communism collapsed in Albania and everything was a disaster. They wanted to take us to Italy, in Rome where we had our other cousins to give us a sense of normalcy. When my mum was pregnant with my brother and I was five years old, my grandmother applied on behalf of my parents for the U.S visa lottery. The day that my little brother was born was the day they found out they were chosen to go to the U.S. My mum and dad knew nothing. My grandmother walked into the hospital congratulating them for the birth of my brother and said they were chosen to go to the U.S and that they should take the opportunity. I only found out after I did a podcast with my parents. My mum rejected the idea at first because she had just given birth and didn’t want to move across the ocean to a country whose language she didn’t speak. My dad on the other hand thought that we would definitely find a way because America was the land of opportunities and we had to go. So, when my brother was only six months old, we came to the U.S and we stayed with some family friends we didn’t know personally. We stayed in a three-bedroom apartment and there were eight of us. A few months later, we moved to Chelsea which is up north because it was the only apartment my parents could afford. They also hadn’t saved any money because they didn’t know that they were going to come here. When I was a kid, I thought that they had savings and had planned everything. Later in life I found out that was not the case. They literally dropped everything because they believed in the American dream. Growing up was crazy. I remember being angry as a kid because people didn’t pronounce my name right. My dad worked three jobs. He didn’t speak English so he was working in random jobs in roofing, manual labor, putting out photos at Kodak and at a restaurant. He used to work in the back because he couldn’t speak the language but he could cook. He built a very strong relationship with the owner who became his mentor and gave him a down payment to go and start a business. Then he bought his pizza place. I started working there when I was ten years old. Growing up, all I knew was hustle, there was no down time. That’s been engraved in me since day one. Even my mum, who stayed home to take care of my little brother and I, picked up this job to work from home. She was hustling too so that’s all I saw. It’s interesting being in an Albanian household. For example: nobody really talks about emotions much and all these questions you might have growing up about religion etc. were left unanswered. My parents couldn’t answer me because they grew up in a communist state, it wasn’t their fault. I had a million questions so I used to go and read books in the library. I was rebellious at a very young age based on what I was seeing. My life was crazy at that time. Growing up in a different world, you’re constantly questioning things, you see your parents hustling and don’t really understand why. I was working at ten years old and didn’t understand why my friends could just go out and be kids but I couldn’t because I had to be there. I wasn’t allowed to go to the school dances until I finished working. That was my world. Looking back on it now, I am so grateful because all those experiences forced me to learn how to adapt, plant seeds wherever I wanted to because I’ve done it so many times and have watched my parents do it. It was an interesting experience on many different fronts. I was a rebellious kid and still am. I have always been the rebel questioning the status quo. – Pamela Bardhi

I had many temper tantrums. I was always treated like an employee by my parents who didn’t allow me to go to school dances unless I finished working. Growing up I had a lot of moments when I would think “Why me?”. I didn’t understand why I had to work and couldn’t be a normal kid and hang out with my friends. There were many days like that. I remember I would get into fights with my parents and they always said that they needed me because I was part of the family business. Your teenage self can’t really see past that in the moment. I remember very specifically I would get very frustrated often. I spent a lot of my life trying to figure out why I wasn’t normal, why everybody else could do whatever they wanted but I couldn’t. I straightened my curly hair a lot because I wanted it to look like everyone else’s. I now think that it was an awful way to look at my life. I wish I was more grateful at the time. It took me a long time, self-development work, internal work for me to get there. I was always questioning myself, especially during my teenage years up until I was 20. I had this ridiculous mentality. I would still hustle because I knew it was what I needed to do but wasn’t grateful for it. It’s one of my regrets because now I am beyond grateful to have that experience starting at 10 years old. Now, it has shifted everything in my life because I’ve been so far ahead in the game because of those experiences. – Pamela Bardhi

I’ll tell you how a week in my life was like. I was that kid who was involved in everything. I was in every single group you can possibly imagine, organizations, student government and on top of that, I was also a triathlete. So, every season I played in whatever sport I could. I was awful, I shouldn’t have been in any team but I loved the team environment, it taught me so much about competitiveness. I became obsessed with trying new things even if I wasn’t good at them because at least I was learning something. Also, Monday to Friday I would go to school, then practice and afterwards go to my parent’s restaurant and work until 9 p.m. That’s what the hustle was back then. I used to work all Saturday too, Sunday was my only day off. I used to go out on Saturday nights, hang out with my friends, get something to eat. That was my life, I had to always be doing something. I had a workaholic mentality. I think it all came from my curiosity. – Pamela Bardhi

I had so many ideas and I actually turned them into a reality which is pretty funny. So, I went to Stonehill College for my undergrad. I had gone to a few parties on campus as freshmen. One night I was hanging out with my roommates. There were four of us in the room, we didn’t know each other before they placed us together. We were sitting there and I was thinking how the music on campus was garbage and asked whether there were some good DJs on campus. When I was a kid growing up, I would burn CDs for my dad illegally and I would write “DJ Pam B Mixtape” and I had volumes of those. While I was sitting on y dorm room, I told the girls to turn the lights low and blast the music. Then all of the sudden, we had a party in there and people were wondering who was DJing. Then it elevated. I played at house parties for juniors and seniors when I was a freshman and it blew up. Basically, I started DJing when I was in college. That was my first business, I was hustling. I got paid ridiculous amounts to go there and play music for three hours. I got paid in money or drinks so it was the best job ever. That elevated from our dorm room and I started getting called on the biggest parties on campus to DJ. We had a bar/restaurant near the college and on Thursday nights I would DJ there too. That was crazy pay too. That was my first side hustle/type business and it was so much fun. – Pamela Bardhi

A lot of people are surprised by my transition. One thing I didn’t mention was that I was still delivering pizza while I was in college to help my parents. I was still in the restaurant world until I was 20 years old. When I was studying in Stonehill I didn’t actually think at all that I was going to start my business when I graduated college. My game plan was literally to get a degree and work corporate in marketing and events and then start a business when I was 40. That was what I thought would be my trajectory. I was seventeen when I went to college. I got pretty much a full scholarship in college and I was able to live on campus. It was nice because it was only 35 minutes away from my house in Boston. In, freshmen year, one of the classes I had to take was Applied Calculus for Business even though I was a Marketing major. I was gauging my eyes out at this class because I was very slow at math. I had an adjunct professor who was blowing through, teaching three to five chapters for lecture and I wasn’t learning anything. I was frustrated because I had to maintain a specific GPA to stay at school or I would lose my scholarship. Halfway through the semester, I realized that guy didn’t care and I dropped the class. I went on a crazy mode because I thought my life was over, I had to change my major. I was freaking out because I was the girl from high school who had everything. My whole life was perfect, I came to college and it wasn’t the same. I decided to switch gears and keep it moving. I wanted to get into Communications because I love people, love to talk and also math wasn’t a requirement. I later realized there was no business either. So, I created my own entrepreneurship major within Stonehill. Weirdly enough, even with having two majors, I still didn’t think I would open a business. Skipping ahead, up until spring semester of junior year, I thought I was going to work for somebody when I graduated. A lot of people get shocked when I tell them this story. I was having this internship in one of the most prestigious sports fan news in Boston. I wanted to work there for my spring internship, build my connections and thought I was going to work there when I graduated. None of that happened. I walked in to my supervisor’s office at the end of my internship to talk about my future. My mind was telling me the job wasn’t for me. So, I had gone there every day, done all my work correctly and I expected to get out of there with at least an A. Instead, they gave me a B minus because according to my supervisor, I was too ambitious. Internally, I was so angry, I was flaming because I had planned to graduate next year and that plan went out of the window. I thanked her and I remember walking to the door and I had a voice in my head telling me that I was going to do big things on my own. I called my mum right before I opened the door to go outside because I wanted her and dad to know that I wasn’t going to work for anybody ever in my life. I told them that I was going to start a business and do my own thing. My parents were flipping, freaking out because they wanted me to have security so that I didn’t have to hustle the way they had to. I told them I was going to build something bigger and better. At the time I had no idea of what was about to come. – Pamela Bardhi

It was that summer when I got fixated on starting something. Next to my dad’s restaurant there was a jeweler. While I was brainstorming, he had a conversation with my dad. He was getting divorced, had two stores and wanted to get rid of one of them before his divorce was finalized. He wanted me to show him my business plan and I created one. I was wondering about what I loved. I am really passionate about my culture. When I was in college, I went to Albania and Italy and loved the slowdown culture of sitting in a café, enjoying gelato or coffee. I wanted to create that in the U.S. it was close to my dad’s, it could compliment his business while still allowing me to do my own thing. My whole senior year was dedicated to creating my café, that was my business plan. Halfway through the year, the owner of a marketing and events company I was an intern at when I was 16 reached out to me. He told me I could be a partner in his new business venture. I went into it. Those were the two restaurants I started by the time I was 21. Shortly thereafter, once I had my team in place and everything, something inside my head was looking for more. – Pamela Bardhi

I was extremely busy at the time. I’ll tell you a funny story. My graduation was at 9 o’clock and I was still sleeping by 8:30 a.m. We were scheduled to walk but I was so exhausted the night before I didn’t hear my alarm going off. I got a call from my friend at 8:35 asking me where I was. I was still in bed when she called. The worst part was that my last name starts with B so I was at the front. I hadn’t really slept in three days because I was managing two restaurant and we had an event at the other one. I almost didn’t make it to my own graduation. My schedule was crazy during senior year, I had 90-to-100-hour weeks. It was ridiculous. I was drilled to the ground at that point in time. Then I was finally able to get a team in place and back myself up. – Pamela Bardhi

One day I was just sitting, exhausted from the long work hours, thinking about what to do next. Meanwhile, my dad and uncle were flipping properties in the North Shore where you could buy houses for less then 100k. This was around 2012. I was watching what they were doing and I figured there were ways to get involved as a different stream of revenue and not necessarily as a career. In my mind, I was thinking that I needed to build another stream of revenue in an industry where I was not working myself to death. I didn’t have the money at the time because I was more than 100k in debt because of the restaurants. I thought if I got involved in real estate, I could probably pay off my debts and improve my life. That was my motivation. I wanted to hire a coach and start flipping. That’s how it started. – Pamela Bardhi

I basically hired a coach because I knew nothing. I had zero construction and real estate experience. I just wanted to flip houses because that model seemed pretty straightforward to me. I had to approach my dad again and asked for his recommendation about what to do. He told me that they would invest in me, they had different avenues I could utilize. Basically, he would give me the down payment and I would be the one to keep it rolling. One thing I will mention is that a huge part of my success is what my father taught me. When my dad used to take me to do deliveries as a little girl, he would always say to me that I was a born leader, greatness was in my genes and that I was not going to need any man to support me. He believed that I was going to be able to stand on my own two feet. He planted all these affirmations in my head that have completely come to life now. My parents were behind everything I tried to do, they always supported me. I think that’s the biggest reason why I’m successful. I was already involved with two restaurants and they could’ve told me that I had overextended myself but instead they chose to believe in me and help me. So, when I bought my first flip, they had my back. I instantly fell in love with it and wanted to do it again and again. I started the flips and eventually got my real estate license, general contractor’s license, construction supervisor’s license and it all grew from there but I really started in the game as a way to diversify my revenue stream. Then I truly fell in love with it and saw the power of what you could make in this industry. I remember I made six figures in my first flip. I had to put so much work in the restaurant industry to earn the same amount. I wanted to keep doing it but it got to a point where everything got crazy because I had both my restaurants and the flips. The flips were getting very demanding because I had to be on site. It was a big juggle. To this day, I still don’t know how I did it. A lot of people don’t think they can succeed in something if they don’t have prior experience. That’s not it. It’s just a matter of working with the right people. For example, hiring a coach is a good idea. It’s so helpful to have someone who is going to hold your hand, get you through it and tell you the mistakes not to make and what to do, coach you through every step of the process so you don’t mess up. Eventually, you’ll get the rhythm and the flow. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot to learn every day but that was my transition and it wasn’t easy. I stepped into a field I knew nothing, had my parents invest in me yet again and had debt I needed to pay off. I definitely felt the pressure. – Pamela Bardhi

They can outsource capital. There are lenders out there and you can put as low as 10% down at this point. What I’m trying to say is that there are different roads you can take. For me, my family invested in me so I was able to provide the down payment to any lender as well as keep the project going with liquid capital. That’s because I did something most entrepreneurs do, bootstrapping. That’s when you gather your family and friends, ask them to invest in your business and then you pay them back based on the return you’re getting. So, I was doing well with my coach and everything and I was able to pay back and eventually build to my own capital. That’s when I also become financially free and debt free. – Pamela Bardhi

The first thing I recommend is bootstrapping. You could also get involved with partnerships. Go out there and connect with developers doing it. Invest your capital with them or be part of that project and get your returns back. You won’t be taking much risk because you’d be working with somebody who has done it before. You can do that even if you have no capital. I know people willing to give you all the money and in exchange have you run the whole project. To them, that’s valuable because you’re putting the time and they’re putting the money so your risk is the same. There are ways to get into the game without putting your own capital. If you did, there are different avenues that you could take. If you have substantial capital, there are funds where you can buy massive real estate assets that will provide safe returns for you. It really varies but you can craft it any way you want. My advice in real estate would be to start in one place because real estate is really dynamic. See where it leads you because it can direct you to different fronts. – Pamela Bardhi

I would see who are the major players, whose signs do you see. For me, when I got into the real estate development game, I heard only one name. I literally showed up in her office one day and told her how much I respected her and her career. She just gave me a big hug and told me that if I needed anything, I could go to her. I thought she would assume I was mentally insane. So, find those people, those role models in that space. The most giving people will be more than willing to help you. You’d be shocked at how many people are willing to help when asked to. There are so many giving souls out there that are so down to seeing others succeed. If you’re that young flipper, think about what realm you want to be in, start in one space see who’s most successful there and go talk to them, seek guidance.  It’s all part of your network. – Pamela Bardhi

They everything, they’re your financial partners basically. In the beginning, I had debt and couldn’t go to a traditional bank. I chose hard money lending which is basically asset-based lending. However, the problem with this type of lenders is that they don’t care about you, they only care for the house. They’ll give you a short-term loan, they’ll basically help you buy it and they’ll also give you the construction loan for you to do the work and sell it. These loans are short term, usually from 12 to 18 months. From there, you sell it and that’s it. However, there is a catch, they are wicked expensive. They range from 9% to 12% interest rate and you pay that on a monthly basis which can get very costly. That’s where I started. I actually tried going to the bank and they told me I had no experience and there was no way they would lend me money. So, I went to the hard money lenders and that’s how I was able to fund some of my flips until eventually I became bankable because I was generating income. Still, there are different types of lenders out there that can help you with real estate investment. Nowadays, if you partner with somebody who has a track record, you are more likely to be bankable. To be bankable means getting the best interest rates if you’re going through a conventional bank. If you’re partnered with somebody who has a good record, you’ll be able to pull it off, which is great. You’ll save a lot of money that way because there is a huge difference between a 4% loan and a 12% one. Unfortunately, you usually have to start in the “hard money world” but you can transition over pretty quickly. – Pamela Bardhi

So, it was really interesting. When I was in my coaching program, my coach told me about a friend of his who had found a property. It was a single-family property and this guy drove by it, saw it was completely beat up and did a wholesale. So, he traced the owners and actually got to their kids. He told them we were interested in the property and would give them a cash offer. He got the deal on the contract, flipped it to me, I ended up buying and he made 5 grand off the deal because he basically flipped the contract over the me. So, it’s network, relationships with people that are critical, especially agents. Real estate agents and brokers are going to be your best friends in the game. However, you need to nurture that relationship big time. If you cross them once, they’ll never get you another deal again. If they come to you with a property, make sure you take care of them. What most developers do when an agent comes to them with a property is to let them be the buyer’s agent and when the property’s done or ready to be flipped, they’ll have that agent sell the property too. I am a broker but when an agent comes to me with a deal, I tell them that the deal is theirs. If you take care of people, you’ll always get those deals flowing. Everyone is surprised by how I get these deals. For example, I just got a property in West Roxbury which I bought for $340,000 and there is no house in that area for less than $650,000. I was able to make that deal because of my relationships. – Pamela Bardhi

My parents’ restaurant is in West Roxbury so I have intel into the market. I always like to say that real estate is like a local business. If you know the market extremely well, you tap into it, you tell people. I’d be putting on my parents’ pizza boxes that I buy houses. My dad was my number #1 salesman. My company name is Bardhi Investment Group or BIG and my dad used to tell everyone that I would buy whatever house and give the business cards to everybody. That’s how people started finding out I was in this game and started getting deals. People would contact me, we would negotiate our terms and I always told them that if my name was on the offer, it was a done deal. My confidence also helped a lot. Even if I didn’t know what I was doing, I always walked in super confident and always got the deal done. – Pamela Bardhi

My dad used to tell me: “Pam, if you don’t believe in what you’re doing or you don’t sound like you have passion, who’s going to trust you with your biggest asses?” I couldn’t tell people that I would maybe buy their house, nobody wants to hear that. You want to walk in confidently and know that you can do it. The thing about it was that in the beginning I had my coach and would phone him whenever I had questions. It was like that the first couple of times but then once I started getting the rhythm and flow, I started walking in appointments more poised because I had done it before. I told myself that I could do it again, offer the service to those people and add value so I had no reason to be afraid. Mentally, I would be my own cheerleader. Speaking those thoughts into your mind is a big thing because they get into your subconsciousness. I’ve done a lot of self-development work, by saying those affirmations and making sure I’m creating those words inside my head that are positive. That’s where the coaching part comes in. Sometimes you need somebody to hold your hand and feel like you’re not going to fall. I had that in my first couple of deals and once I got comfortable, I knew I could handle it. – Pamela Bardhi

The more preparations you do before purchasing a property, the better you will be. The day that you close should be the day you start demolishing everything, or at least what you’re going to renovate. You should have your plan in place well before so that you go all in. My coach taught me that I shouldn’t put the plans together when I buy the house but beforehand. He told me that I should submit to the building department so by the time I close, I have that building permit in my hand and be moving. I was taught the pre-planning stuff. That’s why I invested in a coach, I never wanted to be in the position of now knowing what to do next. Pre-planning is critical in the game because like I said, you’re paying 9% to 12% interests monthly and you don’t want to be getting those keys and be freaked out about what to do. – Pamela Bardhi

That’s where my coach comes in again. He had done this before so he’d go in and do an estimate on what needed to be done. He came up with a pretty accurate budget and put a 20% contingency on it which means that if it goes over 20%, we’d be covered in this deal. that’s what we did and that’s exactly where we landed. We were right on the money. If you underestimate your construction cost, you’re dead depending on how much margins are on the deal. my coach was experienced in dealing with general contractors. He told me we needed to hire a general contractor but he already had pricing estimates on what it was going to cost us because he head general guidelines. In every site, we would interview at least three GCs, compare the quotes and go from there. We were always pretty much on target, maybe only a bit over. – Pamela Bardhi

Number one thing should be references. Everything is on those references. Look on their track records, what they’ve done, how many crews they have available. What we did a bit differently was playing the GC role ourselves but have the carpenter was our GC on the project. We split everything up because we didn’t want it to be handled by one person because that’s when it kind of loses efficiency. We’d bring in our own painters, electricians, plumbers and the GCs on our projects would to the carpentry. The more trades you can bring together separately, the more efficient you’ll be because you’ll have more accountability. Don’t try to get one contractor to do everything, you’ll get stuck on that project forever. – Pamela Bardhi

For me, I’m basically a GC. I run all my own jobs but I love it. There are two aspects of real estate: the active real estate investor and the passive one. Real estate development falls into the active umbrella because there is fix and flip, new construction, doing brokerage deals. With that, you’ve got to hustle to make your money. Otherwise, you’ll make no money. For me, it’s better to work on deals as they come. For me specifically, I focus on deals as a real estate developer. It’s best to find you niche. You have to identify your markets first. I play in West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park and Dedham. Those are the only four towns that you’ll ever see me building or doing anything 99% of the time. Then you need to figure out what asset class you’re going to work on. I personally like the one to four units; I don’t want to go bigger than that. I’m good with single families and small multi families. There are people who like self-storage, or want to develop commercial properties, 20+ units, that’s their thing. I like what I usually work on because I do it very well. I self-fund my own projects and consistently keep growing because I’ve found my niche and that’s where I stick to. So, I’ll purchase properties from 1 to 4 units in the towns I mentioned earlier and usually renovate them. I may choose to hold them as rentals or I flip them. However, when you buy them, you’ve got work to do. I play the role of a general contractor. So, in my day to day, I visit construction sites, make sure all the materials are there, all the guys and gals are working and that everything is on schedule. It can change daily. One day one of your guys may be on the wrong site and you may need to get something to finish what is due. I like the hands-on work, the development. I work with my architects to look at sites and try to come up with how to use them best sites, how big can we build, etc. so, I’m more in the construction front. There are developers in Boston who are different. There are guys and gals who invest in deals together and hire and outsource the general contractor so they’re a little more pulled out. There are different levels of real estate development. – Pamela Bardhi

It’s fast-paced, there are always disasters or last-minute things, your schedule can change unexpectedly. There are a lot of fast paced movements and if you’re not good at adapting or dealing with a lot of craziness or high-pressure situations, don’t have a solving-problem mentality, that hands-on construction experience may not be the best for you. You could still be a real estate developer but kind of play it further out of the way by investing in a deal and having a GC run the project. That’s for you to decide. I like the hands-on approach. Also, the GC takes 10 to 20% of that profit so it does have some advantages. – Pamela Bardhi

It’s critical. People have got to know who are you, what are you building and your best marketing is your projects. Put a sign in front of the property. It’s absolutely brilliant marketing. My sign has the “Mosché Group” logo and my name on it. in that way, you make it easier for people to contact you. Branding is everything but in the real estate game in particular, word of mouth is the best. That’s how you get the best deals. That comes from years of cultivating relationships and doing business the right way. This world is still a very small place so you have to make sure to take care of people, no matter who they are because somehow, someway everyone is connected. It always comes back to you. – Pamela Bardhi

You are your brand. As an entrepreneur, you become your brand. You’ve got to embody everything you want your company to embody. For me it was always about being straightforward and intentional with what I wanted to do. For me, real estate development is not just about making money by flipping houses. I appreciate the opportunity of finding properties and create homes that create memories for people. I think that’s the greatest honor you can have. It’s one of the most important roles. As a developer, you are constructing those places that memories can exist. You’re shaping neighborhoods because you’re creating that space. There are a lot of responsibilities that come with being a real estate developer. I was proud to create these places and leave my physical imprint on the world. I can forever remember what I have built. I’ll never forget my first project. It was a single-family house. That’s when I fell in love with real estate and decided to go into it full time. I remember the family that ended up buying the property that I created for them. Seeing them interact with it was the coolest thing in the world. They still live there and I feel happiness whenever I drive near the house. At the end of the day, it’s not just business, you’re creating legacy, places. You can live a very abundant life being a developer but you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of responsibilities with that. I wanted to help people through whatever financial circumstances that they had. That’s how I got most of my deals. People were going through different inheritances and foreclosures and I always tried to stay positive. People knew that when I came to the table, I would deliver, I would help them not just through the real estate side of it but whatever it was they were going in their lives at the time. Help them on the real estate front, close the deal and so on and so forth and create that space. To me, it had a very spiritual aspect to it and a very humane one that people don’t usually bring in the real estate development industry. So, that’s the reason why I’ve outdone so many developers in the area. I go in and look at the whole picture. I’m not only interested in the house but the person as well. I always ask how I can help someone as a person? So, that was my branding since day one. It was always about how to help people, how to serve them, listening to them and going on from there. We could also talk about the graphic design. I wanted a very slick, sophisticated look. I chose to go with black and white because I do business in black and white, I am a very transparent person, what you see is what you get. One of my mentors sadly passed away on November and her last name was Benmosché which mean son of Moses. Moses was the underdog in the Bible. All of that kind of crafted together and it became my brand because that’s me. The Mosché Group is the underdog, I do business in black and white so there is a lot of meaning to some branding aspects that may appear random. Those are the designing elements but if you want to make your work meaningful, it won’t work. Don’t forget that there is such a humane side to this, add your flavor to it the best way you can. – Pamela Bardhi

In the last 8 years I’ve been in the real estate development game, I’ve sold about over $100 million in real estate assets in and out of the Boston area which is crazy. I am 29 now so I was 28 when I had a voice in my head, the same voice that told me to go from restaurants to real estate. That voice asked me: “Pam, you’re doing great in your career but what are you doing for the world?” I didn’t know how to answer that. I had that hustle mentality; I was always so focused on everything that I was doing. However, I knew there was more to this. That led me down was the path of empowerment. I love people, I love to inspire them. I’ve always been invited to give speeches, talk in front of classes, be a guest panelist, etc. then I was almost challenged by my inner self. That’s when I started formulating the idea of my show, “The underdog podcast”. The success of it so far flipped the switch for me and made me I realize I was designed to help empower people to break through their underdog challenge, that’s what I’m meant to do. Right now, I am again in a transitional period where I am shifting my focus to inspire people to break through, even though I’ll always have the real estate development. Being in that realm and succeeding shows that I have basically proved that I am and underdog and because I’ve been through that, I feel like I can be an example. People will think that if I went from delivering pizzas and having nothing to being a successful real estate developer, they can do it too. That’s kind of where I’m at in my life. I’m getting into public speaking, creating courses, in order to help empower people to utilize that vehicle of real estate in whatever way of their life. They can conquer everything; they can do it part-time or fulltime. The social media is very intentional. My emotions were kind of swept behind as I was growing up in a household where all I knew was hustle and that can become very toxic. For me, I was never allowed to show vulnerability, I was never trained to do in my life. If I wanted to empower people, I had to let them in to who I am. You can’t just be that unattainable person who’s just sitting in the corner talking about success. I want people to feel like I’m a real person and know that if I can do it, they can too. I’m trying to show I am a humble person; I come from humble beginnings and haven’t forgotten where I come from. That’s where my life trajectory is taking me at this point in time, through the empowerment realm. – Pamela Bardhi

My number one thing is to be fearless. Don’t be afraid to go out there. If I had thought about the risk that I was taking going from restaurants to real estate or even the restaurants in general, I wouldn’t have done it. I just didn’t allow myself any time to think about it, I just did it. I thought: “What do I have to lose?” Regret is far worse than fear. Remember that. Do you want to look back on your life in five, ten or twenty years from now and say “I wish I did that?” To me, the thought of that makes me sick, terrifies me. If you just try it out, one of two things is going to happen: either you’re not going to be so great at it but regardless you’re going to learn something from it and that might take you down the path of where you’re supposed to be. The second option is that you’re going to be wicked successful and won’t believe you even doubted yourself in the first place. Either way, you’re not going to lose so just go for it. Don’t be afraid. Fear deters everyone from their dreams. Take a leap of faith and go for it. if there’s a will, there’s a way. I tell people all the time that I wouldn’t be sitting here today if I didn’t overcome my fears and doubts. I’ve been scared when I didn’t know how I was going to pay my employees or how to pay off my debt or my parents. I’ve had my doubts but you can work through all that as long as you keep a positive mindset. It does take time but don’t be afraid, just go out there and get it. – Pamela Bardhi