“Basically it was, ‘Hey, man, you may be the worst analyst that Goldman Sachs has ever hired.’”
The self-made billionaire was surprised to hear the criticism, but he now credits it with changing his life for the better. De Leon began his career as an analyst Goldman Sachs in 2001 after receiving his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. But after just a couple of years, his peers at the global bank recognized that his true potential lay outside of the company. He was lauded for his entrepreneurial chops while effectively being shooed out of the powerful firm; but leaving the Wall Street institution proved to be a blessing in disguise in propelling his career to its current height.
“He said, ‘Look, someday you’ll come back as a client of this firm, but today you really got to go find something else.’ And it was great advice,” De Leon said. “For five seconds, it was hurtful, but then it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened, because it was true. I belonged out there in the wild, building something.”
The Texas-born businessman says he left Goldman Sachs with around $80,000 to $100,000 in savings from Goldman bonuses, extra money from growing up, and interest from some of his buildings.
And from there on out, De Leon delved head-first into his real estate career by beginning to option land: paying an upfront fee for the exclusive right to buy a piece of land at a set price and timeline.
In the early years, the billionaire said he made some bad deals and considered leaving the industry behind, convinced he wasn’t going to make it.
“I had a string of bad deals. I had made enough mistakes where I was almost done,” De Leon explained, telling his wife he was going to look for a regular job.
“She said ‘Look, you can’t do that, because if you do that, you’re going to drive me crazy. You can’t work for anybody, you’ve got to go out there, get back up one more time. Just try it again… You’ve got to believe in yourself.” And the rest is history.
In 2006, he founded Leon Capital Group, which started as a modest real estate development company operating out of Texas. The company has since expanded into financial services and healthcare; De Leon himself has made real estate investments with an asset value of more than $15 billion.
Just like De Leon, every worker will face a rejection or letdown at some point in their professional lives—but some are turning lemons into lemonade.
By trusting her gut and continuing to fight for her business idea, Blakely would grow Spanx into a $1.2 billion shapewear success. And in 2012, she also made the ultra-rich list as the youngest self-made woman billionaire that year, according to Forbes.
But Smith wasn’t deterred by a bad grade in class; after returning from service in the Vietnam War in 1971, he would set his delivery business plan in motion. Today, FedEx boasts a market cap of $98.4 billion.
