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Growing Your Success By Plugging Into A Community With Deborah Razo – Real Estate Women

 

We all want success, but what happens next when we get it? Grow it! And one sure way to grow your success is to plug yourself into a community. Moneeka Sawyer’s guest today is Deborah Razo, the Founder of WREN – the Women’s Real Estate Network. Deborah talks with Moneeka about the beauty of being in a community of women and why you need them as a support system to help you succeed. Are you interested in joining the community? Listen to this episode!

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Growing Your Success By Plugging Into A Community With Deborah Razo

Real Estate Investing for Women

I am excited to welcome back to the show, Deborah Razo. You have met Deborah but let me read her bio so that you can be reminded of who she is and a little bit more about how she and I have grown our relationship together. She always an independent spirit. She started her first business in 1990. After owning several businesses, she realized that her path to financial freedom is through real estate investing and her personal mission to teach others who seek to grow and want to live life fully.

In 2009, she began her journey with Tony Robbins and now as a Robbin’s trainer traveling globally to provide onsite coaching to attendees. In addition to her degree from UCLA, she expanded her investing education with a series of intensive workshops. It felt like a natural transition to her shifting gears from her design firm to a booming rehab business that led to developing multifamily fourplexes. She is currently focusing her energy on partnering with investors seeking financial freedom through the acquisition of real estate assets. She’s also passionate about helping other women find success in real estate investing through networking and education.

To this end, she founded the Women’s Real Estate Network, which we call WREN in 2016. WREN is what we’re going to be talking about. One of the things that I hear much from you is, “I want a community.” You’ve tried a few communities and I feel blessed because you keep coming back to me and say, “I want a community with you.” I have to say that this is a place where I fail. I’m sorry that I’m failing because I don’t love Facebook. I haven’t found a platform that allows me to be engaged and to be there for you. I feel bad about it.

I’ve been on a hunt for a way to fill that need that I’m not fully responsible for. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be responsible for you but I don’t want to be responsible for the tech. I don’t want to remain responsible for Facebook ads. There is so much stuff involved in this that I don’t have expertise in. I’m not interested in it.

What I’m interested in is chatting with you and helping you grow and being your best selves and having conversations. When we first met, she mentioned that she has WREN and it was of in its baby stages. I was excited to chat with her. We’ve stayed in touch. The community has grown. It’s on Facebook. There’s a lot of people managing that and I’m a part of that. As it’s grown, I thought, “This is a place where my ladies could go.”

Some of the things that I love about this is this not a Facebook group, it’s a paid membership. Not huge amount of dollars like penny, super cheap but because of that we have a group of ladies that are interested in talking real estate. There are no trolls and no advertising. We’re there to help one another. That’s why I’m bringing Deborah back is because I want to talk about what she’s doing and how this can help you.

As we move into a new year, I’d like you to consider what are your goals. You ladies asked for the community because you need it. As women, we are very good at building community in many areas of our life. However, building community and talking about money, investing in real estate somehow, we shy away from it. We shy away from asking questions, answering other people’s questions and hanging out. I’m not sure totally why that is but I do know that women have some ideas about money and what we should and shouldn’t be talking about. It’s not conscious, it’s deeply ingrained inside of us.

We’re not like them. We’re fine sitting around the dinner table, talking about money and mortgage rates. To us, it might seem a little bit boring but when you’re talking with another woman that’s passionate about it, it’s not boring. This year I’d like you to consider building your community because it will support you. It will help you get the education you need when things go wrong or you have issues, you have a place to go to ask questions. You don’t have to feel bad about it. There’s never a dumb question.

 

We’re all there to support each other. You need that. All of us need that. We have that in many areas of her life, we need this in our real estate business too. As we move into this conversation, I want you to plant the seed inside of yourself that, “It’s time for me to build a community. That’s going to support my expansion.” That’s one of your goals for 2022. I’m giving it to you. Let me bring in Deborah. Welcome to the show.

I’m writing that as the top of my goal for 2022. Thank you much for having me back.

For those, that haven’t heard your story in a little while, could you give us the high-level version of how you got into real estate?

I’ve been an entrepreneur for years. I’m going to qualify that by saying I built my own job. It wasn’t that I had a system where I was building passive income. I had built my own job. I was paid money to do work for clients. Then, I was in a bad car accident. It made me think about what I wanted out of life. A lot of people are going through that now. We’ve had this pandemic and it makes you reevaluate. “Am I living my best life? Am I living what I want to live?” It’s created a space for transition for people. That’s what my accident did for me.

it created the space of transition and me asking the questions like, “What am I doing? Am I living my best me?” The answer was no. That didn’t mean I had a bad life but it wasn’t the life I wanted or dreamed of. There was a part of me that was scared to dream and to want all that. With this decision and this accident in my life, I was like, “It’s now or never. We got to grasp now.” I decided to make some changes and I wanted passive income. I started googling passive income.

There are lots of things that come up. There’s real estate, royalties and all kinds of things that come up but real estate always, pops up. That’s when I thought, “I want to get me some of that mailbox money that everybody talks about.” I transitioned and started my journey towards that. I look at some of the mentors that I follow and I haven’t been always the most focused. I tried things and love them. I’ve tried things and hated them. That’s all in the journey and all in the learning process. Along the way, I found other women who would encourage and support me, which is what we’re talking about here.

Talk to me a little bit about that. What did that look like and what happened?

I was going through a frustrating time. I didn’t have a lot of money after the accident, and then I borrowed some money to help flip a house and thinking that I’ll get the capital from flipping and then I’ll reinvest in buy and holds for the cashflow. Cashflow has always been my long-term goal. The wealth in the cashflow so that I could get out of the rat race and travel the world and all that stuff. I wanted freedom. I was flipping and a bunch of hedge funds moved into my area and they were buying up so many of the properties that I would put offers in for and try to flip.

I was super frustrated. I was like, “I can’t find anything that’s working.” Where the numbers are working, I’m being outbid all the time. I felt like, “Where are my girls?” I need my support system around me. It’s not to say that I haven’t gotten great education from men, I have. They don’t think the thing way we do. They’re not balancing the things that we’re balancing.

Having some people with whom you can bounce ideas and share resources is amazing.

I put together a brunch in downtown LA on a Sunday and I invited a bunch of women who were full-time investors. They weren’t all flippers that. There are two women that owned eighteen storage units across the US. There was a woman that was a lender. There was a woman that was into notes. They were all full-time real estate investors. It was fun. We got together and were fun but what started happening is we started talking to each other about our problems and offering help.

That is one of the things that come naturally to women. “You need a lender? I know this guy, he’s a hard money lender. Do you need a babysitter? Do you need a gardener?” We share resources. Having some people that you can bounce ideas off of and share resources with is amazing. At the end of that brunch, I said, “I was thinking about doing this quarterly.” They said, “Let’s do it every other month.”

People started opening up their homes and there was usually wine involved. What ended up happening is not only did I know, like and trust these women but we started doing business together. I would JV with one of them. Somebody would lend on my job. I would lend on somebody’s project. I would buy into something. I look at that group of women and I realized they have affected my bottom line. That’s when networking becomes productive. That is productive networking.

At some point, I realized there were all these other women out there that didn’t even know about these rockstar women because they weren’t at the front of the room. They weren’t telling their story. They weren’t sharing their business models. I thought, “Let’s start a meetup that so I can take from this group of amazing women and put them in front of the room and say, ‘There are other women that are out there doing this.’” It means something when people see somebody like them. When another woman sees a woman, that’s amazing. She goes, “She’s doing that. I can do it.” That’s what started happening and then we grew quickly then technology came into play.

I am good at face-to-face. I’ve run meet-ups. I had groups that ran for years. It’s not that I’m not technically savvy. I am but for whatever reason, there are certain pieces that I’m not awesome at. I appreciate that you took that on. It was interesting, I was talking to somebody about the show. They were like, “Why do you focus on women? What’s the difference between men and women?” I was like, “You’re not interested in talking about menopause or what it’s like to be a mom that has a brand-new baby and still wants to run a business or to be a stay-at-home mom and your husband’s the main bread breadwinner. You feel like you don’t have any right to the money to invest.

In fact, often he doesn’t trust you because he hasn’t studied it himself. Not because he doesn’t respect you or love you but because he’s managed all the money, that’s his job. You’ve managed the kid. There’s been a division of labor and you’re trying to change the paradigm. My husband is amazing. In any case, we have issues as women, that men as much as they might want to understand, it’s impossible.

He doesn’t have our hormones. He doesn’t have the way that our minds work and our feeling of responsibility to our children, fur babies or our aging parents. It’s not just that we think differently because we do but we have very real physical aspects about our life that no man can relate to. You walk into a room of a bunch of men, real estate investors, they will be very respectful and you learn a lot. I learn a lot but I’ve also been hit on a lot, which is not appropriate. We’re talking business. We deal with stuff that is different and men don’t understand.

The way we relate to each other is different. I was flipping here in Los Angeles and we opened a WREN chapter in Seattle. I was up at the WREN chapter in Seattle. There was a woman at the WREN chapter who was a developer. I walked up to her and I was like, “You’re a developer. That’s cool.” You don’t meet women developers. She goes, “You’re a flipper, right?” I said, “Yes.” She goes, “I used to be a flipper but developing is so much easier.” I was like, “What?” We had this conversation that night that opened up my paradigm. I had never seen myself as a developer because I hadn’t met women developers. The developers I had met had been men. None of them had told me, “It’s easier. You can do it.”

 

You’re dealing with these men developers, most of the men that do development are either contractors themselves or have contractors in their pockets. They know each other, it’s like the all-boys network. They don’t perceive how we fit sometimes. I don’t feel like any of it is of malice or maybe sometimes. Mostly their hearts are big but they don’t understand and they can’t because they’re not women. The same way as we can’t understand what it’s like to walk in a man’s shoe. We’ve had a little bit of training because we’re out there in business with them in our society. We don’t know what it’s like to be a guy.

It’s important to be able to have communication that’s open and real. You don’t have to worry about, “Am I articulating this right so that he’ll understand?” You’ve been doing this for years. I’ve been doing this for many years. For me, when I started in this business, it was all men. There were no women mentors. I remember it was exhausting trying to figure out how to communicate right so they didn’t think I was dumb, emotional, hormonal or didn’t know the numbers. There was this impression about women and numbers and all of these things. Everybody knew I was smart. I came from UC Berkeley but there’s a different way of looking at each other.

It’s not even about being smart. It’s about being taken seriously. To finish up that story, I went on to develop. I’ve developed a couple of fourplexes. Sometimes even now I’ll say, “I’ve developed.” It’s so funny the expressions I get on men’s faces sometimes. Some of them are respectful and in awe of me and some of them are shocked. I was like, “What do you know? We do the same thing.”

Every once in a while, to be goofy because I’m feeling very much that I need stand for myself. I’ll say, “I’m the CEO of a multimillion-dollar development company.” They’ll be like, “What?” I’m like, “I developed in Los Altos.” They’re like, “What?” They stop with the, “I know much more than you.” Now, it’s much more of an equal conversation. I never feel like they mean it but it’s the way the paradigm has been in the past and we’re trying to shift that. In the meantime, we need each other.

What’s beautiful in that is that I can see you like that, you can see me like that, we can express that to other women who can look at us and go, “She’s doing that? I could do that?” Like that woman that opened up development to me. I’ll open it up for other women. That’s the beauty of being in a community of women is that we can open up our minds to different ways to do things.

Not only is it, a resource like if I have a problem, I have several smart women on my telephone that could help me with that problem. It’s also a source of encouragement like, “One of the women in WREN, she’s buying her third hotel.” It’s that source of like, “There are these women who are heartfelt but great all at the same time.”

To know that that’s possible and it’s okay. You get to have good conversations with those women. They’re not inaccessible.

They’re transparent. We all have bad days. I jokingly say, “Yes, there is crying in real estate. It’s okay we’ve all done it.” It’s not all cashflow and wine. It’s also great to have the girlfriend to go “Get it out. Sit on your pity pot. Are we done? Brush yourself off and we’re going to go again. We’re going to go at it.” One of the things that I find that’s interesting to me, I study a lot of statistics between women and men investors. Oddly enough, maybe to men, women tend to have a higher return on their investments. It’s fascinating. We don’t get in as quickly as men do.

There’s no way around. There’s just walking through.

Sometimes women miss opportunities in real estate because it is about making the offer and getting in on that deal. It’s not that we don’t know it’s a deal because there’s an internal sensor when a woman finds a deal whether it’s shoes, house or whatever it is. There’s something that goes off on us but there’s also a hesitation when the ticket price is a little higher.

There’s a hesitation when that happens. We have a saying in WREN, like “You can borrow my confidence. Make the offer.” That’s how it is. We have to lean on each other to go, “Should I?” Somebody has to stand behind you and go, “Go ahead, do it.” It’s interesting being surrounded by a community of women in that, in that sense.

I love when you were talking about the pity party because I feel like we need our time to honor our feelings and our fears. We also need a little bit of a kick in the butt that says, “You’re done now.” a lot of times what happens is us women are such good listeners. We want to be there. We want to hold space. We want to make sure that you feel heard but we don’t go to that next step because it’s scary. It’s scary to tell another woman, “Are you done yet because now it’s time for you to move forward?”

It’s a hard thing to say and hear as a woman because we want to be loved, liked, heard and I want you to know my feelings. This is me. I know I’m generalizing, if that’s not, you please forgive me but that’s who I am. I know that that’s who a lot of the women that I am around. I used to be a day trader or trading options. I had one morning where I woke up and the brokerage had screwed up the closing out of the option trade and I owed $400,000 in one night.

David and I were making $60,000 a year in California. We had no money. I got out of it. it was a brokerage’s fault. It was all recorded and all that stuff. It was fine. I ended up making $20,000 that day but which is cool but not for that stress. I think what happened was at that point, I was like, “I can’t do this. I can’t wake up in the morning and owe $400,000. I can’t do that.” I stopped trading for two months and stopped.

A girlfriend of mine, we would go for a walk every day after my trading. She says, “Are you trading yet? I’m like, “I’m not going to do it.” It’s too dangerous. It’s too risky. One day, she said to me, “You need to get back on the horse and ride. You can’t live your life in fear.” Every single time that I’m in fear or something has gone terribly wrong and I’m like, “I can’t do this.” I hear her voice.

If my husband says something to me like that, I’d be like, “You don’t understand.” That’s not nice of me. He was also scared too so he wouldn’t say, “Get back on your horse.” He’s like, “No, don’t do any more of this,” because he was emotionally and financially invested too in that situation. Having another woman tell me someone that I knew cared about me to say, “You can’t live in fear. You’re never going to succeed if you keep going like this.” I love that you’ve created this community of successful women that understand that and that we can help each other.

What’s also helpful, which we’ve touched on is that perspective. Having a mentor or somebody who has a perspective of who you are. I’ve had them too. I was in a deal. It wasn’t going well and I got scared. When you get scared, you’re not making decisions from an empowering place. You’re making decisions from a completely disempowered place. You’re not making the best decisions. You’re making decisions out of fear instead of making decisions out of thinking something through.

 

One of my mentors is also a woman who’s been in the business like your length of time and said, “There’s no way around, there’s just through.” You can just walk through. It took my fear down. I was like, “She’s right. I’m going to put my best foot forward today and then tomorrow. I’m going to do the same thing. The day after that, I’m going to do the same thing.” We’re going to walk through. She was lending me her experience.

I couldn’t see like that I was going to get through it. I ended up getting through it and making a profit. I didn’t lose any money in the long run but I needed somebody there to encourage me that way. It’s interesting how we can encourage each other to step up, step-through and continue through our fear. I love that WREN is an opportunity for a community like that. We have women who have a lot of years of experience like me and you. We need those women coming in that are new to the business because they’re excited.

I’m always like get on my calendar and talk to me because they’re the funniest conversations. I’m coaching, I get that. To hear the excitement and the ideas that they bring, there’s so much out there that it’s impossible for me to know what’s out there, what people are seeing and also what they’re needing. It juices me so much.

They need people with experience. They need people to go, “Come on. You’re going to go this way. Okay. You’re not going to get it unless you put an offer in. Put an offer in.” It works well. We also have the framework of being women. There are some definite traits that we have that come up and that is asking for what you need. Women have a tendency not to do that. In our community, we embrace the femininity of that and ask for what we need in that way.

We all can do business in a man’s world because we’ve had to, short, direct and succinct. It’s also wonderful to embrace our femininity and do business like we want to do business, which is more creative, collaborative and win-win for everybody. It’s an interesting paradigm when you shift into a feminine space for your business, operating system, that it becomes more profitable sometimes. It’s pretty cool.

I stole the conversation around us experienced women needing beginners because I got excited about that but I want to hear your perspective.

A woman that’s been in the business for a long time, we take for granted some of the things that we know or some of the little joys that you get from being new in the business. Being able to see how to make money or a certain perspective of something. It’s encouraging to me when I meet women who are getting into this business and they’re all excited. Whether it’s providing for their kids or an at-home-mom who’s wanting to provide a good vacation for them during the summer. It’s cool that all walks of life can be in the same community.

The people that are new to the business need to see the people that have been in the business for a while. They are doing it, successful and they are making things happen and vice versa. We need their energy and their enthusiasm and their go-getterness. It’s a good symbiotic relationship. I’m glad to say that we have women at all levels of education in the community.

Networking is about forming relationships, and there is a way to network that is productive to your business.

We become a little bit complacent because we’re been there, done that. You think you know. We’re surprised when we don’t know. That’s the thing about a beginner is you’re okay with not knowing. For us, it feels a little bit like I should’ve known that. If I do something that was “stupid” although nobody does anything stupid but you might think to yourself, “That was dumb. I should’ve known better.” Things are constantly changing. Having that beginner’s mind and having that around you allow you to feel better also in those moments where you’re like, “I should have known that.”

It’s acknowledging that. One of the meetings that we have is called Power Hour and we feature women who are WREN members, who’ve maybe completed a project and they are presenting their case study. We do this for a couple of different reasons, one of them is because we don’t get the opportunity to step forward as leaders in our real estate community out in the regular world.

Most of the time, a woman is not at the front of the room but maybe once a year at a regular REIA. We want it to give a platform that we could train women to step to the front of the room, to start to feel that confidence, to foster leadership in our community and give that opportunity to them. It’s one of the things that I love best because it’s like I’m being able to contribute to somebody else’s growth.

We have a little mentoring system for that process so that they’re not going on cold turkey. They get a template and coaching so that they can learn to own themselves, their voice and their presentation and feel the reward of that. Sometimes as women, we don’t celebrate our wins enough. That’s what part of that is about too, let’s celebrate our wins. Let’s look at another member and go, “You rocked it.” It’s cool that way.

I want to talk specifically about WREN, the platform and all of your offerings. Before we move into that to get onto the platform, get the membership and get all the details. You go to BlissfulInvestor.com/WREN for Women’s Real Estate Network and then you can go to the page to where you can sign up. When they go to that website, what are they going to find? Talk to us a little bit about the offerings and what women can expect.

We have an annual membership for our networking organization and it’s $249, which is not expensive at all. The benefits are amazing. At first, you become part of our network. We send you a series of network training. We call it Work It Girl Network Training. Here’s the reason why whether you’re in front of a person or whether you’re on a Zoom call, putting your contact information in the chat is not networking. Giving your card to somebody is not networking. Networking is about forming relationships. There is a way to network that is productive to your business.

This is a series of three videos that talk about how to network so that it’s productive for your business. We want you to succeed. We want you to network that it’s productive for your bottom line. We want you to go through that training so that when you’re welcomed into the community that you understand that. We have a Facebook page that is where most of our community activity is going on.

We have all kinds of resources on our Facebook page whether you’re starting as a wholesaler and you need scripts, those are up there. Whether you’re wanting to learn to run numbers for something, those are up there. There are all kinds of resources on our Facebook page. We have monthly member-only meetings. Those members-only meetings, not only do you get to connect with other members and learn about their business models and what they’re doing and see if there’s somebody you can do business with.

 

If you’re a wholesaler, you need flippers to buy your deals or whatever it is. Maybe you’re a passive investor and you’re looking for investments. Sometimes at the monthly meetings, we’ll have a speaker that might’ve spoke for us and come so you can ask questions that you can get that off-camera relationship going with some of the speakers and the experts.

Those monthly meetings are online. No matter where you are, you can go to that.

WREN has been around for a little bit and we started as an in-person networking company. We have eleven chapters across the US. When the pandemic hit, we went online and we haven’t started opening up yet. Some of the ladies aren’t ready to come out. What we did was go online and it’s been interesting. It’s cool that I’m meeting women from all over the US. don’t know about you but I have flipped in Los Angeles for a while but my buy and holds are not in LA. My buy and holds are in Memphis, Tennessee, Tucson, Arizona and Houston, Texas.

I’m real estate investing in all those areas. I’m meeting women in those areas that are investors. My network is like, “I need a contractor. That’s not in my local area. That’s in your area. Can you help me? I needed an insurance person. That’s in your area. Can you help me?” The value of the network is even expanding because it’s ten feet outside of my house. It’s in that community that I’m already investing in. It’s been interesting to meet women who are all over investing. We have a couple of women who are flipping in Alaska. It’s been great that way. Online has expanded things and in a perspective of, “Where is she investing? Is that a good market? Can you tell me about it?” It’s been interesting that way.

Those are some of the benefits of being a WREN member. We have also other monthly meetings where we bring in a speaker to educate you on a certain business model. For example, we have people come in that are flippers and they talk to you about flipping. Somebody coming in about raising capital or mobile home parks.

It’s all women always at the front of the room so that we can learn from them and we can ask them any question we want, from how they execute their business model to how they’re juggling it. We had one woman come in, who’s got five kids for goodness sakes. It’s like, “How are you doing that?” She was telling us about the systems that she’s using so that she doesn’t have to be away from her kids all the time but still can run her business. That’s helpful too. It’s an interesting community.

You also have Ignite which is your event. Is it one time a year? Tell us a little bit about that.

It’s been one time a year and an in-person event. It was a three-day event, the last time that we had it. It was amazing, great energy, with 250 women coming out. Celebrating not only real estate and our speakers that took the front of the room but also starting the day in meditation. Having that opportunity to open ourselves up for what we’re ready to bring into our lives that day. There’s a feminine touch to it all and the networking at the end with wine and stuff.

Surround yourself with people that you want to be like. Hang around with people who are doing what you want to do.

We went online for the pandemic. We had an event, last November 2021 but it was a one-day event. We’re hoping to have an in-person event in 2022. That’s on our goal list. The online events have been great and we try to do it a little differently. One of the things that we’ve done online is we have a pajama networking party day. Everybody dresses up in their pajamas and we bring a cocktail and we network together. It’s fun and it’s a different way for us to be chicks together. We have plans for 2022. Hopefully opening up and having an in-person event again.

I’m part of the network also. As I said, I love having a community but I’m not over-involved online at least through 2021. 2022, I’m looking forward to also building out my network too because I’ve got some new things coming and going in my life too. Please and come join me and Deborah. It’s at BlissfulInvestor.com/WREN. You can sign up there and then we can all start hanging out like chicks.

We have EXTRA, which is the membership portion of the show. I want to do a little bit of a deeper dive on helping people understand how to network for building their businesses and specifically going online. I feel like that’s been a little bit of a challenge for me. I know that you’ve had this experience through the pandemic of how to help people or women connect when we’re online whether it’s on Facebook or it’s at one of your community calls or one of your meetups online or at Ignite. Before we move into EXTRA, are you ready for three rapid-fire questions?

Yes, I am.

Give us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.

Surround yourself with people that you want to be like. When I started, I wanted to be a flipper so I surrounded myself with flippers. I learned their vocabulary and I saw what they were doing. I asked them to share their numbers with me. I asked them to show me some on-site projects going on. Hang around with people who are doing what you want to do.

What’s the strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?

You touched on fear and walking through your fear. Focus on what you want, focus on why you’re doing this. I had a tremendous amount of focus on the lifestyle I wanted to live. That’s what got me here and I’m living that lifestyle now. You need to continue your focus on what it is that you want because that’s what’s going to pull you through the fear.

Tell us one daily practice you do that contributes to your success.

 

Grateful list. It’s funny because I woke up in a funk. I reached out to one of my friends and she was like, “Have you done your grateful list?” I hadn’t done it in a few days. I realized, “That’s what was missing.” When I’m grateful about where I am and what I already have, it’s much easier for me to walk through that day and take on whatever’s brought to me.

I jokingly say that as an entrepreneur, “Nobody calls me unless there’s a problem,” It’s the truth. If things are going right, I don’t hear from anybody. It’s always when things are going wrong that I hear from people but being in a grateful place puts you in a very resourceful place. When that phone does ring, I’m in a place of like, “I’m here. Brainstorm, let’s do it. Let’s figure it out.” It’s the grateful list for me.

It’s such a good perspective on it. It does make us much more resourceful. This has been amazing. We’ve got these pieces or little nuggets that we can share that can completely shift a person’s paradigm. My audience loves the three rapid-fire questions because it’s those nuggets that they can take into their life that can change everything. This has been so much fun. Thank you much for sharing WREN with my audience.

Thank you, Moneeka. This has been great.

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Stay tuned for EXTRA. We’re going to do a deep dive on how to that work, not giving your number or giving your card and how to do it online so you can take advantage of all these resources that we’ve got that have been developed because of the pandemic. There are so many good things. The whole pandemic was hard and there was a lot of yuckiness and there were also some amazing things that served our lives that have come out from that too.

This is one of those amazing things that we can learn about and utilize to build our lives and ourselves and our wealth. I’m super excited to talk about that in EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA stay tuned, if you’re not go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com and you get the first seven days for free of the subscription so check it out and see if you love it. Hopefully, you’ll stay with us.

For those of you that are leaving Deborah and me, thank you for joining us for this conversation. I hope to see you at WREN, networking, asking questions and all of that good stuff. I also look forward to seeing you next time. Always remember goals without action are dreams. Get out there. Take action and create the life your heart deeply desires.

 

Important Links

• Deborah Razo
• Women’s Real Estate Network
• BlissfulInvestor.com/WREN
• Facebook – WREN – Women’s Real Estate Network
• Ignite
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

 

About Deborah Razo

Always an independent spirit, she started her first business in 1990. After owning and partnering in several successful small businesses, she realized that her path to financial freedom was through real estate investing.

In addition to her business degree and graduate work at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, she expanded her investing education in 2011 with a series of intensive workshops with Robert Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Advisors and The Real Estate Radio Guys.

It was a natural transition to shift gears from my 20-year design firm to my booming rehabbing business in Southern California. With her first house flip netting near $100,000 in profits her business took off. Her strategy of flipping houses in California for capital and buying and holding for cash flow in other markets for long term wealth has proven to be a success. And just 2 years ago moved from rehab to development.

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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

To see this program in video:

Search on Roku for Real Estate Investing 4 Women or go to this link: https://blissfulinvestor.com/biroku

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

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The Magic Of Asking With Mark Victor Hansen – Real Estate For Women

 

When we were young, we always asked questions regarding things around us out of curiosity. The answers to those questions provide us with the knowledge we need to face the unknown. In this episode, Mark Victor Hansen talks about the magic of asking and some of the roadblocks people usually have that prevent them from doing so. Mark is best known as the co-author for the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and brand, setting world records and book sales with over 500 million books sold. Tune in and rediscover the magic of asking. Plus, learn Mark’s technique for asking your higher self, the universe, or God how to find out what your destiny is and what you’re supposed to be doing.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Magic Of Asking With Mark Victor Hansen – Real Estate For Women

Real Estate Investing for Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show Mark Victor Hansen. Mark is best known as the Coauthor for the Chicken Soup For The Soul book series and brand, setting world records and book sales with over 500 million books sold. Mark also worked his way into the worldwide spotlight as a sought-after keynote speaker and entrepreneurial marketing maven, creating a stream of successful people who have created massive success for themselves through Mark’s unique teachings and wisdom.

With his endearing charismatic style, Mark captures his audience’s attention as well as their hearts. Having spoken to over 6,000 audiences worldwide with his one-of-a-kind technique and masterful authority of his work, time and again, he continues to receive high accolades from his audiences as one of the most dynamic and compelling speakers and leaders of our time. Mark and Crystal Hansen have coauthored their newest book that was released called Ask! The Bridge From Your Dreams To Your Destiny.

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Mark, Happy New Year. Welcome to the show.

 

It’s super exciting because it’s a new year and a new you or a new renewed you because everybody is into the transformation of consciousness, awareness, thinking, and ready to burst with joy and enthusiasm and euphoria. How’s that?

Do you know what I love about the New Year? I don’t set New Year’s resolutions. I set New Year’s intentions. I figure my New Year is on my birthday, which is May. I feel like I get two New Year’s every year and they’re about six months apart. What I love about this winter New Year is that we are planting the seeds that are going to burst in the spring in a couple of months and there’s so much anticipation. There is so much possibility at this moment. Wouldn’t you agree?

I 100% agree. It could not be more exciting. What you’re going to do is you got to ask yourself. Ask! The Bridge From Your Dreams To Your Destiny is our best-selling book, but what is your destiny? That’s the question of the new you, the new year, because as good as you are, you could be better. As big as you are, you can be bigger.

You got to know what it is you want to be, want to do, and want to have. All of that is done by one miraculous three-letter word that no one ever wrote a book to, and you get the trademark of the title ASK. How could it be easier because all I got to do is ask yourself, ask others and ask God what you want to talk about? I’m thankful that we’re going to ask, what are you going to do to make this the best year, best decade, and best life that you’ve ever had, and you’ve got to figure it out and put it in writing. I’m going to talk to you about how simple that is.

I want to say that there are many people that binge this show, so you might be reading this in September or any time of the year to understand. I know how trite this is going to sound, but I have to say it. This is the first day of the rest of your life. This conversation is relevant no matter what time of year or when you’re reading it, so keep that in mind. One of the things that I wanted Mark on the show for ladies is, as we start to build our dream and meet our destiny, as Mark is going to talk about, we start to ask ourselves, what is it that we want? We have talked a lot about that in this show.

We set our goals and we ask the universe for support. Mark, you can correct me if this is for everybody, but I’m sure that it is, especially for women. We have trouble asking the people in our network, the people who love us, around us, and the people we don’t know yet. I know that Mark and I are aligned on this. We’re going to talk about all of those three different ways to ask. The very first thing I want to ask you, Mark, is why did you write this book? You gave us a little bit, but dive in deep on why you and Crystal did this.

My beloved wife and I wrote Ask! The Bridge From Your Dream To Your Destiny is very simple. We have traveled and been more blessed than anybody did in 80 countries around the world. We talked to 7 million people live and what’s so extraordinary is most people never ask themselves what they want. I have medical doctors. We have people pair bond and do what you said. They say, “Your class was more important than all my medical school training or engineering training, or whatever.” We asked them 50 times like, “What do you want?” What happens is you get past the super system, “I want a wardrobe that’s good enough to own a men’s store or women’s store. I want to be a fashionista. I want to have this car, that car, electric car, or a Rolls Royce,” or whatever it is that you want.

By the time you hit 50 times asking, you suddenly go, “What is my personal life? What am I going to dedicate myself to humanity for?” The big question we asked, the last question in a book from our friend, Dr. Peter Diamandis is, “What are you going to do during this decade to positively affect one billion people?” You’ve got ten years. You’re going to affect one billion people.

As good as you are, you could be better. As big as you already are, you can be bigger.

What it does is it blows the lid off because what is asking does and what we learned gives illumination, insight, answers, and solutions. It gives new protocols, so your life becomes what it’s supposed to be because all of us are here with a destiny. That’s what this critical little word here destiny. Most people never ask themselves what their destiny is. Your mother said, “You’re going to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a businessperson, dentist, or a garbage person.”

All of which is noble, but that’s not the issue. The issue is all of us is a polymath. It’s not for Ben Franklin to be a writer, a statesman, an inventor of bifocals, hama-hama, and fly the first kite to find electricity. All of us are intrinsically polymaths, meaning many opportunities. In other words, “Yes, I’m the world’s best-selling author of 500,000 books. I’ve talked to more people live. I’ve created more millionaires,” but I’ve also own one of the fastest-growing alternative device energy companies that pop up windows called Natural Power Concepts and other companies. They are extraordinarily doing wonderful stuff because the question isn’t how little you can do and get away with. The questions are, how do you become financially free independent, so you can express who you are by having your self-awareness, self-expression, and realization of yourself.

You’re speaking my language. We are a real estate show and I love how you brought that financial piece in there because many people think that it’s noble not to focus on money. I love the word that you used noble and I love that we talked about the ability to expand. It does have a lot to do with our financial bearing. Can we take care of ourselves and do we have the money to give to the causes, whether it’s causes or the companies that we want to build that can then reach and benefit the planet in many ways. Many people think money is a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing. It’s simply a tool. As we ask, sometimes we feel a little bit like, “Should I be asking for this? It’s a financial base thing. It’s a goal to help me to grow in this particular way. Maybe people will judge me.”

The first thing is to understand within yourself that your financial security is a huge part of the amazing things you can do in the world. You want to reach a billion people and maybe some of you want to expand your family. Pay for college for your kids. That’s your big deal or your big expansion. You still can’t do any of that unless you’re taken care of and have the financial access to support all those things. Wouldn’t you say?

 

First of all, you and I are talking the same language. Let me say that first of all, from a spiritual point of view, ask yourself, ask God. God created the universe and we now know that there are 40,000 other planets in our sources. We’ve discovered that in the last few years in the Hubble that are like ours. We’re probably not the only intelligence in the universe, but we’re the highest intelligence on this planet.

Therefore, if you’re of high intelligence, one of the things you’ve got to do is earn more, save more, invest more than you could ever do. I was bankrupt in 1974, which I now think is my best work experience. I lost $2 million in one day. I went bankrupt after living in New York. I had to go to the world’s biggest library, the New York Library, and check out a book on how to go bankrupt by yourself because if you ask the wrong question, you go the wrong way.

I said, “How do I go bankrupt?” It got me out of what I shouldn’t be doing into the speaking. Once I was speaking, I said, “You’re supposed to earn it, save it, and invest it. Don’t buy two cars but buy one home. If you buy one car and two homes, the second home is an investment income home.” Let’s do my own story because it was a real estate company. I’m back in Long Island, New York. I have a mastermind group, which everyone has got to have. Two people come together and it’s the power of eleven. We had this little family, who’s still my best friend years later. They are buying and fixing up real estate and they say, “We got a house to sell to you for $2,000.” I remember I had no credit. I went bankrupt and no credit for seven years.

I was like, “Here’s a check for $2,000.” I bought a $14,000 house. This was in East Islip, Long Island, New York. The only mistake is I called Steven in Bel-Air. They are still in real estate and have done exceedingly well around the world. Three years later, I sold it for $58,000. I thought I was again the smartest guy in New York. The mistake we made was one, we should have bought all of East Islip and fixed it up, but at that time, I had not written a book that I’ve now written that I’ve finished called How to Think Bigger Than You Ever Thought You Could Think. Little thinking doesn’t pay off. Big thinking pays off.

The second thing I did was a book called Stand Up, Speak Out, and Win. I sold 20,000 copies from platform and I made $200,000. It’s $10 a book. I was selling in little itty bitty audiences. It’s not available anymore, but that’s it. The little audience is 6 people, 12 people, and 50 people. I said, “This isn’t a New York Times Bestseller or National Bestseller, but it is my bestseller, and I want to sign it for you, your spouse, your kids, and even dogs outside of your car,” and they all laughed. The first time I told them that is 37 people were standing in line and I made $370. I thought, “This is a good business.”

The second mistake I made is like the first. We should have bought all of East Islip. I’m holding up a mirror, so you look at my story and find your story of all the parables. The first thing is look for the parable. It’s the story within a story. There’s a literal story. The literal story is Mark went bankrupt and decided to become rich. The figurative story is you should have bought more of East Islip.

I write 5 to 7 books at a time, and I’ve got 318 books. Most of them are bestsellers. I have done more New York Times Bestsellers than anyone alive before the Guinness Book of Records. I’ve sold more books that are titled and more number ones. We’re number one in a lot of countries. The point I’m making is I could have started that earlier if I had thought differently. I’m holding up on a mirror. It’s the New Year, a new you or a renewed you if you’re watching in May or September, December, a year, two years, or five years.

How big can you think? You go inside your deeper innermost and what we’re saying is ask. Ask yourself, ask others, ask God. “God, what’s your destiny for me and how big is it? How miraculous is it? How empowered is it? How much favor? Can I be younger to buy however many points of income-producing real estate in new, innovative, exciting ways that may or may not include bank financing?”

I didn’t have any bank financing. Steve financed it out of the $14,000 I gave. In 2008, I financed the other $12,000. I bought the house for $7,000. It was a shack. We had to put in new heating and new walls and everything, but it still works. The only thing is that you’ve got to make sure that you’re doing enough and maybe I’ve overstated that or gone too long. Did that wrap for you?

Big thinking pays off.

Absolutely. First of all, I love when people speak inspired, so thank you for that.

I got to do one more subpoint. Do I believe you’ve got to read books? Yes, you ought to read at least 1 to 3 hours a day, self-hope action books. I do write fiction books and I love them. The fact of the matter is you need to have the basis. The foundation is got to be deep, so you know simple stuff. You check the Law of 72 because the first question is when I have 387 employees and demand a $100 million company in Newport Beach. The first question I ask all these MBAs that came in immediately is, “What’s the Law of 72?” If they didn’t know it, next. How could you go through your school and not know the Law of 72? These are some basic laws I teach.

Mark, I love that you said there are a million ways to make $1 million. I say that at least once a month on this show. There are a million ways to make $1 million in real estate. You have to find the one that’s perfect for you.

There’s a niche for everybody. We had a meeting with a guy who owns 10,000 units in town and he did it in his way, but everyone can do it in their own way. There’s a lot of ways to do it and there’s a lot in the world that needs it. When I was back in graduate school, the smartest guy, as far as I know, was my teacher, Dr. Buckminster Fuller. His teacher was Albert Einstein, but Bucky had us write down our goals. Now remember, I’m a 21-year-old and a 71-year-old is telling us to make the world work. One of my ten macro goals let’s be totally considerate environmentally in every other way. Let’s get it done.

We’re 1 billion people out of 8 billion people alive who don’t have a house, so let’s get that program going. Everybody reading or somebody out there is going to go, “I heard what Mark said. I can go figure out how to do it in Africa, India, China, Latin America or in America.” We were helping out people in the Indian tribes right here at the four corners area of Arizona. A lot of them don’t have houses and you go, “This is 2022. What are you telling me?” Not only do they not have houses, but they also don’t have electricity. They got the wind farms up there. I’m Danish and we said, “Something doesn’t smell right in Denmark.”

That’s such important work. It’s another one of those things where you’re doing something that’s beneficial for you. You’re also doing something that’s beneficial for a community or for people. There are so many ways to do good in the world, and we still expand for it in many different ways.

I wrote a whole book called The Miracle of Tithing, in which businessmen say, “What is a miracle kissing?” I said, “You haven’t been kissed enough lately.” I said, “You’re going to tithe your thinking.” That’s the most important and very few people do it, then you tithe your time. We tithe every book I’ve ever done. That’s why I sell more books than anybody, then you tithe your treasure, your money and you’re thankful in advance that you’re going to tithe it up. It’s bonus points. The point is, I’ll open up the windows of heaven and I’ll open up my sky vault and before you know it, you’ve got such a ritual, or you won’t be able to receive it. That’s why so many people watch my YouTube videos in Africa. They go, “I didn’t know that.”

I didn’t know it either. When I was coming through, I went bankrupt because I wasn’t thinking well. I teach people to think right, talk right, act right, and live right to go get the roads up because you and I are here to have an impact. When the game is over, you look back over your life, “I wasted it.” If I’m being honest, I said, “I could have bought East Islip for nothing.” All those houses went from $14,000 to now $500,000 houses.

I released my TEDx Talk. It’s called, Who is the Boss of You? It’s about living a life of choice. The biggest thing about living a life of choice is what we get to do with that choice. If we make choices that include other people, whether it’s contribution, travel, being active in your community, whatever it is. That contribution and connection with other people is a thing that brings us to happiness. If anybody wants to watch the TEDx, it’s at BlissfulInvestor.com/TEDx.

I love what you’re talking about with this whole piece of what we can do or what contribution tithing means. I do talk about it. If you don’t have money, there are many other ways to tithe through your thoughts, your actions, holding a door for somebody, helping somebody to their car if they can’t walk, or working in a soup kitchen. There are all different kinds of things and there are many different levels of tithing that starts up in your mind.

 

When you wake up in the morning, you’d say, “You’re either a giver or a taker.” If you’re a taker and think you can take it all, here’s the question I ask. “Hold on to it. Don’t ever let it go. If you can’t do it, you got to give a breath before you can take the next breath.” One time, Bob Allen and I were at Maui Writers Conference. We’re on the beach and the beautiful Pacific. It’s 6:00 and we’re talking at 9:00. Bob says, “Come on, Mark. You wrote the book on tithing. Explain to me how it works.” He’s a Mormon and a good one and a Bishop and all that good stuff. I am not a Mormon, but I should respect every religion. The point is, we’re walking and he said, “You got a metaphor for tithing,” and it came to me spontaneously.

I said, “We’re looking at the water. Water has three forms. Tithing has three forms. When it’s frozen is when you don’t give. You’re constipated, stifled, stopped, or shuffled. When you get a little ambient, then you have a little bit of flow. You give a little bit. You go to church and get 1% or you help out somebody once. You do a little, then you get a little. Once you heat it up, then you become like vapor.” Everybody has been in a closed bathroom when you took your shower and one drop of water will steam up a whole mirror. You can’t see, and you got to wipe up. That’s what tithing does. It takes that 10% that you give to the noble good charitable causes that are worthy and getting the results you believe in and expands it.

It’s not you and I that’s expanding. I’ve learned three levels of money by writing this book From Wishes to Riches. I learned from one of my close friends in New York. He got me out of poverty when I got bankrupt and upside down. He said, “There is the material form of money, but then you go to the psychic form of money where you think about it. The real goal is to get the spiritual form of money where you can create it almost instantly because think and grow rich is what Napoleon Hill said. He emerged to that. Andrew Carnegie emerged to that.” I’m telling you that Elon Musk, who’s my hero, who’s the richest man in the world, he’ll be one of the two first trillionaires with his partner, Kiyo, as far as I’m concerned.

The point is it’s explosive and extraordinary what somebody can do when they go to the higher levels of what money is because you’ve got to get out of you working for money. One of the ways that money works for you and you pick, how much do I need a month? Do I need $1,000 passive, massive cashflow coming from real estate? If I have a house that rents for $1,500 a month, then I pay HOA and all the stuff for $500, then I get $1,000. If I need $10,000, then I need ten single-families or I need ten units. Pretty simple and you go, “Is it that simple? Come on.” I’ve been in real estate in seven different states at the same time, so I understand you can do that, and it still works, but it doesn’t matter.

There are a few things that matter. You need to know what to ask for, take action and support. I want to talk about why it is hard for people to ask? What do you think is it that stops them?

The second chapter in the book, after we do the fable of McKayla, which everybody can get. We’re going to give it to you free if you want by going to AskTheBookClub.com. We’ll talk about it later. We say there are seven roadblocks to asking. First of, all of them hit us once in a while. Some of us have all seven hits then you get prepped to respond. It’s good that you read our book or listen to it on video or watch it on YouTube. Overcome your lack of self-worth fullness because self-worth will usually be first.

The second is fear, then doubt, then naivité because you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know you can buy real estate even if you don’t have any money. I didn’t have any money, but I did have the right friends. It’s like what we’re saying, your net worth comes from your network. One of my many market trends includes shapes. You’ve got pattern paralysis where you do the same thing and keep expecting something new. I cited if you keep doing the same thing and expect new results, then you’re crazy.

I don’t watch shows like yours and listen to people who have done it. Be careful because all of us have friends, neighbors, and relatives. My wife and I start every day with an hour of meditation. The story of Jesus is not a prophet in his own hometown. We were talking about our role. If she is 1 to 9, I’m 1 to 4 and you go, “That’s true.” It’s your own role in the dark spectrum, no matter how rich you get, no matter how wise you are and no matter how the world accolades you.” I’ve won some of the biggest words. Like I’m a ratio of Jury Award Winner who came from rags to riches and been exceedingly prosperous and generous and wants to be more so.

The point is it’s exciting to be alive and fulfill your destiny and your mission by overcoming the seven obstacles that all of us have. If you look at somebody else’s story, you go, “That’s what stifling me, stopped me, detouring me or warning me. I’m now empowered by Mark.” We also say, “Here’s the stop sign and here’s how to eliminate the stop sign.” We give you three ways to eliminate stop signs.

It’s exciting to be alive and fulfill your destiny or mission.

Can you give me a quick synopsis?

No. If I did that, you wouldn’t have to read the book.

It’s okay if you don’t want to give it, but I would love it if you gave us a little bit.

I’m teasing you and I will answer your question in the second. A book is the best screening value ever, whether it cost $20 or $10. I’m going to telling you the crazy thing that’s happened when we became number one. The book is $21 on the cover in America. Now, we’re selling number one on Vietnam and maybe in Australia and all kinds of England. The point is Amazon does the opposite. They brought the price down to $14. It might be the best $14 you ever invest because you’re not investing in me. I’ve already done it. You’re investing in yourself, so you know how to ask yourself because that’s the real trigger here. Our research shows that 75% of people are afraid to ask. You’re born an incredibly inquisitive kid and we’ve got grandkids or something.

We were in Hawaii in our company. It’s a natural park concept. We’re on the beach and all of a sudden, I get a call from our six-year-old. For Christmas, you got to give him a watch. He phone calls his parents and the grandparent’s house. He said, “Grappy, are you alone?” I’m looking around at the beach and I go, “I’m here with Grammy.” He calls her Mimi. I said, “Mimi and I are here.” He said, “Can I talk to you privately?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Are you still writing great books like the ones I’ve read of yours?” He’s six years old. He’s amazing. He can do the Rubik’s cube in one minute the first time, he got it. God bless him.

He said, “Are you still writing those books?” I said, “Yes, sir.” He said, “Can I write the next book with you?” The first story we’re doing here is about our grandson. That was all of the spreads. You got to buy my book. He’s going to grow up and do wonderful things. The point is, little kids were told, “Gramps has got many questions. Can’t you shut up? You ask why, how, when, and all that,” and then you go to school and I say, “I’m going to tell you what it is about. You go into the military and they tell you. You go to business and they tell you. You go to the life and your spouse tells you. Only two people’s opinions matter, yours and God. That’s it.

You’ve got to ask yourself, “How do I overcome it?” Here’s what you and I are going to do now that everybody is out there to answer your questions. This is M and M. Mooneka and Mark are giving you 100% permission to ask bigger, better, stronger questions with metaphorical biceps and triceps. You can go vigorously, valiantly, courageously, and bravely into a future that is worthy of you. Would you agree with that?

Yes. I’m not going to say anything else. That was so good.

We’re here to empower people to enlarge them. There’s nowhere in any spiritual literature that you’re supposed to be small and unworthy. That’s what roadblocks are. They make you less than because the world was out of its way to work against you. Now, it’s going to sound very self-serving, but I don’t go to sleep without reading positive self-help books.

Sometimes I read my own books and I read other people. In my library, I’ve got 50,000 of other people’s books. I’ve touched more books. I haven’t read every one of them wall to wall, but I’ve read 6,000 biographies and autobiographies. I’m writing biographies for people and writing autobiographies because I’ve had an exciting life. I have climbed Machu Picchu, Whitney, Fuji, and Kilimanjaro. We’re here to do cool, great things.

I’ve hung a week with Richard Branson on the Necker Island and, “I’m a little person.” I have the library 3.0 because the first great library was created by Alexander The Great. He conquered the world, but I got the wisdom, the insight and understanding. Here it is an Alexandria. Where do you live?

San Jose, California.

If you go to New York, you want to go to Andrew Carnegie’s house. It’s 60,000 square feet and it’s 95th and 5th Avenue. It’s owned by the Smithsonian Institute. The first thing he says is, “No man or woman get rich without enriching all others. You were like, “You’re rich and you make me poor.” Hell no, I don’t make you anything. You make you. I don’t touch you. I’ve made more millionaires than anyone other than Napoleon Hill. I go by all the research. The second thing he says is, “Authors are the wealth of the nation.”

The only thing I’ve switched with Andy’s line, the Scotsman, is authors are the wealth of the world. I think everyone is the author of him or herself. If you’re going to author yourself, you better be reading somebody who’s authored themselves well. That’s why I’m saying, “Go ahead and start reading biographies and autobiographies and read all my self-help action books.” Some of the other superstars that you got to read, they will change your thinking and change your life because you’re here to make your life bolder, bigger, better, brighter, more exquisitely exciting, penalizing and we love.

 

I want to say I have a book called Choose Bliss, ladies. Check that one out also.

In this book, this is the 20th Anniversary edition, I said, “Will you write the fourth to it?” I went through a painful, extremely expensive war. What I did is I never told Crystal who I married long ago now, but I wrote down 267 wants. What do I want? What are the characteristics, values, and virtues? When you’re sixteen years old, what do you say? “She’s got to be slim, beautiful, and eye candy.” It’s very superficial if you think about it.

“I want them super strong. I want Arnold,” or whatever you want. I wrote everything I wanted. “She’s got to like and love me. She’s got to demonstrate making her own money,” because I don’t want her marrying me for my wallet. “She’s got to be a great lover and wonderful. She’s got to be cooperative, have financial savvy and underspends below her needs. She is flexible.” We do yoga every day. She loves to dance, thinks abundance and wants to create superior memories. She’s a non-smoker, non-drinker or non-drug user, charitable, and has great etiquette.”

This is what you asked about want. Most people, “On Mondays, I want to go to work, come home, have a quick drink, go to sleep after I watch TV.” No, you want to be a dullard. What the hell would you want that for? You’re a meandering generality. All of us weren’t born in dug. We were born over in dug. You’re born of eighteen billion brains cells. You are here to use them. “I get up, have coffee, go to work, come home, drink, pee, bed. You want me to read an hour to three hours?” Not for me. You read for you.

Mark, I feel like we can talk forever. I’m going to have to have you back on this show because I want to keep talking, but I want to be respectful of your time. We’ll do it again. Does that sound good? Before we move into our three rapid-fire questions, share with us how people can get in touch with you. I know you’ve got some great gifts that you want to offer my audience.

I want everyone go AskTheBookClub.com and it’s free because Crystal, my beloved beautiful wife, which you’ll see and you’d go, “Why would she marry you?” It’s because she’s super smart. I had the goals. She had no choice. I didn’t show it to her until after we were married. Here’s the truth. I’ve got to quit goofing around here. Everybody wants a soulmate but what you really want is the higher level of that, where two lit candles come together. It’s four-fold to eigh-fold higher and that’s called a twin flame. We’re twin flames. We can mirror each other 100%, which you’ll see if you watch any of our videos on YouTube or Ask The Book Club.

I want you to go to the other one, if you’ve got a story in you and you qualify, we want to help you publish. It’s called MarkVictorHansenLibrary.com. Alexander the Great had the first one. Andrew Carnegie did 2,500 benefactors libraries in America. The media, the dumbasses and the school teacher says he’s a robber baron. He’s the biggest philanthropist ever. Now, we’re doing Library 3.0 because I want everybody in every form to have a book, audios, memorabilia, films, and all that stuff codified. I call it the road library because it’s a repository of the wealth and treasures of your mind, heart, soul, and a story of your beingness. If you go there and look through this stuff, you’d go, “I do have a story.”

I will say releasing a book is the most magical experience in the world. You’ve done 300 something. I’ve done three, but still, you impact many people each time that goes out there. You think, “It’s only my story. Like big deal.” No, your story matters because there’s someone that will read that story and it will completely change their paradigm. If it’s one, but usually, it’s many thousands of people. If you have a good publisher that gets it out there, that’s what makes the big difference.

For those that are reading and in business, it’s the best business card. It makes you the authority. Author is in the word authority. It’s the authorship of your story. People will read it and you’ll assign it to them. They’ll take your business card and put it in the cylindrical file. Nobody throws away books that are assigned to them. To the spouses and their kids, the best scientists now they’re stuck.

Mark, you also said something that I think is cute, but I do the same thing. You were like, “I read a lot of books. A lot of them are my own.” A lot of times, I’ll pick up Choose Bliss and read that and go, “That was good,” because I feel like I channeled so much of the book and so much of that wisdom happened when I was in the zone, but they don’t always live in the zone. When I read, it’s as if I’m hearing from somebody that gets me. I’m like, “That’s great.” Every once in a while, someone is like, “I need to read your book.” When you get them, I’m like, “I need to read it again too.” That’s the thing. Ladies, when you write, you capture something so deep inside you that now you have access to for the rest of your life. It’s incredible.

There’s nowhere in any spiritual literature that says you’re supposed to be small and unworthy.

Everyone has more than they think. What are we teaching in my book? You have a book in you. My seminar, you can go to MarkVictorHansenLibrary.com and all that. You don’t try to write one book at a time because then you’ll have writer’s block. Maybe three or four, you never have writer’s block and screen for things at the same time. We all have it in us. What we do is we’re teaching differently. We say, “We start with a title and then we start with a cover,” because everybody else finishes the book then tries to come up with a title. It’s wrong. Start with the title, then the cover.

When you look at our website, you’ll go, “Look at the cover that these guys are doing.” Forgive me for being a little bodacious, but I’ve come up with this cover before we did the book. I teach everyone all that stuff because everybody is a brand and you need to make your brand. Be a brand that commands.

We’re going to talk more, Mark, just so you know. Also, ladies, if you want to go and get the book, go to AskTheBookClub.com. They’re going to be doing a webinar about the book and there’s all good stuff there. Go check that out. Mark, are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

I’m ready.

Tell us one super tip getting started asking and receiving in your life.

Start asking yourself all day long, “What do really I want?” Write it down. We’re going to have an Ask Journal, but we’ll have you do that every day because you’re going to ask yourself like, you got bigger and better and stronger. You’ll have new apps and each app will open up different stuff.

What is one way in being successful in continuing to ask and receive in your life?

Be crystal clear about what do you want. I wanted to be a speaker who talked. I want to care about things that would make a life transformative and different. If you can, write down that as a purpose statement. For Chicken Soup, I changed the whole world one word at a time. We only did stories that were seven things. We said personal was goosebumps, chilly bumps and the second one, instantaneous behavioral change. All that stuff had to be written because once it’s codified, it’s a commandment from you to you. Metaphorically, it’s marble and it’s solid.

Mark, what would you say is one daily practice that you do that contributes to your personal success?

I make all my own decisions and think for myself. It’s easy to get swayed by other people. Somebody offered me a bunch of stock for nothing in a company called Facebook. I asked the guy who created the internet and they said, “They will never make it.” I’m never doing that again. That was a dumb idea. It’s big and bold decisions. I’m willing to live with my decisions. You’ve heard me say my failures and stuff. Nobody is 100% successful. You see a lot of financial values show up and say, “I only know how to make money. I never lose money.” Warren Buffett says, “The first rule is make money and never lose money.” He got money out of a few things. Overall, you’re going to make more money than you’ll lose.

Mark, this conversation has been amazing. Thank you so much for bringing in our New Year with your wisdom.

Thank you. My pleasure.

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Ladies, stay tuned for EXTRA because we’ve got more. Mark is going to be talking to us about his technique for asking our higher selves, the universe, God, or whatever you want to call it, how to find out what your destiny is. What are you supposed to be doing or if you’ve got a business problem and how to get the answer to that business problem? Stay tuned for EXTRA for that. If you are already subscribed. If you’re not subscribed but would like to be, please go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You get seven days for free, so check it out. If you love it, you get to stay in. If not, at least you’ve got some great new content.

For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining Mark and me for this portion of the show. Wasn’t it a great way to start the New Year? I had so much fun and I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are dreams, so get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires.

 

Important Links

• Chicken Soup For The Soul
• Ask!: The Bridge From Your Dreams To Your Destiny
• Dr. Peter Diamandis
• Choose Bliss
• Natural Power Concepts
• How to Think Bigger Than You Ever Thought You Could Think
• Stand Up, Speak Out, and Win
• Guinness Book of Records
• The Miracle of Tithing
• Who is the Boss of You?
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Mark Victor Hansen

Mark Victor Hansen is an American inspirational and motivational speaker, trainer and author. He is best known as the founder and co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series.

 

 

 

 

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• https://blissfulinvestor.com/
• LinkedIn
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______________________________________

To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

To see this program in video:

Search on Roku for Real Estate Investing 4 Women or go to this link: https://blissfulinvestor.com/biroku

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

0

Financial Freedom And Bliss With Caterina Rando – Real Estate Women

 

You deserve to enjoy your life, but sometimes, you just can’t feel that sense of fulfillment no matter how hard you try. You could not get the feeling of ultimate happiness you’ve always dreamed of because of different circumstances or tragedies. So, it’s time to explore the possibilities. In this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando, Moneeka Sawyer shares the key things that helped her overcome the challenges and trials in her life that made her stronger, braver, and wiser. As Monica attains financial freedom and wealth, it helps her reach her goals and experience bliss in her life. Tune in to learn how to acquire yours!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Financial Freedom And Bliss With Caterina Rando – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

As you might imagine, as a podcaster, I am often invited to be on other people’s shows, which I love. It is such an honor and it is so much fun. Every once in a while, I am on a show that is so good. We cover stuff that I haven’t covered elsewhere and sometimes I want to share those conversations with you. This conversation that I had with a good friend of mine, Caterina Rando, is one of those conversations. I thought this might be exactly what you need as we were heading into the New Year, so I wanted to share it with you. Here is the episode with me and Caterina. I hope you enjoy it.

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Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Show. I am extra blissing to be with you because I have the Blissful Millionaire, Moneeka Sawyer, as my very special guest on this episode. She is a dear friend, a TEDx speaker and a real estate mogul. What I want you to know about Moneeka is that she embodies bliss and lights up every room she walks into. You cannot be with her and not leave blissing. Moneeka, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. You made me blush. That was so cool.

We have been to Hawaii and on other adventures together. You are always so wonderful to be with. You are a leader. You don’t just teach about bliss and you not only live your bliss, but you bliss every room that you are in. I am so happy to have you. Let me have you share a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey because you are living an amazing life. You travel all the time and you have financial freedom. How did you get from that blissing little girl to where you are?

 

Thank you so much for asking that. It is a journey that is a little bit unexpected. It is not something people would expect to hear from me when they meet me. I was not a blissing little girl. I was a tormented, bullied little girl because I lived in what you might call a Lily-White community in Ohio and was the only person that was not White. I’m Indian so I got bullied and treated very badly. From a very young age, my journey, passion, and the thing that I focused on most were how was I going to be happy because people were not kind. I was like, “Could I be happy?” That journey towards bliss started as a very young girl trying to survive and figure out how to be happy.

The journey went on for many years. We have eventually moved to California, but things didn’t get much better. In high school and college, I became a people-pleaser. I wanted to make other people happy because I thought other people being happy would make me happy if they liked me. How many of us girls can relate to that? We were like, “If they like me, I will be happy.” Horrible bullying happened were things that boys do to girls happened. Eventually, I left for college and found that no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t get better. I put my strong face forward. I always had a big smile. I was always the nicest person in a room and people were so unkind.

The one thing that kept me sane through most of my life was I was a dancer. I started dancing when I was five. All of you ladies know exercise helps with the endorphins, our confidence and keeping us strong. Plus, I loved it, so it was my anchor throughout my entire life. I got in this car accident when I was 21. I became a cripple and lost my legs.

I did not lose them but I couldn’t use them anymore, so I even lost dance. At that point, I fell into such an incredible depression. I wanted it to be over. I had been depressed and in bed crying for a week. I remember one morning, I woke up and I heard my mom’s voice in my head. My mom says, “Moneeka, get out of bed. Get some air so you will feel better.” I pushed the covers over my head, swung my legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand up. My legs were so weak that I fell to the ground.

At that moment, I sat there crying and prayed. I said, “God, I can’t keep doing this, so either bring me home or teach me how to live.” About an hour later, a girlfriend called me, who I hadn’t heard about for years. I tell her frequently that God sent her to me at that moment. She turned me on to a coach and that coach is the man that saved my life because he taught me that we are all born in these little blissful bundles of joy. We come into the world so full of excitement of being alive, learning, and experiencing. We were blissing, and then life teaches us that it is hard and bliss is okay. He told me that my journey and all the study that I had done were going to serve me. He was going to help me get back to where I needed to go, and so we did.

It all starts with the decision. I wrote a book called Choose Bliss, and the reason I say choose bliss is because it always starts with a choice. Bliss is a choice and it started with a choice. It didn’t mean that the journey was easy, but it meant that the journey started, I was committed to it, and therefore, it could happen. That is how the whole bliss thing started for me.

We are all born in these little blissful bundles of joy. We come into this world full of the excitement of being alive, learning, and experience.

The first thing you did with your coach, did you choose bliss? Was that the first step?

I chose to live, which was not the first step and then the next choice was to try to find happiness. At that time, it was this very basic, “I didn’t want to be miserable.” Sometimes, the first step is to not be something. As we worked together, I expanded so great because it was truly in my heart to experience bliss. Also, I want your audience to know how I define bliss. Bliss is not being happy all the time. Bliss is that deep sense of joy and contentment with life so that you know that anything that comes your way, you can handle it emotionally. It is emotional mastery and resilience. That wasn’t where I started but that is where I wanted to go.

He hired me on as an executive coach underneath him and I found that there were all these people that I worked with that were multi-millionaires. I would go into their offices. They had a great job and a beautiful wife. At that time, all the executives were men. They have these beautiful children and beautiful homes in the Silicon Valley but they were miserable, so I became the Bliss Coach.

I took what I had learned through my own experience and taught them how to bring their passion, motivation and bliss back into their lives. I could only reach so many people in coaching or speaking, so I wrote a book called Choose Bliss. That is where I grounded this idea of bliss, where I defined what we were looking for and the specific steps on how to get there based on my experience with myself and my clients.

You know that I am a huge fan of focusing on bliss and I host the Bliss Retreat, which I’m looking forward to. For someone reading who wants more bliss and does not have it, let’s keep it out of business. We are going to go to business shortly. How do they bliss more in their life? What tips do you have for them?

I have already said that it is a choice and I know that sounds trite. We hear this all the time. I want to be clear. Learn from what has happened to me. There has been abuse and a lot of horrible things that have happened in my life. The thing that I realized is that I was not going to be able to be a happy person unless I was willing to get past that somehow. The very first thing is to understand that bliss is a choice and here is the next piece of that. We can’t control what happens out there in the world. We can’t control other people, what happens to us or what people do to us, but we must always control how we choose to respond. That is the ultimate key to living a life of bliss. That is the start. After that, we have got some techniques. There are many in the book, so take a look at it.

I do tend to agree about choosing bliss. What I also have seen and know is that for women entrepreneurs who are the women that I focus on and our key audience here, one thing that can impact your bliss is when you are struggling financially. You are concerned about whether you can pay your bills and if you can deliver what you promised to your clients because your financial situation is challenging.

People may be in that situation. What I also know about you is that you have created financial freedom for yourself. I would like to shine the spotlight a little bit on that because that is a place where you are like, “I choose bliss but if I can’t pay my bills, it is hard to keep choosing bliss for a lot of people.” Can you talk a little bit about your financial freedom journey? Let’s give some super tips to our audience.

 

That is what my TEDx is about. My TEDx is called Who is the Boss of You? It is about living a life of choice. At the age of 21, when I got out of school and looked for my first job, I was lucky enough to recognize that if I wanted to be free, marry the man that I wanted, and have the life that I wanted or be able to live in choice. I had to have the financial wherewithal to make that happen, so I wasn’t desperate to get married, get a job or sell myself into society. For me, it became this journey very early on that financial freedom was the key to my freedom and choice in life.

It is interesting because part of why TED wanted me to talk about this is because it is so controversial. People do not want to recognize that money is an important piece of freedom. It is not necessarily happiness, but freedom often leads us to happiness. Money buys us freedom. Freedom buys us choices. Choices can buy us happiness. For me, my big focus is empowering women so that they understand that they need to focus on money.

It is not the most important thing in the world but it is certainly important, and a lot of women want to ignore it or turn their back on it. They feel somehow wrong if they are focusing on the money. I will back up a little bit and say that you don’t want to be selling services to someone that they don’t need. Money is a king but money should be the thing that sets your foundation so that you can be of service in the biggest, best way possible.

For me, I found that I did that through real estate. I had my businesses and I was in corporate. My side hustle was real estate. Even in the very beginning or when I wasn’t wealthy, the one thing that I knew was I would always be okay because I had this asset. Whether the bills were bothering me or what was going on, I knew that I was always going to be okay. As that asset grew and I grew that side hustle that I paid very little attention to, the freedom came within 10 to 15 years. I knew that I would never have to worry about money, so whether I was coaching, speaking, or whatever it was that I was doing, I didn’t have to struggle to make money. I knew I was taking care of it. I could do what I felt was right and give my very best.

Freedom often leads us to happiness, but money buys us freedom. Freedom buys us choices, and choices can buy us happiness.

I want to jump back for a second, Moneeka. We need to shine the spotlight that women can make a living or a business doing what they love that may or may not be their source of wealth. I also have some real estate and I call it my old lady money because I believe that as long as I can give a talk, I can come home with clients. There may also be a day when I can’t give a talk or I don’t want to come home with clients. That is what my real estate is for. It does provide this feeling of security and the feeling of knowing that you are going to be okay financially, thus giving us more freedom. Real estate is not the only solution.

I do emphasize with my clients the importance of creating financial surplus and looking at how to create financial surplus so that they are okay with those things that are unexpected. I do feel that a lot of women who don’t value money as a high value have their attention on serving and helping, which is great. We want to be sure, though, that we were filling our cup first so we were not trying to give from an empty cup, and therefore, we can also be enjoying our journey more. What are your thoughts?

I want to highlight that. You cannot pour a cup of tea out of a pot if the pot is empty. Your life is that cup and what is inside you is the tea. You’re the pot. If you are empty, there is nothing to give. You can go out there, keep trying and pushing, but that is why we have sickness and disease, why women get very depressed and on medications because we were not taking care of ourselves. This is not just a trite talk about self-care and building yourself up. It is real. The most courageous thing that we can do is to take care of ourselves. People think it is the opposite. You take care of others and then that takes care of you.

As women, we do get so much from giving to others. It does feed us but remember, you are first because if there is nothing left in you, there is nothing left to give. It does matter financially. Part of filling yourself up is making yourself feel safe, taking care of your bills, and making sure that everything is paid so that you can be solid in the world that you are safe because that matters. Women don’t want to pay attention to that. Money has gotten a stigma. That is what I think but it’s not. It is a girl thing too. We need the money to make our lives work, safe and stable.

Moneeka, you have been kind enough over the years to support our charities through the community. We have our charities that support women and girls. You have organizations that you are involved with supporting youth and education. When we take time away from our business to do our philanthropy, we can’t do that consistently if we are struggling. One of the things that financial ease does is it gives you a choice to take some of your time and invest that time in the causes that you care about, and that has been extremely rewarding.

I remember one day I was sitting in traffic near the Bay Bridge in the Bay Area. I was high vibration blissing in my car even though I was in traffic because we had raised $10,000 for one of our charities. Another way to bliss in your life is when you are helping other people. You are not able to do that consistently when you do not have financial ease.

The other thing, though, is that during the pandemic, I haven’t been able to kiss or hug all my ladies. As a result, I have been sending them cards and note cards. We have made this bliss roll-on aromatherapy that we gave everybody. I have spent so much money on postage, and fortunately, everybody knows I have a crush on my mailman, Antonio, who gives me excellent service.

Here is the thing. You can’t do all those little special things when you are stressed financially. The other thing is it impacts your ability to think about the future and what possibilities you can create for yourself in your life when you have no resources. I love what you were saying that when you have financial freedom, it gives you a choice for your whole life. That is what we want for our audience. Moneeka, let’s talk to the audience. They are reading and saying, “I get it.” What steps do we want them to take?

 

First, decide if both of these pieces are important to you. We have been talking about bliss and wealth. It does start with a choice. Choose that it is important for you. It is a choice and it starts as simple as that. The first thing is you are going to have a relationship with the joy in your life and with money that brings you joy. That is why I call myself the Blissful Millionaire because the focus is on keeping even the conversation about money joyful. It supports all that bliss in my life not just by giving me freedom, but the actual process is a blissful one.

The next step is to find one little step in each of those areas that you can take. Don’t allow it to be overwhelming. You can eat a big chocolate cake but it takes one bite at a time. What is that bite going to be on the bliss side and also on the wealth side? Beginning steps should have something to do with your relationship, those ideas in your own life, and the role that they play for you. Make a decision, find what that first step is, and then take that first action towards achieving that first step.

You have a way of making me feel like there are so many possibilities. You have shared with our audience your phenomenal book, Choose Bliss, which I highly recommend. How can everyone connect with you? Is there any excitement that you want to share that you are up to?

Go to BlissfulInvestor.com. You will find all my books there and my show, Real Estate Investing for Women. If you are interested a little bit, peaked on that. We have a blog. You will find out all kinds of information there. I did a TED Talk called Who is the Boss of You? It is about this journey of financial freedom to creating a blissful life so you can look that up. It is on TED.com under Moneeka Sawyer. I will eventually have it loaded up on my website. That is what’s been going on.

You bliss every conversation that you are in. You bliss me out to be with you. Readers, we want you to have more bliss in your business and life. Choose bliss, get more bliss and do that through selling more, serving more, and the thing that will bliss you out the most uplifting more lives.

 

Important Links

• Caterina Rando
• Moneeka Sawyer
• Choose Bliss
• Bliss Retreat
• Who is the Boss of You?

• Real Estate Investing for Women – Moneeka Sawyer’s Podcast

 

About Caterina Rando

Caterina Rando is a master certified coach, business strategist and author of the national best-seller Learn to Power Think from Chronicle Books 2002. Caterina is also the creator of two live events, The Sought After Speaker Summit and the Business Breakthrough Summit.

 

 

 

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

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• https://blissfulinvestor.com/
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
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______________________________________

To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

To see this program in video:

Search on Roku for Real Estate Investing 4 Women or go to this link: https://blissfulinvestor.com/biroku

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

0

The Joy Of Giving With Catherine Gray – Real Estate Women

 

There is joy in giving. If you want to feel good about your own success, you need to help others. Moneeka Sawyer’s guest in this episode is Catherine Gray, the Co-Founder of She Angels Foundation. Catherine talks with Moneeka about how it’s crucial for women to get behind women and invest in one another. To prove this point, do you know that women and girls get less than 1.6% of all charitable giving? That’s why Catherine helped create the She Angels Foundation. To help women! If you want to experience the joy of giving, tune in to this episode.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Joy Of Giving With Catherine Gray

Real Estate Investing for Women

I am excited to welcome to the show our guest and a dear friend of mine, Catherine Gray. She is the Founder of She Angels Investors, a producer, author, and TEDx speaker. She is also the host of Invest in Her Podcast. Her focus is on getting women funded and she launched a new online video course called Six Ways to Fund Your Business. She is also the Cofounder of the She Angels Foundation, a nonprofit that gives grants to female foundation nonprofits that are helping women to thrive. Catherine, welcome to the show. How are you?

Moneeka, I always love your beautiful energy. Thank you for having me.

Ladies, I wanted to let you know that for about a year and a half, I have been on the advisory board with Catherine. Catherine’s one of the Founders of the She Angels Foundation. She is someone who I’m very close to and we do amazing things together. That’s why we wanted Catherine to come on the show because I wanted to emphasize that as we’re going through the holiday hustle and bustle and thinking about our families and all of those things, sometimes we get a little frustrated.

Catherine and I started with a little bit of a gripe fest. I don’t normally indulge in that but Catherine is uplifting that I felt like I could bend and she would uplift with me. Even blissful people need help. We’re going through stuff. Although the holiday is as joyous as it can be, it can bring up some stuff. I find that one of the things that help me to get out of that place is to think about giving to others. How is it that I can serve a family a little bit better?

This is one thing that Catherine and I talked about. I’m not going to be able to keep everybody happy. This is one of those seasons where everybody is as determined as me to stay happy but I can’t keep myself happy. A lot of that has to do with my mindset. I love opening presents on Christmas morning. For us, my husband has got instructions. There need to be lots of gifts under the tree. He can buy a box of pencils and wrap each pencil separately. I want lots of little gifts. That’s the fun thing for me. It’s not about the presents.

That’s the little girl in me wanting to have fun on Christmas morning. What keeps me uplifted through the whole season is thinking about how I can be of service. How can I be of service to my family? When I’m buying gifts, it’s like, “What would this person love?” It’s thinking about the best in each of the people that I love and then giving that person the best of me.

What can I get them that they would love? It doesn’t have to be expensive. I got someone pepper jelly. What is it that would make them smile? I imagine that smile. There’s that. There’s also the broader vision. How can I give to the world? You know that for me, bliss is about how I contribute to the world.

I wanted Catherine to come on because I want to focus to help everybody and on this idea of giving. Christmas is the season of giving. We get out of our way and allow joy in. That’s what this show is about. Since Catherine and I are in this foundation together and she’s the Founder, I thought there was no person better to have this conversation with than Catherine.

Women and girls get less than 1.6% of all charitable giving.

Happy holidays. We’re excited. You and I both love the holidays. I agree with you that giving can mean giving a gift but also what we’re talking about is giving something to an organization or nonprofit that’s helping somebody who’s underserved. What a great feeling that is. That’s why we launched the She Angels Foundation, which Moneeka and I are both on the board for that.

The reason that we started it is because women and girls get less than 1.6% of all charitable giving. It’s bleak. We thought, “Let’s create a foundation that we give to women and girls’ initiative.” We give to female-founded nonprofits that are helping women to thrive. Let me give you an example. We gave to an organization that helped women veterans get back on their feet. Women came back from the war and they are very underserved as getting financial and other help to get them back in the workforce. We gave it to an organization that helps that.

We gave to another one called Hope Gardens that helps women of domestic violence have a place to be housed while they are getting back on their feet. They help educate them, get a job, and get back in the game. Another one is the People’s Pottery Project. They help formerly incarcerated women that need to learn a profession. They teach them the craft of pottery making and sell the pottery on their site to employ these women to give them a future.

This is a cross-section of who we’ve given to. It’s a collective giving circle. When you become a member like we are, it’s tax-deductible. It goes to a grant that helps one of these entities that’s helping women. The fun part of it is all the members are invited to both online and offline salons with other fabulous and amazing accomplished women for free.

Once you’re a member and make your tax-deductible donation, you get to attend everything for free, collaborate with other incredible women, and be part of the check-giving for the grants’ recipients. You’re stronger when you do collective giving. When we all pool our money together, we have more money to make more of an impact than you and I writing a $100 check to some organization. We don’t see or know where it goes.

 

This way, you get to meet the recipients, hear what they’re doing with the funding, and feel like you’re a part of it. It is a magical organization. It’s SheAngelsFoundation.org for any readers there that’s a female-founded nonprofit that is helping women to soar, or if you are around the holidays or anytime during the year and you want to become a member and make a donation. Giving is one of the biggest highs that we can feel.

It has been named. It’s called the giver’s high.

It releases endorphins when you give and help other people. It’s a real thing. It’s something everybody should be partaking in during the holidays.

I want to mention a couple of other things. First of all, you can give without giving by going through AmazonSmile, because the She Angels Foundation, you can look them up and put them in as a foundation that you want to give for AmazonSmile. A portion is donated every time you make a purchase. It’s like giving on secret or blindly. As you go along, there’s this wake of giving that happens. Everybody in my world is donating to the She Angels Foundation through AmazonSmile. I love that you set that up.

That’s passive giving. Every time I make a purchase on Amazon, I do see it says you gave two She Angels Foundation. It reminds the person that a portion went to a nonprofit. It’s so cool.

When we’re doing all of our shopping, I don’t know how many people are out and about. I tend to be more of a hermit. I cocoon during December. My Christmas shopping is done but if you’re shopping online, that’s a great way to do it. We all like passive forms of dealing with money. This is a real estate show. We like passive income and can also do passive donating.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is I’ve been to several of the salons both online and in real life with the She Angels. What’s fascinating about these ladies is, first of all, they’re all very successful. You go and you have these conversations with all these women that are so much smarter than you in what they do. It’s a huge expansive experience hanging out with these ladies.

The other cool thing is that much of the time, as women that are aspiring to success or have reached a certain level of success, what we start to notice is that the people around us don’t support us in that success or they’re not happy for us. There might be some jealousy, some people making unkind comments like, “Don’t get too big for your britches,” or whatever it is that people say.

When you hang out in a community like with the She Angels, all of those women are dealing with those same things and they become successful anyway, not by stepping on others but by lifting others. You’re in a community of women that are like-minded and can help you to expand and where the conversations and the connections are magical.

Together, we raise our bliss by making contributions to uplift other women. It’s this beautiful synergy of women supporting women all the way from the top and to the people that we give money to. It’s the people that we’re giving money to who they serve. It’s indescribable until you experience it. From Catherine and Deb, Catherine’s wife, I know why it’s this way, because I know them and I know it would be this way. It’s hard to describe that until you experience it.

To feel good about your success, help others.

I would recommend that you go to SheAngelsFoundation.org and check it out and see what they’ve got. The website’s never going to produce the enthusiasm or understanding that talking to people would or anything like that but they do have salons where you can attend as a non-member for free to check it out. If you’re interested in that, you can contact Catherine or me and we can get you hooked up. This isn’t supposed to be a total sales pitch for She Angels Foundation but both Catherine and I are passionate about it, so we thought we should bring it up. Let’s move on.

It’s a gift when we get to talk about it because when people participate, it impacts their life in a beautiful way. It’s a piece of information we’re sharing and we’re saying, “This is a way to lift your soul during the holidays throughout the year and feel good about your success by helping others.”

Let’s talk specifically about funding women. This is one of those things you’re passionate about. That’s what your TEDx was about. Talk to us a little bit about what this looks like in the world, why women aren’t getting funded, and what the statistics are like.

I certainly am passionate about it, as you know. I did a TEDx Talk called Fund Women-Save The World. I do believe that by funding women, we can save the planet. Many women have the solutions for the environment, cures, and all kinds of technical innovations and they need to be funded. Why are we talking about this? It’s because just like in the charitable world, in the for-profit world, women get less than 2% of venture capital funding. This means 98% goes to men and that is mostly White men.

 

Why is that? People tend to invest in people they identify with, as I mentioned in the TED Talk. That’s because they understand better the connection that the product of someone that looks like them. That’s why it’s important that we have more women and more people of color in the investment decision-making world. What does that mean? In venture capital, young people can start studying business and say, “I’m going to go work for a venture capital firm and start from the ground up learning that exciting world of new innovations that are helping to change the world.”

 

The more women we have involved in that, moving up the ranks into the decision-making arenas of venture capital firms, the more it will level the playing field. What else can we do besides that? Every woman reading should become an Angel investor in another woman. There are many ways that you can do that. It could be as easy as a $100 donation on a crowdfunding site, such as IFundWomen or an equity crowdfunding site like Wefunder, StartEngine, and Republic, which is affiliated with SheWorx. There are many out there.

Equity crowdfunding is something new. You don’t have to be an accredited investor to invest in equity crowdfunding, which is something new since Obama signed this into law. It made it possible for smaller businesses to sell equity in their company. An accredited investor has over $1 million in assets and earns over $200,000 a year. That’s a small part of the population that used to be the only people that could invest for equity shares in a company but now that has changed. Equity crowdfunding is something that everybody should educate themselves on and jump into.

Sometimes I hear all these words and I’ve been listening to them, so I’m like, “I understand all that.” Ladies, do you know what equity an equity share is in a company? I’m sure you do. You’ve heard of it. It’s called stock. That’s how normally a layman is interested in a company but isn’t formally involved in the company. They’re not on the board, working for the company, or any of that stuff. We can invest, so we buy stock. You can buy that for very smart portions.

A lot of these smaller women-owned companies have not yet gone public. They still need funding. It used to be that as a venture capitalist, you could come in, have $100 million, invest, and have equity. Those of us that have a $100 don’t get any equity. It’s not stock, so don’t misunderstand me, but I’m going to say it as an analogy. You can buy stock in a company to help them to start and get off the ground. You in return, get a piece of that company. You might have a $100, $1,000, or $50. You can get in for any portion of a company that you believe in or a company that’s providing a service that you believe is needed in the world.

That’s what we’re talking about. Equity funding is a new way of funding for the people that don’t have a ton of money. That wasn’t available to us before. We’ve heard a little bit of this stuff like with Kickstarter, some of the others that are out there, and the crowdfunding. It’s a similar thing but with crowdfunding, you don’t usually get equity in the company.

It’s like a donation. You get swag or the product.

If you go with some of these other organizations, you get equity in the company, which means you are a piece of their growth and excitement of what they’re going to do in the world. It is exciting and fun because you’re watching them, not because you’re going to get something cool but because of the impact that you’re now making on many women’s lives.

Women tend to be more successful business owners.

If you want to play a little bigger game, more women need to be Angel investors. There are so many Angel investment companies and groups popping up all over the country, just about in every city. You can look up angel groups that focus on women and go and learn. What does it mean? How do I become an Angel investor? It’s exciting.

It can be way more profitable than investing in stocks, bonds, or things of that nature that are our typical investments. A lot of Angel investors will make 6 to 10 times their money. You could also lose your money like in any stock. You could buy a stock on the stock exchange and lose your money in that or make money on it. When you do Angel investing, you’re in on the ground floor before companies are going public.

It’s a rare opportunity. It’s where the very wealthy make a lot of money but now it’s more of an opportunity for smaller entities or people to invest $1,000, $5,000, or $20,000 as they jump into it. Don’t do it blindly. Go to an Angel investment group and learn about it. They already know how to vet the people and understand that.

I’m not saying to Angel invest in someone on the street that asks you to invest in their company but these Angel groups are wonderful. They have groups of women that are doing this and they vet it for you. You can learn and understand about how they value it, caps, and all these things that let you know if it’s a good investment. It’s an exciting world.

It’s like the new book club. Instead of getting women and reading a book, you get with a group of women, look at a pitch deck, and see all the innovations that are happening. This is one of the things I love about doing Invest in Her Podcast. Every week, I either have on women that are investing in other women or women that are looking for funding. They always have incredible, extraordinary innovations.

I’m exposed to this every week and anybody could be by being an Angel investor and joining one of these groups. You get to hear about the newest, latest innovations that are coming on the horizon that women are inventing. Without them, the world would be suffering from not having all these innovations. It’s important that women get behind women and invest in another woman.

Whenever I have a platform as I do with your show, I always say, “Everyone that’s reading, be sure that this week you go and invest in another woman, whether it’s in an Angel group if you’re a bigger investor as a venture capital partner or just $100 in an equity crowdfunding campaign.” Everyone can do this. If everyone does it, we will move the needle more quickly so that we’re getting at least 50% of all the funding and not such a small percentage. It will impact the world and you will have a part that you’re playing to solve this issue. It starts with each of us.

What’s important to remember is that so much of the time, we think, “I can’t make an impact. I’ve got $5. I can’t even make it to get enough gifts for my kids.” $5 makes a difference. A hundred thousand people getting $5 is $500,000. Don’t minimize your ability to contribute if it’s in your heart to contribute. Find it in your heart to contribute simply because then you get to have that experience of the giver’s high and understand why I call this one of the bliss practices. You can make it a part of the way that you live your life to help to up-level your bliss in your life.

Whatever it is that you have to contribute, find a place that makes your heart sing and speaks to you. Catherine and I would say to contribute to something that supports women in some way. We’d love it if you did SheAngelsFoundation.org but there are lots of different organizations that you can give to that might speak more to you.

I give a lot to She Angels. My husband gives a lot for women, specifically in our area that are victims of domestic violence. In our area, there are many women that are very wealthy that get abused and they don’t get a lot of compassion. It’s not spoken about but they still need support. My husband feels for these women. They need support and they’re not getting a lot anywhere else. He contributes locally to that organization. We’ve got our places where our heart goes to those people and it makes us feel good.

You also know that I continue to contribute to a school in India to raise the education of women and girls in the villages in India and the boys that support them. For me, it’s all about community. If a woman’s trying to rise but the men are pulling them down, it’s still a patriarchal society. The women will never rise. You got to educate everybody.

I put a lot of my time, energy, and money into an organization. SchoolOfHopeFund.com is the website. That one is where I contribute to the education of girls in India to uplift those communities. We’ve created a huge impact in those communities over the years that I’ve been contributing there. We all have our places that our hearts feel like we want to make an impact.

It’s funny that you mentioned this because we’re talking about Amazon and while Amazon is very convenient, there’s another site that I’m a big fan of called guudguuds because everything you buy on the site goes to a cause for the greater good. You might buy socks and it helps save the rain forest or you might buy a belt and it helps save the elephants. Every product you buy on that site does something for the greater good. There’s another one called TheWMarketplace. It’s all women-owned businesses so it’s women helping women. I’m a big fan of both of those.

There’s SchoolOfHopeFund.com and TheWMarketplace. There are some places to go take a look at ways that you can contribute but don’t be limited by those. Find a way to make a contribution that makes your heart sing. What Catherine and I are trying to emphasize is to make sure that we’re supporting each other as women. A friend of mine, Leeza Gibbons, has a quote that I love. She says, “Girls compete but women collaborate.” I hate to say it this way but so much of the time, we women don’t pay attention to the way that we need to support each other.

We’re focused on our children, husbands, or the men that we work for at work. A lot of the time, there are a lot more women out there at the top, fortunately. There are so many people that we’re trying to satisfy that we forget that we need to support and uplift one another. We feed each other. We’re the ones pouring tea in each other’s cups to keep ourselves uplifted and capable of continuing to give to all the people out there. Remember to support each other. We need it.

In the profit world and the nonprofit world, every woman needs to be doing something to help lift another woman, whether it’s for nonprofit or for-profit. We should be doing both. Women are very comfortable giving to a charity but women need to get more comfortable investing in another woman. Women tend to be more successful business owners, so it’s a good bet and investment. I hope we plant that message that it’s important in every way we can to be supporting other women. You and I are big believers in that. We’re big supporters of each other and there’s such magic or gratification in helping other women.

Ladies, we have more with Catherine. We’re going to be doing a deep dive on the Six Different Ways to Fund Your Business since we’re all about funding. Catherine, can you tell us a little bit high level what we’re going to be covering in EXTRA?

In EXTRA, I’m going to be talking about my eVideo online course called Six Ways to Fund Your Business. Every week, I have the honor of talking to all these different women entrepreneurs that have incredible ideas that they’re launching or businesses that they’re growing. They always want to know, “How do I launch it? How do I take it to the next level?” I’ve done all the leg work for them as to what are the various ways that you can get funded and how do you access that funding. That’s what the core Six Ways to Fund Your Business is about. That’s what we’ll be talking about.

People can find out about it on my website www.SheAngelInvestors.com and everything’s there. When you sign up, we give you a free white paper that talks about the various ways you can get funded. If you want to get the online course, it’s a deeper dive so that you learn what is the best fit for you, what are the options, and how do you access it.

Could you tell us one more time how people can get in touch with you if they’ve got questions about She Angels Foundation, the eCourse, or any of that stuff?

 

You can always reach me at [email protected] right from the website. You can go to the website and send me an email. You can also find me on LinkedIn. I’m on Instagram Catherine Gray. Invest in Her is my podcast, which you can tune into any time. Follow us there. She Angel Investors is on all the other social media like Facebook, Instagram, and @SheAngelsInvest on Twitter. We would love to connect with you online wherever you’re swimming.

This has been an amazing conversation. Thank you much for talking about this with me.

Thank you.

It’s my pleasure.

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Stay tuned for EXTRA. We’re going to be talking specifically about Six Ways to Get Funding for Your Business. It’s going to be exciting. If you are subscribed, stay tuned. If you’re not subscribed but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You get the first seven days for free. You get signed up and check things out. If you decide to stay, that’d be amazing. For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you for much for joining Catherine and me in this conversation. I wish you very happy holidays. May your heart be filled with joy, love, and laughter. I will talk to you next time.

 

Important Links

• She Angels Investors
• Invest in Her Podcast
• She Angels Foundation
• Hope Gardens
• People’s Pottery Project
• Fund Women-Save The World – TEDx Talk
• IFundWomen
• Wefunder
• StartEngine
• Republic
• SheWorx
• SchoolOfHopeFund.com
• guudguuds
• TheWMarketplace
• [email protected]
• LinkedIn – Catherine Gray
• Catherine Gray – Instagram
• Facebook – She Angel Investors
• Instagram – She Angel Investors
• @SheAngelsInvest – Twitter
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Catherine Gray

I’m Catherine Gray – a Producer, Author, TEDx Speaker, Host of www.InvestInHerPodcast.com, the Founder of www.SheAngelInvestors.com and the Co-Founder of non profit www.SheAngelsFoundation.org.

Also, I am an angel investor in several companies, a member of Wealthing VC Investment Club, and an equity crowdfunding investor too.

My focus is always on empowering female entrepreneurs. My passion is to utilize our multi media platform to fund women, to level the playing field, since women are severely underfunded- getting less that 2% of venture capital funding.

This is why I produced an e-video online course called “6 Ways to Fund Your Business” about Funding Female Founders. It can be found on our website www.SheAngelinvestors.com, along with a free download of tips on funding your business.

Also, I produce and host a popular podcast series called INVEST IN HER, to discuss ways to accelerate the funding of women, and provide resources and inspiration to our listeners. We feature both female founders and funders! It is distributed on Apple, Spotify, IHeart and wherever you listen to podcasts.

She Angels is my multi-media platform that creates everything from films and shows, to game-changing events to empower women, plus informative and compelling podcasts, and more.

In my past, I am so grateful and proud to have produced several award-winning films including the very first documentary film about gay marriage called ‘I Can’t Marry You,’ narrated by Ellen DeGeneres’s mom Betty, which aired on PBS in more than 60 cities nationwide. Also, I co-produced several documentary films for the LOGO network. That led me to start my own production company called Showbiz Shorts aka Corp Shorts, and eventually 360 Karma Productions- before launching SHE ANGEL INVESTORS.

As the top producer in the country in cable television advertising in Miami for 15 years, I left the position to become Vice President of Advertising for the first ever gay cable network and decided from that day forward, all of my ventures would be working on projects for the greater good.

My favorite quote is from Mahatma Gandhi “Happiness Is When What You Think, What You Say, and What You Do Are In Complete Harmony.” I also believe the quote of the Dalai Lama, “The Western Women will save the world”!

 

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Top Investing Strategies For This New Market With Dwan Bent-Twyford

 

The pandemic caused a lot of suffering in most business industries, and so much transition happened. But we’re all figuring out a way to survive. So, tune into this episode to learn the secrets to success amidst adversities. Moneeka Sawyer talks with Dwan Bent-Twyford on the top investing strategies in the new real estate market. Dwan is affectionately known as the Queen of Short Sales and the nation’s number one expert on short sales and foreclosures. Her goal is to help and make a difference in people’s lives. She shares about taking the initiative, sending your message across, and staying persistent in what you want to achieve. She also shares the importance of self-care and healthy routines.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Top Investing Strategies For This New Market With Dwan Bent-Twyford

Real Estate Investing For Women

In this episode, I’m excited to welcome to the show Dwan Bent-Twyford. She started as a broke single mom who had been fired from Denny’s. She now heads up Investor’s Edge University, a company that specializes in training new and seasoned investors in a wide range of real estate investing techniques through live workshops, weekly webinars and other stuff. Having flipped over 2,000 deals herself, she is more than qualified to share her vast knowledge of real estate investing with America.

She is affectionately known as the Queen of Short Sales and is considered to be the nation’s number one expert on short sales and foreclosures. She has written three bestsellers, Short-Sale Pre-Foreclosure Investing and How to Sell a House When It‘s Worth Less Than the Mortgage. Her most recent New York Times Best Seller was written with Steve Forbes, SuccessOnomics. Her goal never changes. It’s always to make a difference in the lives of others. Dwan, welcome to the show.

I’m excited. I’m happy to be here.

We had so much fun on your show. I have been looking forward to this conversation forever.

When you were on my show, it was so great.

Forbearance has caused millions of people to inadvertently find themselves in foreclosure right now.

Ladies, her show was supposed to be an hour. We were on for 1 hour and 15 minutes. We were both like, “We can’t stop talking.”

Everyone listened. It got a lot of hits and people loved it.

I’m glad to hear that. I’m always happy to offer my experience and wisdom. Now, it is all about you. Dwan, tell us your amazing getting started story because I love it.

It’s funny when I think about getting fired from Denny’s because I used to work the third shift. I worked from 10:00 at night until 6:00 in the morning. It was in Fort Lauderdale and it was what they call the Big Denny’s, which is all the nightclubs were around there. People came in at night. I knew a lot of people that were in the bar business and different things. Once in a while, I would maybe have a drink or something with one of my people and probably does something I shouldn’t have done.

They had transferred this daytime manager. She was in trouble for something. She got to transfer to the nighttime. She hated the nighttime people because she was like that 5:00 AM, getting people their breakfast in the one door. She hated all the loud and the people that came in at night. One night, I might have had a drink or two at work. She had said something to me and I pat her back pretty solid. At 3:45 in the morning, I got fired.

I remember looking back and thinking, “Who gets fired at 3:45 in the morning? What is that about?” In hindsight, getting fired from Denny’s was super embarrassing. I’m not against anyone out there that works at Denny’s. I worked there for a long time. I still love those Grand Slams but I thought, “How on Earth am I fired from a job like that?” As it turned out, in my twenties, I was fired from a lot of jobs. You can look at all your friends, you know what all their problems are and you can tell them how to solve all the problems. I was that person.

I would work for a company and go, “If you would do this and this, your company would be so much better to the owners of the company.” Many people did not appreciate me telling them how they could do a way better job but they were listening to this young twenty-year-old girl that had blonde hair, big Madonna perm and not taking me seriously. I got fired from a couple of jobs for faffing, back-talking and giving my opinion too often and too freely. I’m an entrepreneur inside. I just didn’t know it yet.

Tell us about the real estate story.

I was in my late twenties. I got married. I had a baby. I was 30 years old. In my mind, I thought this was my prince charming. I was going to stay home, raise kids and be the Girl Scout mom, homeroom mom and cookie mom. That was where my head was at. I remember my daughter was only eight months old when we separated unexpectedly. He took the car and the money and cleaned out the bank. It was gone. All of a sudden, I was like, “I have this eight-month-old baby and I have no job. Now, I have no husband.” It squelched my thought of what I thought I would do. It was smashed in one swoop.

There’s this term where people say they have a come-to-Jesus moment where something bad happens in your life. You only have to look hard and make a decision that could be life-changing. I was 30 years old. My daughter was little and I was like, “I still want to do those things. I want to be the homeroom mom, cookie mom and field trip mom. How do I make that happen because I have been fired from ten jobs?” I thought, “I could work for myself. I could take all those opinions I have had and put them to use but I didn’t have any skills and I didn’t know what to do.” That was my big dilemma.

As I was going out looking for jobs and something to do, I ran across some guys that were investors. They said to me, “We buy houses. We fix them up and we sell them.” Because I know nothing about real estate, investing or anything, my mind here was, “We’ll buy houses. We decorate and then we sell them.” I thought, “I can decorate. I have excellent taste. I will buy, decorate and sell them.” As you know, rehabbing and decorating are not remotely the same thing. I think this much but I didn’t know that.

I honestly think partially being so naive was a blessing for me because if I had truly understood rehabbing, the depths of it and what it would entail, I’m not sure I would have had the guts to do it. For me, personally, being naive was one of my greatest blessings because I didn’t know what I was getting into but once I was in it, I was like, “I have to make this happen.” I rehabbed this house. I took classes at Home Depot because I didn’t know how to do things.

I made $22,000 on my first house and I thought, “I was in this house. I worked in this house. My daughter was with me. I made $22,000. This is the greatest thing in the world. I’m going to do it again.” Many years later, here I am. I got this house. I ordered a carpet. I knew how to paint so I painted the house. Back then, people made a lot of custom-made blinds. I put in the plants and dealt with stuff. I can remember looking at the kitchen going, “That avocado kitchen and the yellow appliances, I don’t know who is going to buy the cabinets.” I thought, “Who is going to buy this house?” I said, “I need to fix that but I didn’t know how.”

I had been to Home Depot a lot buying some things and the guys were like, “You should take some of the classes.” I was like, “What classes?” They go, “On Saturdays, we do these classes.” I was like, “Okay.” My first class was how to lay a tile. I thought, “The kitchen and the bathrooms need tiling. This is a good class for me.” I measured the kitchen. This was a one-hour class. When I was done, I said to the guy, “These are the dimensions of the kitchen. I need the tile, the grout and the spaces for this much.”

I went back in all my excitement and tiled an entire kitchen. Later, I thought, “I should have started with the bathroom or something smaller, the whole kitchen.” I had to take some of it up. It wasn’t even. It was my first time. I remember looking at the bathroom and thinking, “I should have started in a smaller space but at this point, it was done.” When it was done, I thought, “It looks pretty good. I’ll pat myself right there.” There I went and I started learning how to fix things.

After all this time, you have been in the market for a long time. The market is a little strange now. Talk to me a little bit about what you see happening in the market now.

Grow your own wealth so that you can do more good in the world because if you don’t have wealth, you can’t do as much.

The big thing is everybody had that giant forbearance agreement since March of 2020. We’re rolling up on the end of 2021 but there are millions of people who have not been able to make their mortgage payments. One of the biggest things is when you listen, the banks and the people in the media use the word forbearance specifically and most people don’t understand what a forbearance agreement is. When you’re on a forbearance agreement, the bank may say, “At the end of the time, we’ll put your payments on the back. We’ll take your late payments, divide them up over two years and add them to your payments.”

It’s not like a loan modification where you make a couple of payments and you’re out of foreclosure. People have been moving along in the foreclosure process, even though banks weren’t allowed to go to a foreclosure sale. Forbearance has caused millions of people to inadvertently find themselves in foreclosure now because they are not able to put eighteen payments on the back. People who were behind before didn’t qualify so they are at the door of the foreclosure sale now. It has made for interesting real estate investing time.

One of the things that I’m a big fan of is creative financing. I’m a very big subject to person. If they have a large amount of equity, I will partner with homeowners like that. I wholesale and rehab. Even rehabbing is tough now because all the supplies cost so much money. Plywood is $100 a board. I feel like creative financing is the place that people need to be coming out of COVID, moving forward and trying to get back on track with their mortgage payments.

 

My daughter was door-knocking in Denver and she met this young girl who was 27. She has $20,000 behind. The banks said they were going to put the payments on the back. They have been trying for a month and they haven’t done it yet. She got a foreclosure notice. This is a young 27-year-old girl. Her dreams are crushed because the banks didn’t do it.

They never said they put them on the back. They said they put people in forbearance. As soon as I heard the word forbearance, I was like, “This is going to be a wicked disaster. When this ends, this is going to be bad for people.” I told everyone I know and every student I have, “Do not miss your payments. I don’t care. Do not because when it’s all said and done, it’s going to be a disaster,” which is turning into as we speak.

It’s hard because people don’t understand. There was so much transition happening even with the banks. The government was not taking care of the banks. The banks were trying to figure it out and survive themselves. It’s not that I’m saying the banks are good. What I’m saying is that there was pain all the way from the top because the government was trying to take care of certain people but it wasn’t taking care of the entire supply chain. In the banking industry, there was a lot of suffering. Now, it gets spread out to everybody. It’s not like the intention was that way but that’s how it was working out because it was unprecedented. We have never seen anything like this.

I have never even in my wildest dreams imagined something like this could happen.

Now, the banks are trying to figure it out. They are scrambling too but we get caught in the shuffle. Unfortunately, I also see a lot of painfulness happening for the people that didn’t pay their mortgages.

I understand a lot of people live paycheck-to-paycheck. When they had no paycheck and they were getting unemployed but it wasn’t enough, people had to buy food and keep the lights on. They have to keep on the power. People had to focus, “I have to eat and feed my kids and family. I need these things.” People are like, “The government is letting me not pay. It’s good.” Now that it’s done, like this young 27-year-old girl, she says like, “I don’t know what to do. I owe $20,000. They won’t put it on the bank. They said they would. They haven’t. I’m arguing. I hired an attorney.”

This person’s life is completely upside down. I met a lot of people that had more money who were able to stay on track and keep their payments a lot. It’s always the middle or lower-class people that get hurt by all these government decisions. It’s sad because those are the people that end up in foreclosure the most to start with. It’s a snowball and it’s getting bigger.

We don’t know if those things hadn’t happened, what would have happened either. I do want to say because I feel like we have gone down a rabbit hole and it feels bad. Ladies, I want you to know this. If you’re one of the ladies that is in this situation that Dwan and I are talking about or end up having to deal with foreclosure, please understand that it turns your world upside down. It is not the end of the world. Every successful person has had huge setbacks. It does not end your life. It does not define who you are. It is simply a circumstance now.

We get paid for the problems that we solve.  So, if you are solving a foreclosure problem, there is nothing wrong with making twenty-five or $30,000.

For those of you that are part of the suffering, I’m sorry. Let me know how I can help. Understand that it’s part of our journey. Please stay with us. Don’t leave us. For those of us that are not there but are looking at what Dwan is saying as far as strategies, you can help people get out of that foreclosure situation. You can help them get out of trouble and pain by some of these strategies that Dwan is talking about, which is why I’m excited to be talking to her about it because I’m starting to see it.

We’re at the end of 2021. 2022 is starting and this is when it’s going to hit hard because as the foreclosures are coming, they don’t hit the markets for 3, 4 or 6 months. That’s when you finally discover, “This is what it really was.” What Dwan is going to be talking about is how we can help those people get out of trouble so that they don’t have to suffer that pain. You should get paid for doing good work in the world.

It’s okay for you to get paid to help them. You help them and grow your own wealth so that you can do more good in the world because if you don’t have wealth, you can’t do as much in the world. That’s part of the way that I set up my life too. The wealth is a piece of the goodness that I can provide. It amplifies all that goodness. I want to move forward from that because I felt like we were going down this rabbit hole.

When I went through my divorce, I lost the house in foreclosure and I had my car repossessed. I know how these people feel because I have no husband, car, house and money. I was like, “I have a baby.” I get the winning ticket right there. Part of what made me be successful and helped me was, everyone I met, I was like, “I know exactly how you feel.” My foreclosure working in that space became more about helping people than how much money I could make because I know if I help people and do good, the money will come.

Another thing I want women, men and everyone to understand is we get paid for the problems that we solve. If you are solving a foreclosure problem, there is nothing wrong with making $25,000 or $30,000. If you are mowing someone’s yard, you are probably making $100 a month. What you and I do and a lot of your readers and my readers is we solve some people’s biggest problem they’ll ever have, which is losing their home. There’s no shame in making money doing that because the person that we help gets a fresh start.

They will eventually own a home again and their life will get better. They will always remember how Dwan and Moneeka helped them move out of this tragic situation and get a fresh start. They will look back on us. It’s like, “Those were angels that God sent to me to help me start over.” People don’t need to feel guilty about making money for what we do because if we don’t help them, they are going to lose their house. They are going to get kicked out and it’s going to be a mess.

Thank you for that one. I have been uber lucky and I’m super conservative on so many levels. I haven’t had to suffer through those particular challenges but I have had many people in my life that have and I have had my own set of challenges. Understand that Dwan knows where you’re coming from and I understand the challenge. That’s another reason why I wanted Dwan to talk to you about these strategies because she has been on the other side. When she comes to the table to teach about this, she comes from a broader perspective than a lot of people.

I always say, “Your mess becomes your message.” If you have gone through something, it gives you a message for other people to try to help them maybe not go through it or help them out of it.

In this market, let’s talk about your top three strategies that you love. I want to move into doing a little bit more of a deep dive on sub-tos. When we talk about it, people are like, “What is a sub-to?” We do need to break down what those titles mean too.

My top three things, one is doing short sales because the banks have millions of properties that people aren’t making payments on. Some people owe what their house is worth. The market is coming to you all. It will correct itself and the prices will go down. A short sale is the homeowner is in trouble. They contact you and reach out to you. You’re like, “I’m going to help you out but you owe what your house is worth.” You negotiate with the bank to take less as a full payoff. You might find a $200,000 house. The bank will take $100,000 as full payment. Now, as an investor, you can rehab it, keep it for a rental or wholesale it but the homeowner gets the fresh start.

I trademarked the term short sales back in the ’90s as it applies to real estate investing. I also trademarked the Queen of Short Sales. It’s not to brag but I wrote the very first short sale home study program for real estate investors. I’m excited that I helped start the industry. Short sales are great but they are not an exit strategy. You still have to get rid of the house. I’m not a big fan at this very moment of rehabbing and things that a lot of people will want to do because the prices of all the supplies have gone up so much. It kills your profit margin.

 

I’m a big fan of rentals and a lot of people are not going to like this because they don’t understand it. I’m a big fan of the Section 8 Program. All my rentals are Section 8. To summarize in a sentence, what it is designed for is for these single women that have multiple kids. The program was designed to pay their rent. They go to college, get a degree and get a job. The government takes a piece of their paycheck and matches it and they get an FHA house. They get guaranteed to buy a home at the end of the program.

There are women in the Section 8 Program, which is government-subsidized housing, that is using it properly. There are lifers that their whole life, the mom, dad and their kids all live on government subsidy for life. I don’t rent to people like that but I rent to the ones that are in the program going to college. When they are done, they buy a house. What better thing than to help a single mom with multiple children get out of poverty and get their family out of poverty.

During all of COVID, when people weren’t paying rent, Section 8 paid that the first of the month was an automatic deposit. I never missed a rent payment. I’m not being like, “I don’t know those people.” If you understand it, it’s a great way to help people. We’re mostly helping women. In all my twenty years, I only had one male tenant. They were all women. I’m a big fan of rentals that way because if there’s ever another rental moratorium and people don’t have to pay rent, landlords go bankrupt because they can’t make their payments and then I’m huge on subject tos.

The quick version is a homeowner is in distress. They don’t know what they want. They want to walk away at this point. They don’t know what to do. They deed the house to us. Now, we own the property. We can rent it out or owner-finance it to somebody else. We’re there on the mortgage. We’re on the title and ownership side. They deed the house through us. We take it subject to the existing mortgage and then we turn around.

I personally owner-financed mine back out. I do owner refinancing, which you and I are going to be talking about coming up soon. In owner financing, that is the person that wants home ownership again but maybe they can’t qualify for a bank loan because they had a blip like COVID or a health issue. The bank says, “I can’t give you money.” I look at their credit and I’m like, “You had a blip and you paid. You deserve a chance.” I give people a chance for homeownership again. When I think about it, I’m trying to help everybody. Every single math that I do is to help somebody to get back on their feet.

Your mask becomes your message.

Is subject to legal in all states in the United States?

It is. The number one question when you tell something about subject tos is they go, “What about the due-on-sale clause?” Everybody says that. In my twenty years and my hundreds of subject tos, I have done close to 500 subject tos. No bank has ever said, “You’re making the mortgage payments on time. They were not on time and now they are. I want the house back.” It doesn’t happen like that.

The thing is, investors are like, “I heard about this subject to. The bank could take the house from you,” but it doesn’t happen. The homeowners have not been making payments for maybe a year and all of a sudden, those payments are coming in every time. The bank only cares about the money. They don’t care where it comes from. I have never even known of an investor to have a bank called a due-on-sale clause.

The homeowners deed the house to me. My name is on the deed. They are on the mortgage. At some point, you want to refinance them off. I sell the house to somebody else and help them fix their credit. In a few years’ time, they can refinance the house and own it completely by themselves. This other homeowner that is always on time with payments, all of a sudden, their credit got better and I made money in the meantime. On an average subject to house that appears to have no equity, it is not uncommon to make $50,000. Subject tos are a lot of money.

I have heard a lot about subject to myself. I had a couple of people on the show that have talked about subject to. I’m excited because I have been trying to get some of them back. Let’s talk about this again. This is the thing. We are all out there educating and we’re doing the business. I don’t deal with anybody who is not in it because they need to know what’s going on in the current market. Many of my contacts were like, “We’re doing the thing. We’re not teaching.” I’m glad that we’re getting to talk about this.

What I want to do is talk about a webinar that Dwan and I are going to do. This is funny because we didn’t decide on this before we got online and then I got so excited. I was like, “Let’s do a webinar.” First of all, ladies, here are a couple of things that you need to know. Dwan and I are doing a webinar on January 6th, 2022, at 5:00 PM Pacific time. To get more information, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/dwan. Dwan, tell us about what you’re going to cover in the webinar.

I get so excited when I can do a subject to webinar because a lot of people don’t understand it. When you understand it, it is one of the greatest ways to make money. You’re helping the original homeowner restore their credit and you’re helping the new person be able to own a home again. What I’m going to teach is I’m going to show a couple of ways to find deals because you have to find a deal.

I’m going to show people an actual case study, how I found the house, what they owed, what their interest rate was, what their payment was, how we structured and owner financing. I’m going to show exactly how to do that owner financing. I also have a five-year guide to show you. One a month, I’ll say, “You make this bunch per month. In year two, you add. Over the course of five years, you can make about $1.2 million doing one little tiny deal a month, which is easy to do.”

I’m going to show people how to become millionaires. It’s a perfect formula and it works 100% of the time. I have done close to 500 of them and they have all been amazing. I love the homeowner and the tenant. I’m happy to structure this deal. It’s not even hard to do. It’s a matter of having the right paperwork and knowing how to structure the deal so that everything is above board and legal and somebody won’t come back and say, “I didn’t understand.” Everybody gets it. I’m excited to do a webinar with you. I feel so honored.

Ladies, Dwan tries to keep her separate webinar to an hour but we can’t stop talking to each other. Allow 90 minutes and then we’ll do Q&A.

I try to keep it to 1 hour and 15 minutes because I know people are busy but it is a great topic. I honestly believe that creative financing will be the powerhouse of 2022. I’ll even send a couple of little videos out with some, “I’m going to teach you this and this,” so they can get excited about all the things that they are going to learn.

Ladies, if you’re not on my list yet and would like to get reminders, please make sure that you go to BlissfulInvestor.com. Sign up at the very top. There’s an opt-in for my download, which is my favorite strategy. You can opt into that and then you get onto my list. In that way, you’ll get updates on when these things are happening. Go there and sign up for the opt-in so that you can get the reminders too.

We’re going to start everyone off with such a bang. They are going to be like, “I cannot believe that there are these many deals and so much stuff out there. This is the best January ever.”

Dwan, we need to get moving over to EXTRA. We have got three rapid-fire questions before we move to the next show. Before we do that, I do want to let the ladies know what we’re talking about in EXTRA. We’re talking quite a lot about how women treat women. As we’re moving into 2022, there’s so much that has changed in our worlds and lives. One of the things that I would like to see change and I’m already seeing it is how women lift each other up. I find that successful women, we have already learned that it’s a necessity and women have to move towards that.

 

I remember a friend of mine. Her name is Leeza Gibbons. She said to me once, “Girls compete. Women collaborate.” Dwan and I were having this phenomenal conversation about women and how we treat each other and how we each see things. It might give you a little bit of perspective on your own life and who you’re hanging out with and help you to start engaging with people that will be more uplifting and you’ll also be an uplifter for them. We’re going to be talking about that in EXTRA. Stay tuned for that. Dwan, give us one super tip on getting started in real estate investing.

To get started, you need to find someone that you feel like you’re on the same moral compass with them and maybe you learn and listen and not try to wing out as I did. I was a trial and error for a decade. Go in with some knowledge but pay attention to who you listen to and make sure they are a real estate investor, not a marketer. Shiny objects don’t make you any money.

Tell us one strategy for being successful as a real estate investor.

Honestly, it’s perseverance. I started many years ago and there were very few women in the industry and hardly any women teaching, for sure. If I had let all the people, naysayers and voices that I heard around me affect me, I would never have stayed true to the path. Cut out the negativity and noise. Focus on your path, stay persistent and success will come to you.

What would you say is one daily practice that you do that contributes to your personal success?

It’s probably not even a success practice. When I get up in the morning, I take care of myself first. I drink my water, take my collagen, eat and do all those things to take care of myself. Whereas I used to open my eyes, grab my phone and get on it. What happens is the day gets away from you. It’s noon, you haven’t even eaten yet and you’re starving. I wake up and in the first two hours of the day, I only take care of myself. Some people go, “It’s selfish to spend so much time on yourself.” If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care and help others.

I learned I got to take care of myself to help everybody else. Women feel guilty about that because they got to get the kids to school and make breakfast. They don’t feel like they have time to take care of themselves especially women. We need to realize that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t take care of everybody else. I faithfully, every morning, do my routines before anything happens.

I don’t know if you have noticed this, ladies. A lot of successful people say this.

For the record, I’m not that person that says, “Get up at 5:00 AM and do all this stuff.” Every person I have interviewed is like, “I get up at 4:00 or 5:00.” I’m like, “I wake up at 7:30.” I don’t even set the alarm. I woke up at 8:30. I was like, “I needed the extra sleep.” I’m not like, “Get up at 5:00 AM, be the early bird and get the worm.” I’m like, “If that’s the case, don’t be the worm.” Somewhere along the way, you have to put self-care and make it a priority because trying to run a successful business is difficult. It’s mentally and physically challenging. It’s exciting but if you’re not up for it, it’s draining and dragging and it’s not fun.

Thank you so much for all that you have offered on this portion of the show, Dwan. This has been so much fun.

I appreciate you having me on, Moneeka. I have looked forward to this for months. I’m so excited to be on talking to you and all your successful women.

Ladies, we got more. We’re going to be talking about uplifting other women in EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. There’s more to come. If you are not, please subscribe at RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You get the first seven days for free. Check it out and then you can stay subscribed or not. For those of you that are leaving Dwan and I, thank you so much for joining us. You know how much I appreciate you. I hope you have a lovely week. I will talk to you soon. Take care.

 

Important Links

• Investor’s Edge University
• Short-Sale Pre-Foreclosure Investing
• How to Sell a House When It’s Worth Less Than the Mortgage
• SuccessOnomics
• Show – Moneeka Sawyer – Inside The Minds of Today’s Millionaires
• BlissfulInvestor.com/Dwan
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Dwan Bent-Twyford

Dwan is known as the “Queen of Short Sales”® and is considered to be the Nation’s #1 Expert on Short Sales & Foreclosures. She has written two best sellers, “Short Sale Pre-Foreclosure Investing” & “How to Sell a House When It’s Worth Less Than the Mortgage”. She is highly sought after and has been featured on Fox and Friends, MSNBC, Naomi’s Good Morning, Colorado and Company, and many other TV, radio, and print medias.

In addition to being the Nation’s #1 real estate investing expert, she is a Christian, mother, wife, financial counselor for her church, and a corporate sponsor of Orrin Hudson’s “Be Someone” nonprofit organization – a program designed to keep kids off the streets by teaching them to play chess.

Her goal never changes – to make a difference in the lives of others! God Bless…

 

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