Moneeka Sawyer

Author Archives: Moneeka Sawyer

Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet.   She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market.  Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress. While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years. She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books "Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment" and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.” Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod,  and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.

Get Some Perspective on the Real Estate Market Now with Maureen McCann

REW 10 | Real Estate Market Perspective

 

There are a lot of contradicting perspectives about the real estate market right now. Which of them should you believe? In this episode, Moneeka Sawyer is joined by Maureen McCann, VP of Sales and Marketing at Spartan Invest, as they give an updated real estate market perspective and the realities of what’s going on out there. Where is the market headed and will this be a good time to invest? They talk about what you may anticipate moving forward and what could be the best strategy to use in this market. Maureen and Moneeka get into a more in depth discussion of the real estate market and what was seen from the previous crash that is not evident with our current pandemic situation.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Get Some Perspective on the Real Estate Market Now with Maureen McCann

Have you been interested in investing in real estate, but nothing you’ve looked at so far looks blissful? If so, I totally understand. That’s why I’d like to introduce you to Maureen McCann at Spartan Invest. At Spartan Invest, they strive to identify real estate assets which will offer viable investment options with exceptional rates of return. They do the work for you. They locate, purchase and rehab the property, then find and manage the tenants. You simply invest in a turnkey property and monitor your investments from the comfort of your own home. What could be more blissful than that? If you would like to find out more, go to www.SpartanInvest.com/Investing4Women or email Maureen directly at [email protected]. Let her know I sent you.

I am excited to welcome back to our show my dear friend, Maureen McCann. She’s been on the show several times before. We were on a conversation on the phone talking about the realities of what’s going on in the real estate market and all the mixed messaging that’s out there. We decided we were going to chat with you guys on our perspective of what’s happening in the real estate and what we might be able to anticipate. For those of you who have not met Maureen, let me go ahead and read her bio so you have a little bit of background on her. Maureen is the Cofounder and Principal Owner of Spartan Invest and operates as a VP of Sales and Marketing for this boutique-type real estate investment company. Spartan Invest is a small real estate investment company that specializes in providing investors turnkey real estate from monthly passive residual income.

Maureen brings with her years of sales and marketing experience in the turnkey marketplace. Having served as an investment property coach for years, Maureen is skilled in helping clients build turnkey cashflow portfolios for her clients. Maureen has helped hundreds of investors build the type of rental portfolios necessary to receive short-term and long-term monthly passive income goals. Investing in turnkey real estate for long-term wealth generation is something Maureen understands intimately. Whether clients want to replace their income with passive income or clients are simply looking to supplement their retirement, Maureen can custom design the right portfolio with the right end goal in mind. Maureen, welcome back to this show.

Moneeka, it is good to be here. There is a lot to talk about in this episode.

When I’m out there, I’m listening to a lot of different podcasts to hear what everybody’s saying, and we’re getting exact opposite predictions, ideas and stats. There’s no way to know who’s going to be right. Predictions are predictions. Sometimes they’re based on stats, but you can see, we can get stats from all different places to support our predictions. I thought that it would be valuable for us to talk about our perspective. Ladies, the thing that I want you to know, and this is something that I stay aware of is someone is going to be right but we don’t know who it is.

Maureen and I are not here to make predictions. We’re here to give you a bird’s eye view of how we are looking at the market and what kinds of investing strategies we’re making. Whatever it’s worth, you can follow us or not. If you will take it as perspective and take pieces of it, that’s great. Understand that we’re not trying to be predictive and tell you what to do. We’re giving you our perspective. Is that fair?

That’s fair for me.

When you tune out, you realize that life is not as horrible or as doom and gloom as they want you to believe. Share on X

Maureen, we are in different markets as far as where we’re investing. You had some great information on some studying that you had done. Why don’t we start there? Why don’t you tell us what you’re seeing out there in the world?

On the ground level, it’s important to share what is happening in the real estate investment world in the market that I know that I do business within and live and breathe every day. That’s not going to be the same for every single market. However, a lot of the other turnkey operators that I spoke with, they have all said similar things. Even amongst a pandemic and the high unemployment numbers, you would then think that there is going to be an exorbitant amount of people that are not able to pay their rent. I do recognize that there is going to be a certain percentage of people, whether it’s their homeowners struggling to pay their mortgage because they got laid off or furloughed, or it’s renters that are not able to pay their rent because of the same reasons. Every market is different. There are some markets that the overall GDP of the area is predominated or predicated. It is dominated by a certain industry.

Las Vegas comes to mind so as Orlando, Florida. These are markets that have high travel tourism, hospitality-based economy. They’re the ones that are going to be more affected and more exposed to a pandemic like this. It’s not anything related to any precondition in the economy. It was simply you have to close your businesses down. Prior to that initiative of the shelter in place and all businesses stop, the economy was warring. The fundamentals are there and in my opinion, they’re still there. They didn’t go away. It would only close your doors until we figure out what’s going on here so we can blunt the curve and prevent the local hospitals from being overwhelmed.

You’ve got markets that are exposed to the effects of COVID and then you have others that are insulated. What you were talking about earlier is that there are all of these varying opinions and it makes sense because it’s probably locality-based. It’s probably what they see in their own backyard. This is where sharing what it is that I see in my backyard, what you see in your backyard might be different and can be contrasting, but it’s also market-based. It’s not overall. A lot of times, you hear something or you see a headline and you make a generalization. This is the human mind. You make the generalization that it’s the entire market. It’s not like that. Luckily, I can share that the markets that I’m in. These are not Birmingham and Huntsville, Alabama. People are not clamoring to get on planes to go vacation and sip martinis by the pool in one of these markets. That’s not what we do.

It is a more industrial base. It’s healthcare, manufacturing, trade utilities, banking, finance, technology, aerospace engineering. There was some good news that we had a rocket that went up into space. The Dragon made it up into the space. We’ve got two new astronauts up there doing some work at the space station. That was super big news. A lot of that effort and work came out of Huntsville because Huntsville is an aerospace engineering type of market. What’s relevant for the readers is, number one, turn off the news. That’s first and foremost. Please do yourself that favor because I’m going to admit. When this COVID thing first hit, I was absorbed and consumed in watching it. I noticed my entire brain circuitry was firing on all negatives. I was feeling down, blue, despair and heartache.

You have to remember that those news outlets are all about sensationalizing headlines to drive traffic, to get ratings, to monetize their stations. There’s nothing wrong with it. You have the choice to either tune in or tune out. When you tune out, you don’t realize that life is not as horrible or as dooming gloom as they want you to believe that it is because they want your attention. We have so much grasping for our attention that the most sensational headline is going to win. They know it because that’s how our minds go. It’s like when you see a headline, you go, “I want to know what happened right there,” and then you’re off track. You lose focus.

I’ve been telling people from the beginning is that there are things you need to know and understand that the news is another tool to help to keep you informed. The problem is that most people use it as a tool to get them depressed. They get them freak out. You are not using it as a tool that supports you. I’m telling everybody is to get relevant information from news sources that you trust. Give them ten minutes of your time, get your executive summary, move on with your life and live in the life that’s happening rather than the life that they’re talking about. There are many interesting stories or curiosities. Most of that is designed to create an emotional response. When you’re talking about negative things, the emotional response they’re going to get from you is a negative response. You need to manage that.

REW 10 | Real Estate Market Perspective

Real Estate Market Perspective: There are businesses that have had to pivot. The strategic savvy business owners and leaders recognize that.

 

This is one of our bliss practices, you manage what’s coming in. I’m telling everybody all the time to be aware, vigilant, but stay positive. You have control over that. I’m glad that you mentioned that, Maureen. It’s such a big key to staying on top of this. With the pandemic, your immune system is your best friend. If you are watching the news and make yourself depressed, upset, angry, and hyper reacting, your immune system drops and it makes you more susceptible. In a very selfish way, it’s important that you keep your eyes off the news that’s not supporting you. Use it as a tool that’s there for you to keep you safe.

For ten minutes, get your executive summary checkout, get back and check into your life because as soon as I implemented that practice. For me, life was normal. I was like, “Let’s keep going. Nothing was stopping me.” That’s how I’ve been operating ever since. The world has responded in kind. What’s important here in this interview is that there are businesses and people that are thriving through the pandemic. There are others that are suffering. There are businesses that have had to pivot the strategic savvy business owners and leaders. When they recognize that their doors have to be closed for a particular length of time, for a particular reason, some of them are sitting idle and they may not open back up. Others are pivoting and figuring out ways they can still provide value without having to interact. I can give you an example, my nail salon.

They couldn’t open their doors for business, but what they did do was they pivoted. They got creative and then they home-delivered your nail kit. The clippers, the nail files, the gel and stuff that you needed to do your nails. If you couldn’t do them yourself, go into the salon. They were like, “We’ll give you all the materials.” They’re going to charge you. They should because they’re a business owner trying to stay in business. This is a business that you supported and loved and kept going to whatever it is, donut shop, nail salon. Anything that you support locally, they’re trying to find a way to pivot to still serve you and provide value to you, support them.

Whether it’s a pandemic or the 2008 global financial crisis. I was not in real estate in 9/11, but you’ve got this major life and this writing this situation that’s going on. All of these major things are going on and it is true. There are businesses that are going to thrive and those that are going to suffer. The ones that suffer if they don’t pivot will go out of business. The ones that pivot will stay in business and find new ways of doing things. They are finding new ways to serve the community that they went into business or in the first place.

Talk to me a little bit about how that’s affecting your market. Are you seeing that a lot of the fear is that real estate prices are going down, people aren’t paying rent, landlords are suffering? This is what we’re hearing in the news, but what’s happening? I’ll give you my perspective, but I know that you manage many properties. I want to hear what you’ve got going on over there.

We do have 1,200 doors under management. With the biggest question that we were getting from everybody, including ourselves in mid-March 2020 when the shelter in place orders came in, we thought, “How many of our residents are negatively impacted financially by COVID?” You don’t know at that particular moment, but it’s going to show up through the percent of the rent collected. That’s when you know. Luckily for us, the shelter in place orders across the nation, we want it to be placed about mid-March. We had already had the majority of the rent collected on those 1,200 doors. We had seen that it didn’t affect us in March. I will give you a metric. Internally, at the end of 30 days, we look at the percent of rent that’s uncollected. There’s always a certain percentage and you want to keep it under 5%. That means if you got 95% of the rent for the month, you are doing great. The lates and stragglers always happen. That’s part of the business. They’ll eventually catch up, but there’s always a certain percentage of the rent that’s uncollected at the end of the month. In April 2020, it went to 7%. There is only a small uptick. We did an initiative where we sent out a survey to all of the residents.

We said, “Raise your hand if you’ve been negatively affected by COVID and you’ve lost your job. Let us know. We want to help.” Out of the 1,200 doors, we’ve got 224 responses. Only nine were able to support with documentation that they were laid off. Maybe there were some opportunists in there not blame them. That’s all right. Everyone’s got hustle, but you’ve got to supply the documentation. Out of the nine, they legitimately lost their jobs. We help them relocate and to find other jobs. We’ve redirected their attention to find other jobs. We sent out an incentive to say, “If you pay your rent on time in April, then we’ll deduct $75 off your rent.” We had 79% of the rent collected by the fourth day of the month that told us that the majority of our residents were still being paid. They were still employed. Our investors were protected. The asset was protected. The debt service would be covered for those investors that leverage their properties.

There's opportunity in everything, everywhere, all the time. It's just your perspective. Share on X

We knew at that point, we were in good shape. May, the same thing. We have a lot of the rent collected in the high 90%. This is market-based though. If we were in Vegas and I’m not there, but I’m making an assumption. Las Vegas is a place that is hospitality, travel, leisure-based predominantly. No one’s coming to see shows in Birmingham, Alabama or Huntsville, but they are in Vegas. Those are residents living there that the stimulus money is going to carry them for months, but they’ve got to get those doors open as soon as the people can resume work and get back to work.

We’re not going to have the same housing problem that we did in 2008. The fundamentals behind me saying that number one is we didn’t have the predatory lending or the subprime loans for people that didn’t qualify were able to get into homes that they can’t afford. The rates adjusted, the payments went up and then they couldn’t make the payments. That is not the situation here. Sixty percent of US homeowners have 58% equity in their properties. You don’t have that situation.

There’s a majority of homeowners that have equity in their homes. You can access the equity to cover any costs or any delay in employment that will cover you. My advice to readers is trying to get access to your equity now is probably challenging for you because you have to wait in line. Many of these lenders, especially in the single-family space, they’re still liquid. They still have capital. They’re still lending. I know the commercial space is a little different. I’d love to hear if you’ve got any insight on that or what you’ve been hearing. Most of that commercial side is private lending. You’ve got equity groups and things that are lending to buy these big buildings. That I’ve heard through the CEO of CoreVest that has been stalled a bit.

There is free-flowing capital in the banks for them to lend to buy a single-family, but they are servicing those primary homeowners that want to buy a home first. If you want to refi, you’re in line. You’re second. In a situation like this, if you have equity in your home pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, any time, it’s important to have access to it. Get the line, have it available to you so that if you need it, you have it at your fingertips versus trying to go get it when everyone else is scrambling.

I want to get a little clarity around that because this is a question that a lot of people ask me. Is it getting an equity loan or an equity line? Let me clarify what those two things are. Both of those are the second loan that goes behind your first mortgage. Your first mortgage is probably how you buy your house. The second is going to go behind your first, which is why it’s called a second. If you do a loan or if you refinance and take a cash-out to get some of that equity, you start paying interest immediately on that lump sum of cash that’s given to you. If you do an equity line, it’s like getting a credit card that secured on your home, which means the rate’s going to be low. It’s going to be closer to 3%, 4% or 5%, but you don’t pay anything on it until you start utilizing that money.

I want to add this because this is the stuff that I’ve been saying daily with investors is that there is an opportunity in everything everywhere, all the time. It’s your perspective. You could use this opportunity to contract in fear and then do nothing. I think about the people back in 2008. If you have listened to the headlines, what’s contradictory is that headlines, news media outlets, it was like a global financial meltdown. Everything is closing. The global economy is collapsing. I remember hearing those words and yet my phone was ringing incessantly for people looking to invest in real estate. What they knew with those investors knew then and what I know now with 100% certainty is that real estate is not necessarily recession-proof like it’s bulletproof, but it has certainly shown that it is recession-resistant.

Even during recessions, it has increased in value. Three out of the last five recessions real estate has improved. It has increased in value. There is much literature now circulating that world economists, global economists, companies like JP Morgan, Wells Fargo are talking about how real estate is going to lead us out of this recession. There are two thoughts I have here. Number one, in 2008, we all realized that the US housing market drives the economy. It does because we all saw those little derivatives were packaged up and those mortgage-backed securities were set and sold around the world.

REW 10 | Real Estate Market Perspective

Real Estate Market Perspective: Real estate is not necessarily recession proof but it has certainly shown that it is recession resistant.

 

The whole world felt it when the US real estate market not collapse and everyone’s panicking. Does that not tell you how important the US real estate is to the world economy? Let’s fast forward. We have the lowest interest rates that we have ever seen in investment loans. Prior to 2008, these loans were 7%, 8% to 9%. We are talking about 30-year money is cheap. It is under 5%. You’re at 3.375 to 4.25. It fluctuates around every day, but you can lock into 30-year cheap money and get higher cashflow for the next 30 years because you locked into a low-interest rate. Your cashflow to a premium income generating property is dependent on the interest rate you lock-in and the rent that you receive.

If you can get higher rent and a low-interest rate, your cashflow is going to be high for 30 years. This pandemic will be here now. It’s probably going to be here a year from now. We have some vaccines, better testing, better ways of preventing this from spreading. It’s short-lived, whether that’s 1 or 2 years compared to the opportunity to invest in real estate that has been shown to be recession-resistant and to still increase in value even during strange times like these days. It’s not a sales pitch. It’s not me saying, “Buy a product.” It’s pointing out to you, the investor, the reader, the seeker of knowledge, how do you make sense in a world that is having contrasting views on all types of things? Moneeka and I are here to share what we see in our backyards because we are in real estate 24/7.

This is the other key important point too is that there are basic things that we all need as humans. We need food. Our grocery stores are crushing it as far as their shareholders are probably happy because sales are through the roof. They’re doing well because you realize that’s essential. Housing is essential. No matter what is happening 9/11, 2008 global financial meltdown, a pandemic, you still need a place to live and you will figure it out. You, personally, your renters, your tenants, your residents will figure it out too. They will figure out a way to pay because they need shelter. I would love to get your input on this too to see if you’ve got any input on the multiunit space.

I’ve listened to a few panel discussions where they’ve had single-family people on there with multifamily people and then build-to-rent people. When you have to live at home, work from home, study from home, space becomes a big commodity. If you’re living in a big box city or in a high-density city like New York, or you’re living in a high-density building like a multiunit, and everyone is home all at the same time, 24/7 for weeks, people are getting on each other’s nerves. It’s the truth. They want more space. They want to get out of those high-density places and live in more spacious accommodations. Hence, the reason we have been busy because you get stimulus money. These are people that are probably still working.

The first stimulus package was, if you make $75,000 or less, you’re going to get a check for $1,200 per adult, per household and you’re going to get $500 per child per household. If you have a family of 4, 2 adults, 2 kids, you’re looking at almost $4,000 coming to you and you’re still working. Does that give you enough money to move out of a box? It does. Hence, it’s the reason our leasing phones have been ringing. I have a 98.4% occupancy rate now. It’s the highest it’s ever been. That’s crazy during the middle of a pandemic. That’s real data. That’s not me. When something like this happens, you’re trying to figure out what is going on. It makes sense that if you’ve got people in high-density residences that are living on top of each other and you work, live, and study from home and you now need more space, you’re going to go find it. Especially if you’ve got stimulus money, or even people are still getting income tax returns, their checks. All of a sudden, you’ve got thousands of dollars. Now you can move. I’ve talked to other operators like me, who I’m friends with and the same thing’s happening for them too.

I live in a condominium complex myself. There are 45 units. We’re all on top of each other. I’m hearing this also. I completely support what you were saying, Maureen, is that the single-family home is like magic now. People are coveting that space. It has always been that way that the single-family home is a foundational thing in our society. It’s something that provides more of what we want in our homes than any other form of housing. It’s why that market is stable and reliable. Even in my own condo complex, we have a lot of retired people and we have a lot of young families. We’re all going up and down the elevators together.

The older people are scared because younger people are not wearing masks. They’re not at risk. They go into these elevators in these compact little spaces and they’re spreading their germs. The older people on the fourth floor or whatever have to take those elevators down because they can’t walk down the stairs. You’re seeing in real life how this plays out in a time like this. What happens is people say, “I don’t ever want to be at risk like that again. I want more room for my children. I don’t want to be around germs of younger people. I want to be safe in a place that feels more protected.” I do also see that the single-family market has continued to go up. From my perspective, if you look at housing prices, the days on market is longer because people are having trouble going in and seeing places.

When others are fearful, be greedy. When others are greedy, be fearful. Share on X

It takes longer to shop, but prices are still either stable or a little bit up. If you look at high density, we are seeing that the prices are going a little bit down. They’re still not plummeting but you definitely see a gap between the single-family and the high density. This is the thing that I want everybody to take in from what Maureen and I are saying. Use your common sense. Let’s talk about common sense investing. There are lots of ways to make exciting money in real estate. The true blissful way is to take a look at what makes sense and invest in that way because that’s going to be less stressful. It’s like the stock market. If you invest in something that’s exciting and is going to gain 100% in three days, it also can lose that much. It’s the same in real estate. If you’re going for exciting investments, you might make a lot more money, but when things go bad, they go bad. The thing to do is take a look at what makes sense in your communities. I can tell you what makes sense in my community. Prices have stabilized. They’re still high. In lending, the conforming loans, what is it over there for you in Alabama? What’s conforming to you?

There’s the jumbo.

What is the basic conforming for Fannie and Freddie?

I’ll speak to the investors, like $150,000.

In California, basic standard-conforming is $510,000. We then have large conforming, which goes to $765,000. After that, it’s called jumbo and max jumbo. Those are the tiers of lending. Everybody is able to get a conforming loan because they’re backed by the government. They’re backed by Fannie and Freddie. They’re still lending. They’re still giving you great rates. They’re still not charging you a lot of points. Even for us, if we go into large conforming, rates skyrocket. The rate goes up by at least 1.5. The points go up by at least 2 to 3 points. Points are what you pay upfront to get that loan. It’s harder to get those larger loans, but conforming is backed by the government so it’s easier to get.

I’m shopping and every property that I’m looking at is $1 million. I can’t get the loan that I want. The best that I could probably do with what I want to pay is $510,000. What does that say to me? My market is not the market for me to be investing in. However, it is a good time to be investing in a market where the loans can be Fannie and Freddie backed, they’re conforming. I might look, for instance, at Maureen’s market or several other markets around the country that are giving you cashflow that you can still get loans on those properties in conforming pricing. Take a look around, things may not be exactly what they have always been, but there are still opportunities. I wouldn’t sit back and say, “Everything is horrible because of what you’re seeing in your backyard.” I can’t afford housing in my backyard now, but I probably will in a couple of years. What I want to do is I want to buy something. Look at what’s happening and make common-sense decisions. In the end, it’s these common-sense decisions that continue to rise because they are resilient. They make sense and people need those homes.

You made me think of a client that I talked with. I won’t give his last name, but let’s keep him anonymous. He called me and he was super gung ho. He’s like, “Maureen, I’m ready to buy.” I was showing him some properties and then I got an email from him. He’s like, “I talked to my CPA, my financial advisor. They told me to sit back, to stop what I was doing and to wait and see.” I had to word it eloquently. I wanted to tell him that that was dumb advice from his CPA and his financial advisor. I get his perspective. The readers might be thinking, “She’s a salesperson. She’s trying to sell something because she needs a commission so that she can pay for her house or whatever.” It’s like, what was more important to me was to take some advice from someone that’s a billionaire like Warren Buffet, who said, “When others are fearful, be greedy. When others are greedy, be fearful.”

REW 10 | Real Estate Market Perspective

Real Estate Market Perspective: Recognize that there is still good and there is still opportunity. There is still ways to profit in real estate.

 

There are times where it’s going to flip flop. We are in a time of fear that is being perpetuated through news outlets and social media sites because it catches attention and headlines. When someone has a net worth in the billions of dollars, they have a mindset and experience that commands them to be able to say what it is they say. We, the layperson, who’s not the billionaire has to look at that and say, “Why is he saying that? Why does Warren Buffett say, “Be greedy when others are fearful?” It’s because of this. I was able to convince Vignette to move forward with the purchase and not listen to and ignore the advice of people that he’s paying to provide him a service. They were doing him a disservice because they were not giving him the correct information, in my opinion. They are telling him to sit on the sidelines, wait and see, for what? Until the interest rates rise and then you miss locking in the 30-year rate that you wait for the inventory dwindling? They let you get the leftovers of what other people pick through because they were the savvy investors that were jumping and that recognized the opportunity versus the ones that are going to go, “I’ll jump in after it’s late and the interest rates are higher. I’ve got to pick out what’s been picked over already.”

I was able to have a conversation with him. He used common sense. I wrote this email to him. I supported it with some documentation. There was a cover story on the Wall Street Journal about how real estate is going to lift us out of the recession. I sent that to him. There’s a blog called Keeping Current Matters. They talked about how real estate is positioned to bring us out of the recession. I sent him the information and I was eloquent in my, “Don’t listen to your CPA and your financial advisor. They’re not giving you good advice.” He thought about it and he came back two days later and said, “You’re right. I’m going to continue on with my investment strategy.”

I was like, “Good for you for not listening. Don’t be a sheeple. Don’t listen to what other people do and follow blindly. Use your thinking brain and not other people’s thinking brain to make decisions for you.” Does it feel like on a guttural level? The information I shared was through The Economist and through JP Morgan Chase and those types. They were talking about real estate and what it was going to do for us here and the economy. I shared it and I was like, “Make your own decision for yourself. Don’t listen to the sheeple.”

We all have a team of people that advise us on how to do the very best that we can in life and our CPA is very definitively one of those people. Think about what the CPA is an expert. They are an expert at crunching numbers and staying conservative. They are not real estate investors, most of them. Some of them are, mine is real estate investor and he is successful at it so you take his advice. If he’s an accountant and his first knee jerk reaction is to keep you safe, that’s awesome. He has a good intention, but he’s not educated to give you advice in real estate. You get advice in real estate from people that are successful in real estate. You want to make sure that they’re successful in real estate through good times and bad times. Not people that are flying high because they took a bunch of risks at a time when the market was going up like the last years. You want to make sure that you’re taking advice from people that understand how markets move, understand how resilient real estate is in the right markets.

If you do your homework, never take advice for someone who is not where you want to be. When you’re taking advice, make sure it’s someone whose shoes you want to walk in one day. When taking real estate advice, you take it from someone that can give you good advice based on their experience. Sometimes your CPA is that person. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes it is your lawyer, your title company or your real estate agent. There are many people that you have access to the place where your smarts come in is choosing the people for who you’re going to take advice for what? In this particular case, a CPA wasn’t the best person to give him advice. You, Maureen, have been in this business. You’ve written a couple of cycles. You’ve seen what’s happening out there because you manage 1,200 doors. Your advice in that situation is much more relevant. It doesn’t mean that anybody is wrong or right. It means what’s more relevant and what’s going to benefit you more.

At that time, I thought if he or anyone says, “I’m going to sit on the sidelines and wait and see,” I recognize that they’re missing an opportunity to lock-in to low rates and high cashflow for years to come. I know it’s going to benefit him. I knew at that moment when I got that email from him, whether it was him or representative of others that are contracting and sitting on the sideline. I realized that it is about showing them the opportunity that exists and to push out all of the noise that scares them into inaction. Take the action because it is going to benefit you and your family for generations in a beneficial way. When you’re passionate about something and you know that what you do in real estate helps investors build the wealth and the legacy that they want. Sometimes, you’ve got to help them get the fear out of the way and get them to see and to think with their own mind. Not with the mind of the collective sensationalists in the news media rooms trying to buy for attention and to still recognize that there is still good and there is still opportunity. There are still ways to profit in real estate. We can say you and I have lived through a pandemic. You and I lived through the 2008 global financial meltdown. Real estate has been in both of those. Now, I can see it thrives real estate, the lending, the predatory lending, subprime loans, packaging up of the derivatives, and then those sold globally, that was a systemic problem. Not necessarily real estate-related but lending related.

In 2008, when the banks had to repossess all those properties, who came in and saved the day? It’s the real estate investor. What happened to them? I would love it to find a bunch of investors in 2008 that bought as many single-family rental properties as they could. In February of 2010, Warren Buffett said that the best strategy at that point was to buy as many single-family rental properties as you possibly could manage and buy them. My business exploded after that comment that he made and it’s still been going. He recognized them that single-family rental properties in 2008, you could get them for percent pennies on the dollar. The banks wanted to get rid of them. The banks were lending money cheaply to get them off the books because they had many of them. If you bought and invested in many single-families in 2008, I would love to see where they are in 2020, what their net worth is, with all of the assets that they were able to purchase at deep discounts. Everyone thinks we’re going to be at deep discounts now. No, it’s not the environment.

Don't just listen to what other people do, use your thinking brain. Share on X

There will never be another 2008, 2009 type of environment. I’m glad because that was painful for a lot of people. Maureen, taking action is such a big topic. We’ve talked about what the market is going to do. What I would like to do is do a show for the next episode to talk about the rate of return, why it’s important and how to take action. I always say at the end of every show to take action, but people still don’t know how to do that. They don’t have enough information to keep them motivated, inspired, to do some of those things that are uncomfortable in the very beginning. Maureen, let’s have a conversation about creating a rate of return and wealth through real estate in the next episode. Does that sound fun?

I’m in. I got some good stuff for your readers there. They’ve got a tune in because when I break this down, there are five basic ways that real estate pays you. There are more than five, but I’m going to give you the five basic ways. When you know that and you understand those, more of you are going to want to invest in real estate because it is such a long-term filter. When it pays you multiple ways, I’m going to show the formula to you and how it works.

Remember, if you do your homework and you get in markets where there are still jobs and there’s some stability, you will see that real estate is resilient. That’s what I want to let everybody know. The economy could always prove me wrong, but in my opinion, there’s never a bad time to buy real estate. I want to close with a little bit of a story around that. I bought a property before the crash in January of 2001. The market plummeted. I also bought my dream $1 million home in 2008 September and within six months lost 50% of the value of my home.

That sucks, but the thing is that you don’t lose money until you sell. You can see it in my free report. I put it out there. I’m transparent. I’m not worth $10 million like if I had time the market perfectly and paid perfect attention as if anybody can do that anyway. I still have seen steady growth and resilience in my portfolio to where I have enough millions of dollars that I could retire. I made bad decisions. I should’ve known better. The point isn’t that don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s not what I’m trying to say. What I’m trying to say is you don’t need to be perfect to make money in real estate. You do need to use your mind, get some good resources of people that you can listen to that are where you want to be, and start to take action. The markets are resilient and we will see that again. That’s what I want to leave you with. We’re going to move on to the next episode, which I’m excited about. Maureen, thank you for joining me for this portion of the show.

I always love being on your show and contributing to your readers. I love where your heart is. It’s all about contributing and helping people. Helping women in real estate become those mega mobile #BossLadies that make money in real estate because they need leadership and the how-to, and you provide that. That’s why I love coming to your show.

Thank you. I appreciate all the wisdom you offer the ladies. I feel like together we’re powerhouses and that’s fun. Ladies, be sure and tune in for the next episode. Until then, always remember goals without action are just dreams. Get out there. We’ll teach you how to take some action and create a life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.

Here’s something you individually can do to create peace. That’s as simple as pressing play, get the download from PeaceAndHarmonyDownload.com and be a peace hero. Create your own pocket of peace around you so there are fewer family squabbles and more harmony in your life.

 

Important Links

 

About Maureen McCann

REW 10 | Real Estate Market PerspectiveMaureen McCann joined Spartan Invest in April of 2014. As the VP of Sales and Marketing, Maureen brings with her 6 years of sales and marketing experience in the turn-key marketplace. Having served as an Investment Property coach for years, Maureen is skilled at helping clients build turn-key cash flow portfolios for her clients; she has helped hundreds of investors build the type of rental portfolios necessary to reach their short-term and long-term monthly passive income goals. Investing in turn-key real estate for long term wealth generation is something Maureen understands intimately.

Whether clients want to replace their current income with passive income or are simply looking to supplement their retirement, Maureen can help design the right portfolio with the right end goal in mind. With an incredible work ethic and unquenchable thirst for knowledge, she helps provide a peace of mind experience through investing in premium income-generating properties. She spends time coaching her clients on the wealth building principles that will help her clients and their families protect their capital and mitigate the loss of their capital while investing in real estate. When you are looking for a trusted, reliable, knowledgeable consultant to assist you with building your real estate portfolio, Maureen is the best in the business.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:

Get Out Of Your Own Way – Release the Imposter Syndrome with James Robilotta

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

 

Get out of your own way. What is your “I’m not ___ enough?” In this episode, James Robilotta, author and entrepreneur, joins Moneeka Sawyer as he shares his story of authenticity and vulnerability and why you should release the imposter syndrome. James and Moneeka talk about recognizing patterns inside yourself, the way you think about yourself, and how are you effectively shaming yourself. Get to know the fears that are holding you back and are hindering you to take action. Not only does James define the imposter syndrome, but he also talks about how to change the way you speak about yourself and become an advocate for yourself and not just accommodate.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Get Out Of Your Own Way – Release the Imposter Syndrome with James Robilotta

I am excited to welcome to our show, James Robilotta. He is an author speaker, coach and entrepreneur. His book is titled Leading Imperfectly. He speaks internationally to willing and unwilling attendees about authenticity and vulnerability in leadership and life. His clients include Amex, GE and others. He’s also an experienced stand-up and improv comedian. James is also a personal coach. He loves helping people get out of their own way to live the lives they deserve and be the leaders they are capable of becoming. His clients undergo purposeful life-changing and self-affirming transformations. His clientele ranges from CEOs to college students. James, welcome to the show.

What’s up, Moneeka? How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

I’m chilling. I’m doing well. Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

I’m excited to have you here too. Could you tell us a little bit about who you are? Tell us a little bit about your story.

I’m a born and raised a New Yorker. I am a professional speaker. I travel around the country to talk about authenticity, vulnerability and the stories that we write. That’s what I get to do and I love what I get to do. Interestingly enough, I majored in Marine Biology in college and promptly put that to good use by getting a Master’s in Counseling. Apparently, I was putting too many jokes in my scientific papers. I worked in the field of higher education for a while, developing student leaders and professional leaders on college campuses.

I went to a conference one time and presented a session to share some ideas with my colleagues. Somebody came up to me afterwards and asked me how much I charge. I said, “With all due respect, who are you talking to?” That’s not what I was there for. I got my first paid speech because he bought me lunch and away we went from there. I’ve been on my own since. I started speaking in 2011. It was a side hustle for a few years and then became the main hustle, so we’re out here. That’s what I do now.

I met James at the New Media Summit. I went to this conference and met some amazing speakers. I’m bringing many of them to you. The reason that I was attracted to James was his power on the stage but also his personal power. How is this relevant in real estate? You can imagine that creating that power can help you to move forward in your business. I don’t know if you’ve heard this but when people are at a funeral, most of them would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. Public speaking is a scary thing. One of the things to become an effective and powerful speaker like James is to develop the ability to recognize your fear, step past it, and to be your best self no matter what. I feel like he brings that skill to his world and I wanted him to bring that to our world. That’s why I invited him on the show and we’ve got some good stuff to share. Talk to me first about recognizing patterns inside of yourself and how you think about yourself.

You are the person that kicks yourself in the butt, that pushes you off the ledge to figure out if you can do it. Share on X

We as humans are pattern generators. Whether we recognize it or not, our brains are equipped to write patterns over and over again. Think about the patterns that you don’t even have to think about anymore. For example, if I told you that I want you to brush your teeth with your other hand, that would take you way longer and you’d probably drop the toothpaste in the sink. Fortunately, our brain has developed a pattern. We can brush our teeth even in the morning haze and fog. We don’t even have to worry about it. Our brain knows. If I told you to eat your cereal with your other hand and all of these things. We have all these patterns inside of us that we don’t recognize.

We also have patterns of thoughts. A lot of people, myself included, I should on myself a lot. I don’t know if any of you out there should on yourself, “I should do this. I should do that. I should listen to this webinar.” We get caught into it. We’re caught in these patterns of when we should on ourselves, it’s effectively shaming ourselves because we’re saying, “I’m not enough. I should do this.” What are the patterns of thought that you were in that you don’t recognize either or you just trained yourself? Those are the kinds of patterns that I love to explore with people because some of those patterns serve us, but many of them don’t serve us. That’s an interesting thing to explore.

One of the patterns that happen in real estate is we should on ourselves. It happens a lot with me and I’m sure it happens with a lot of the ladies. Also in that, “I should be doing this to improve my business.” Some of that stuff that we end up getting into the pattern of doing is, “I’m going to listen to another podcast. I’m going to get another course. I’m going to listen to another mentor.” We’re in the pattern of learning is action, which it is, but it’s not the action that’s going to move the needle.

Moving our patterns from “I should do this” because that’s not what I want people to do, but to naturally move into, “I know enough and it’s time to take action. This is what I want to do and this is what it looks like so that I can move the needle.” In other words, buy a property or get your financing. Do those things rather than talking, learning, and thinking about it. It’s so much easier to be in the pattern of learning. It’s so much more fun. The pattern of taking further action is another step and it’s sometimes hard to get there. What I would like to do is talk a little bit about fear and how that plays into wanting to take action but not doing it or not taking that next step.

You hit the nail on the head. It was beautifully said because many of your audience, myself included, were entrepreneurs. How long did we have the idea before we did something about it and before we believed that maybe we deserved it or that we earned it? Those kinds of weird things. It’s like, “I’ve taken enough courses. I’ve clicked on enough links.” There’s no magical point where all of a sudden someone hands you a pair of wings and you’re like, “Congratulations. You may now fly, entrepreneur.”

You are the person that kicks yourself in the butt that pushes you off the ledge to figure out if you can do it. Hopefully, you have people around you that love you and care about you. Maybe it also looks like saving that is a net for you to potentially fall and you never fall that far, but you’ve got to fall a little while because this is scary. I love it. There’s a lot of fear of falling and a fear of failing. That’s a big thing. One of the biggest fears that I notice people have said when it comes to going on a new business venture is they say, “Once I get blank, then I can blank.”

We are the people that build those roadblocks. We are the people that say, “This needs to happen before I can do this.” There are very few things that need to happen before you can achieve what you want to achieve. Chances are you put it there, not anyone else. Don’t get me wrong. If you want to be a doctor, I’m going to need you to get your MD first, but that’s not what we’re talking about. There are pieces of information that you need to know, but the barrier of entry is not as high as we make it out to be.

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome: They say fake it till you make it but if all you ever do is fake it, you never really make it.

 

Let’s talk a little bit about that. If you’re want to be a doctor, you need to get your MD. There are millions of doctors out there in the world that got their MD, but there are at least 3, 4, 5 or 10 times that are investing in real estate. Many of those doctors are investing in real estate. This process of real estate is the most intuitive investing you can do on the planet. I say this all the time on my show, “We’ve been doing this since the beginning of the time and the end of time.” In the old days, it used to be the lords that had the land and the peasants that wanted it. We’ve always wanted land. We’ve always wanted a space where we have a footprint that’s our home. We’ve always needed places to live.

This is the single most intuitive, stable, and safe investment you can do. Yet, because of all the classes, the options, and the things you can read and listen to, we complicate it. We turn it into something that is not intuitive and that we need to know a ton about it. There are some things that we need and we can then move forward and learn along the way. That’s how most people do it. It is important to understand that there are pieces you need to learn, but there are huge teams of people out there that can help you. Nothing happens until you take action and you don’t need an MD on this. You don’t need to study for eight years and then go into an internship for this. This is an intuitive strategy that you can plug into your life as is.

Many of us say, “I’m not blank enough. I’m not business savvy enough. I don’t understand finances enough. I’m not a business person. I’m not a head person, I’m a heart person. I’m not this or that.” Whenever we start to do those things of, “I’m not blank enough,” those are the times where we take ourselves out of the game before we even let ourselves play it. We don’t even let ourselves show up at the stadium. A quick story for me, even just a small example. Despite being the charismatic, wonderful, and extroverted man that I am, when I first went to college, I didn’t interact with a lot of people. I was like, “Let me not sit down next to these random groups of people at the dining hall. Let me not sit next to these individuals in the coffee shop that I recognize from class.” I was like, “James, you’re not cool enough. You’re not funny enough. You’re not smart enough. You’re not hot enough. You’re not rich enough.” I missed community building where the places where the audience is telling themselves, “I’m not blank enough,” and they’re not even letting themselves get in the game.

It’s such a good point, “I’m not blank enough.” Ladies, think about that. What is your, “I’m not blank enough?” I will say that I’m not blank enough for me is I’m not smart enough. I went to UC Berkeley but my husband went to Stanford. His whole family thought that Stanford was way superior and let me know about it. My parents thought that Stanford was better. Somehow, this person that was a valedictorian and at the very top of my school with a 4.5 is not smart enough. It’s interesting because it was something that I put so much value on.

Part of what attracted me to my husband was that he was “smarter than me.” In other words, we expanded one another. Suddenly, it became a story for me that I’m not smart enough because I’m not as smart as him, which is not true. He’ll say it all the time but it became my story. I find that even now as I’m talking to many of my guests or I’m looking at other opportunities in the market, I still come up with I’m not smart enough. It is interesting because I’ve been in this business for many years. I know what I’m talking about and I still have that.

For ladies, what is your, “I’m not blank enough?” Let’s figure out how you can readjust that to support yourself more. Let’s also talk a little bit about the imposter syndrome because this is relevant and related. For me, I’m not smart enough but I’m showing up out there in the world as being smart and knowing my stuff. I feel there’s this dichotomy. I’m split because I don’t feel it but I’m acting it. It’s not fully true but that’s how things work for a lot of us. Could you talk a little more about that?

I love to talk about the idea of punching imposter syndrome in the face because it’s something that holds a lot of us back. We don’t even recognize it or name it as such. As an example to help people land the plane a little bit, I had an opportunity to speak to a bunch of doctoral wielding professors at a university. I do not have a doctorate. I’ve been to a doctor but that’s about as close as I’ve gotten. To your Stanford-Cal analogy, I have my Master’s but they have their doctorate. There was this thing when I walked in. I’m like, “I’m not smart enough to talk to these people. I should be the one in the audience and they should be lecturing to me. What are you even doing here? Why are you in this space?”

The barrier to entry is not as high as you make it out to be. Share on X

It’s interesting because we all know the phrase, “Fake it until you make it.” If all you ever do is fake it, you never really make it. There has to be a place in our lives where we recognize that you indeed have something to add. You have a value-add in every room that you walk into. The relationship that you were talking about, Moneeka, what you have added to your husband goes far beyond your already impressive Cal degree. Let’s not slap on Cal. It’s one of the top twenty schools in the world. What you bring to that relationship maybe isn’t measurable by the intelligence standards that we’ve been taught of like SAT scores and things like that. For imposter syndrome, getting over that involves realizing, “I’m bringing something to the room that I could add to these individuals.”

Those professors in my example are smarter than me. They’ve done way more research than me. They probably did better in school than me, but I’m better at engaging people than they are. I’m better at making people realize that sometimes it’s the story behind the facts that makes the fact more sticky, not just the research. It’s that relatability versus credibility argument. There’s a lot of power in relatability and that’s what I brought to the room. That’s what I’m talking about here. We need to punch imposter syndrome in the face because we’re not even letting ourselves get recognized with the beauty that we bring to the table.

I love the way that you say, “The beauty that we bring to the table.” We might have people where their “I’m not” is “I’m not financially savvy enough. I’m not a business person enough.” I understand that those pieces can be learned. Being successful in school is a skill and can be learned. Some of us have a predisposition with talents and stuff that make us better at some things than at others. Because we’re not one thing or we believe one thing, does not mean that that’s something that has to hold you back. It may not even be true. All of those smart people are probably not going to be as engaging on stage, which is why you’re the guy on stage.

One of the things that you said is, “I’m a heart person, not a head person.” In real estate, being a heart person is so valuable because nobody else is out there speaking or negotiating with tenants and landlords from the heart. It’s all about the dollars. It’s hard and clinical. It doesn’t have any feeling to it. If you’re a heart person and you bring that, you can learn that other piece or hire somebody else to do it. Instead of, “I’m not blank enough,” focus more on “I am this or that. That’s what I bring to the table.” How can I now make that the focus of how I’m going to move forward? I want to do my business in a way that highlights that rather than trying to start a business based on what I’m afraid I can’t do.

I completely agree with you and the way that you put it was beautiful. I have a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology. I have a Master’s in Counseling but I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a businessman or a business human. I consider Shark Tank to be the closest thing to business I know anything about. That’s where I’m getting my “MBA.” Thanks, Mark Cuban, but I still like to tell people I’m in the business of relationships. That’s something that when you hear or think about business, you think about the hard things. You don’t think about the soft and the heart of it. The fact that we are exceptional at making people feel like you’re selling homes to people in real estate. Whether that home is in work like this is a place where you’re trying to build a community to foster the growth of a product and corporate real estate, or a physical home where someone is going to live and grow. What a thing to sell. Isn’t a relationship the best way to sell that?

I love one of these things that you say, “Move from accommodator to advocate.” Talk to me a little bit more about that. We’re already sort of, “How can I be an advocate for myself?” Much of the time, we are taught to accept ourselves but we’re not taught about how to be an advocate for ourselves. Could you talk to us about that from your own perspective?

I’d even add one step even before accommodator. We have a lot of apologizers out there. We apologize a lot for ourselves, then we become accommodators where we concede a lot, and then we become advocates for ourselves. Unfortunately, because of a lot of societal BS, women are taught to apologize for themselves and that is hot garbage. Where are the places where women can feel more confident to advocate for themselves because their voice is maybe more important at the table? It’s recognizing when you fall asleep at night, you know if you fall asleep proud or ashamed. We all fall asleep on that spectrum at various points.

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

Leading Imperfectly: The value of being authentic for leaders, professionals, and human beings

It’s not just because I checked all the boxes on my to-do list. It’s more of like, “I upheld my character. I upheld my value.” When we advocate for ourselves, we recognize that I am smart enough. I am trained enough. I am the right person to be in this space right now. That is a beautiful thing to know. It’s hard to get to but it’s important because when we don’t, instead we accommodate it to others. We let others walk all over us. There are all these contingencies and all these whatever. Having that confidence in, “I know my stuff and I know I’m doing the right thing here by you,” is also important in sales and we know that.

You said something I’ve never heard before, which is a woman saying, “My voice is more important at this table.” A lot of times what you hear in women’s circles and conversation is, “I’m important too. I have a right to speak too.” What about, “I am the smartest person in the room and they need to hear what I have to say?” How many times have we as women heard that? You said it, “I’m important. I am the person that should be speaking.” It’s not just, “I’m important too, but I am the most important.” Not to be egotistical about this, ladies. I’m not saying go out there and start being egotistical. I do think that so much of the time when we are the smartest person in the room, we still will not allow ourselves to be the smartest person in the room. We’re afraid of how it’s going to look.

There are gentle and beautiful ways that we can stand up and be the smartest person in the room without putting anybody else down because I know that’s important to us. It’s recognizing that you are and that’s great and that your voice is important. It’s not just it’s important too, but it is important as it is. It’s important for us to recognize who we are in a room and be honest about it to ourselves. We don’t benefit ourselves, our businesses or the people around us by shrinking back from our own mastery. It’s our mastery that’s going to help to improve the world through our businesses.

When we make ourselves a little bit smaller, we are accommodating to other’s insecurities. I know that this space is male-dominated. Correct me if I’m wrong, I haven’t done all my statistics. In a male-dominated space, male insecurities are not the things that you need to accommodate. In general, our insecurities are always things that we need to be aware of. Being aware is kindness. It allows us to come up with a new approach, but that approach does not have to be accommodating. That approach means we’ve got to try a slightly different size peg to get it in the right hole, but it doesn’t look like you are accommodating.

When I lived in France, it was important for me to say hello in French to get the conversation going. When you notice somebody’s insecurities, starting to speak their language, you’re still going to say what you need to say. Whether I’m speaking in French to the French or in English to the English or in Hindi to the Indians, no matter what language I’m speaking, I still have to say what I want to say. I’m speaking it in a language that they understand because they’re not fluent in English. This is the same thing. You don’t want to necessarily accommodate but you want to be respectful, kind, generous, compassionate and notice. Those are the sort of things but it’s important to not shrink back who you are.

You deserve to be in the space.

Take your space. You’ve got a footprint that was put here on this planet because it belongs here. Own your footprint.

To go back to your too example, “I’m important too. I’m smart too.” When I hear that, I picture a little brother yelling up at an older brother like, “Me too.” It puts levels in place when we do that, but instead, you are on the same level. There’s no too. There’s just is.

“Here I am” and not “Here I am too.” That’s exactly right. I love this conversation, James. I’m excited about what we’re going to be talking about in EXTRA. Ladies, James and I are going to be talking in EXTRA about busy versus productive, and decompression versus inaction, which are important distinctions in how we run our lives. It’s going to be valuable. We’re also going to talk about some of those fear patterns and how we can release them. That’s what’s coming up at EXTRA. I’m excited about it, but before we moved to EXTRA, let’s finish up this show first. Let’s start by telling my ladies how they can get in touch with you, James.

You have a value add in every room that you walk into. Share on X

First of all, thank you so much for letting me be a part of your community. It is indeed an honor. I appreciate you for believing in me too. You can reach me @JamesTRobo on all social media platforms. JamesTRobo.com and [email protected] for my email. Let’s hang out. Your boy looking fresh on Instagram and dropping some meaningful nuggets. I would love to keep in touch with you.

I know that you’ve got a special gift for my ladies. Could you tell us about that?

I wrote a book called Leading Imperfectly and it is about authentic leadership. I would love to give you the first three chapters of that book. If you like it, you can pick it up elsewhere. If you don’t, it was free so who cares.

I assure you they will love it. Are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Here we go.

James, tell us one super tip in getting started in real estate investing.

Get out of your own way. You are ready right now to do it and you have to believe it. The only thing in your way is you. It is not your knowledge, your background, your past or anything you’ve been through. You are the only thing in your own way so it’s time to keep moving.

Give us one strategy on being successful in real estate investing.

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome: Get out of your own way. You are ready to do it.

 

Being successful involves building great relationships and where are the places that you are using those relationships to both learn more and give more in that place. That’s the biggest thing. Our network’s net worth is bigger than our net worth, and so those relationships are super important. I know that’s cliché and it’s cheesy but I love cheese.

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

Every day I dream and I live my life based on what I want to be said in my eulogy. The way that I have conversations with people and myself, I think about, how do I want to be remembered and how am I building towards that?

James, it’s been amazing everything that you’ve shared. Thank you so much for sharing that great stuff on this portion of the show.

Thanks for having me.

Ladies, thank you so much for joining James and me for this portion of the show. We’ve got more coming up in EXTRA. If you are subscribed, stay tuned. I’m excited about what we’re going to share. If you’re not subscribed to EXTRA but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. I’ve been doing EXTRA for years. I have to say that is my true gift to you. It’s a place where my amazing guests who do a great job on the first part of the show do an even better job later. This is where they shine. This is where they give you their deep and amazing nuggets that will change your life.

If you’re not subscribed, please come and check it out. You get the first seven days free. You can listen to a lot of them and decide if it’s even relevant or anything you want to pursue. If you do decide to subscribe, it’s $4.99 a month. It’s a complete steal for all of this information and for the way that it will improve your life and your business. Please check that out. For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time and until then, remember goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you next time.

 

Important Links

 

About James Robilotta

REW 8 | Imposter SyndromeJames is an author, speaker, coach, & entrepreneur. His book is titled: Leading Imperfectly. He speaks internationally to willing & unwilling attendees about authenticity & vulnerability in leadership & life. His clients include AMEX, GE, & others. He’s also an experienced stand-up & improv comedian.

James is also a personal coach. He loves helping people get out of their own way to live the lives they deserve and be the leaders they are capable of becoming. James’ clients undergo purposeful life-changing and self-affirming transformations. His clientele ranges from CEOs to college students. Visit his website: JamesTRobo.com.

 

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:

Freeing Yourself From Crazy-Making Relationships with Dr. Rhoberta Shaler

REW 9 | Freeing Yourself From Relationships

 

The lockdown and quarantine during this pandemic is sure to make a lot of changes in how people live and interact. There are may even be times that you start to think it may be better to start freeing yourself from toxic relationships. Joining Moneeka Sawyer this episode is The Relationship Help Doctor, Dr. Rhoberta Shaler. She talks about the signs to watch out for in determining if your partner is a hijackal and shares her knowledge on what you can do to improve your relationship. She dives into why it’s important not to run away and instead empower yourself and learn how you can divert potentially intense conversations into the neutral zone and create a safe space for you and your children.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Freeing Yourself From Crazy-Making Relationships with Dr. Rhoberta Shaler

I am excited to welcome to the show, Dr. Rhoberta Shaler, PhD. The Relationship Help Doctor. She provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis. Her mission is to provide insights, information, and inspiration for clients and audiences to transform relationships with themselves and other humans to be honest, respectful, and safe, and always. Even the United States Marines had sought her help. Dr. Shaler focuses on helping the partners, exes, and adult children of the relentlessly difficult toxic people she calls hijackals. She stopped the crazy-making and saved their sanity. She is the author of sixteen books including Escaping The Hijackal Trap and Stop! That’s Crazy Making. She hosts the popular podcast, Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships. Her YouTube channel, For Relationship Help has reached over 350,000 views. Dr. Rhoberta, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Moneeka. It’s great to be here.

It’s nice to see you again. Dr. Rhoberta and I were both Icons of Influence at the New Media Summit. We got to hang out for a few days down in San Diego. It was nice to reconnect. Rhoberta, could you tell us a little bit about your backstory? How did you get into this work?

I started out wanting to be a medical doctor from the time I was five. I was born into a family where I had two hijackal parents and I’m an only child. I had the great joy of having both of them focus on me. They didn’t like each other. It was a very interesting childhood. I learned a great deal. I was very much under the spell of all that had happened to me when I was young as every one of us. I had to do a lot of undoing and a lot of figuring out and there wasn’t a lot of help. Once I got my Doctorate in Psychology, I shifted to this specialty because few people understand what’s going on.

Many times when you go for help with your marriage or your relationship, therapists are not familiar with this. They don’t see it quickly. They do the thing that most therapists would do. They would say, “If you only did more.” In actual fact, that is inappropriate when one of the partners is a hijackal because the other doesn’t need to do more. I am slowly learning all of that. There is a lot of unpacking and a lot of taking the tentacles of my soul, and then learning how to help other people do that. That’s the path that brought me to this particular specialty.

It’s appropriate these days because what’s happening is we’re all stuck together in our houses. Even if they’re crazy about each other and love each other, families are driving each other nuts. It is because we’re not used to be in a close-quarters so much for so long. We’ve got families that even they love each other, they are having trouble. They’re not in toxic relationships but they’re turning into difficult relationships. There are parents that are home with their teenage children or their young children that may not be used to hanging out with them that much. It’s on the same side for the children.  

You don't have power over others, but you have power over your own processing. Share on X

The statistic that breaks my heart the most is that domestic abuse has gone up by double digits in the United States. I have 100,000 followers to this show and I hope and pray that none of my ladies or their children are going through those issues. Statistically, I know someone’s going to hear this and be like, “That’s me.” The other piece is there are also toxic relationships and those people are now all stuck together. All of that stuff is what I want to talk about and how to deal with that because it’s such a big deal.

Let me add something to what you said, Moneeka. It could be men who are having hijackal partners too. It’s not just the women. There’s an equal number of male and female hijackals. They present a little differently, but there are equal numbers and they’re equally as disturbing and difficult. It’s important to know, but I’ve done three episodes of my Save Your Sanity Podcast on the topic of housebound with a hijackal because people need strong strategies to recognize what’s going on. You get a little relief when people go off to work, or kids go off, or your mother isn’t calling you all the time and she may be the hijackal or your father isn’t being demanding. The whole idea is that you are in your house and if the hijackal is in your house too, you’re going to have trouble with it. Here’s one big reason why. It’s because hijackals have to be in charge. Imagine how crazy they are without being the one who’s calling the shots.

They don’t get to say if they go to work or not. They don’t get to say if their industry is open. They don’t get to say if they can stay home or not. They’ve been told and they don’t like it. There is a whole bunch of underlying tension and resentment just in the fact that they are not in charge. What that does is it increases their charge and you become more of the target. You are the lightning rod for all of their resentment and the children may get that too. That is going to be very unhappy making and very much less than blissful.

Let’s move with that. Tell us what we can do about it. Give us some strategies to help my ladies if they’re in that situation. The reason I keep saying “my ladies” is because this is a women’s show. I am fully aware that sometimes the ladies are the hijackal. I’m not taking sides. A lot of us ladies know we’re toxic. Sometimes we’re so stuck there and we don’t know how to pull out of it. We feel badly sometimes. Some hijackals don’t see it. That’s true for men and women. Some of us though feel it. We’re seeing it more in the way that we relate to our families now. For those of you, ladies, this conversation is interesting because you get to know what the other side of that is like. Hopefully, you can take some strategies away for yourself on how to be less of that person or get the help that you need.  

I understood that but I just wanted everybody to know that if you are a lady and you’re reading this, you could be the hijackal treating your man that way. If you understand that you are treating someone that way and you won’t feel bad about it, it’s highly unlikely that you’re a hijackal. It means that you have learned some coping mechanisms from having been raised with one or previously lived with one. We call it having hijackal fleas. You’ve got some fleas leftover in your behaviors. The fact is that if you are cognizant of what you are doing and feel badly about it and want to change it, you do not have typical hijackal traits. Hijackals are not interested in you. They’re only interested in them and what they can get and how they can have power.

If you are in any way aware and conscious that, “I don’t like myself when I do that. It makes other people hurt or feel badly and I don’t like that.” That means that your empathetic mechanism is working and you want to do better, and that’s great. There are a bunch of people in the world who don’t want to do better because the hijackals will tell you outright, “There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfect. If only you were different, we wouldn’t be having this problem.” It’s important to see that distinction. If a person says, “I had a bad day. I behaved badly,” or “I slipped into a way that’s less than loving here. I recognize it and I want to change it,” that means you have empathy. You recognize and you care that somebody else is hurting. You care that maybe you are not presenting a loving face. A hijackal doesn’t care.

REW 9 | Freeing Yourself From Relationships

Freeing Yourself From Relationships: There’s an equal number of male and female hijackals. They present a little differently, but there are equal numbers and they’re equally as disturbing and difficult.

 

Thank you so much for that distinction because I know that in conversations I’ve had with you before, it occurred to me that everyone will act like that person. We’ve all had bad days. We all have a piece of us that we don’t love that lashes out and deals with frustration in bad ways. In our last conversation, I remember that and I thought, “Am I a part of that? Is it a real relief that I’m not part of that problem?” I’m sure there are some ladies who might hear this conversation and have the same path. Let’s talk about how to deal with these toxic people if we’re stuck with them.

First of all, you have to recognize what’s something that you can do something about and what you can’t do anything about. What’s in your power and what isn’t? Changing a hijackal is not in your power. They don’t want to change. They see no reason to change. Every time you bring up change, they see it as criticism and they’re not interested. What can you do? You look at your own behaviors and say, “How am I responding to this? Am I responding in a way that is in alignment with who I want to be? They may be bringing out the worst in me or having the most awful thoughts, but who am I being? That’s a big thing.

I have clients all over the world and I always tell them, “The beginning stages are to prepare and practice. You have to see things differently. You have to practice new skills and you’re preparing yourself for making better decisions.” I don’t know if you’re going to stay with the hijackal. Maybe we can do several things that the hijackal will respond to and everything will be better, if not it’s never fine. You also have to change you. Here’s why I say that, Moneeka, and because many of your audience are women. About 70% of my practice is women. They’ll say, “I don’t care if I get anything. I just want to be out of here. I would rather be out of here and not bother with anything.”

I’m going, “Do not do that. That’s exactly what they want you to do.” You need to empower yourself before you leave unless there’s sexual or physical abuse. You need to be that empowered woman. That woman who knows her values, vision for her life, and her belief. She has good communication and conflict management skills. She knows how to set good boundaries and hold them. Have the consequences of them felt before you leave because you want to take that empowered women into your new life. You don’t want to take the one that is broken down, tired, fed up, scared, beam me up, get me out of here. If I have to be in absolute poverty and have to live in some tiny little place with my children, so be it. Sometimes that has to happen because there’s physical and sexual abuse.

If there isn’t, you want to prepare and practice. The things that you see that you have to accept are the first thing. They are not going to change. They’re not interested in change so don’t keep having that conversation. Don’t poke hijackals. It never ends well. Don’t make them angry. Don’t criticize them. Don’t demand or threaten. Don’t do those things. I know you want to because you are frustrated, but don’t do it. You know what you get back, the rage and/or the silent treatment, and the withholding affection, money or anything like that. Accept the fact that you don’t poke a hijackal and then know that you do have some power in your own processing. You don’t have power over them, but you have power in your own processing. Learn to do deep yoga breathing, preferably 4-7-8 breathing purposefully so that you keep yourself in the best state possible, you are as relaxed as possible. You can’t solve a problem when you’re in high tension very well because your body goes into fight or flight.

You’re in a hormone wash that makes things a bit foggy. You want to be as relaxed as you can be in a very tense situation. You want to be able to stay present. You don’t want to go into the, “It’s always like this,” or “It’s never like this.” You don’t want to go into the future, “It’s going to be terrible. It’s always going to be like this.” You need to stay present. “At this moment, I was bound with a hijackal. Let me stay within the parameters of what I can deal with. There’s no point in picking fights. There’s no point in making threats. There’s no point in trying to make big changes now.” What you want is the dullest roar you can possibly have in your home, as quiet as you can make it. Neutralize things. If a hijackal makes a statement that is inflammatory, neutralize it in your head. “That’s what they’re talking about. That doesn’t have to affect me. I don’t have to respond to it. I don’t have to have a comeback.”

Check in with yourself. That you are being how you most want to be. Share on X

Many of us women are like, “I’m always the one that has to change. I’m always the one that has to take responsibility.” It can be frustrating. What I would want to say here is you’re changing and taking responsibility for you. You’re not doing it for the benefit of this abusive person. You’re doing it for the benefit of you and your children. Sometimes it’s frustrating that you’re in a relationship where you’re responsible for everything. Remember that this is about empowering you. This isn’t about making someone else right. It’s not about condoning anybody else. It’s not about saying, “I am throwing your arms up in there and saying, ‘Fine, I give up.’” It’s none of that stuff. This is about empowering yourself so that you can keep yourself and your children safe. That’s what this is about.

As I was hearing this and hearing, “You need to change,” it is true and Rhoberta says it very kindly, but I know that some of us through our filters are like, “Really, again? It’s all about me having to change?” We have these feelings. This is about empowering yourself because unless you do it, you’re going to get more abuse. Your children are going to suffer. The dog may suffer. Suffering happens more unless you’re willing to take responsibility to empower yourself to deal with things. Wouldn’t you agree?  

I do and it’s a good point. I would like to emphasize it by saying, “Yes, I understand. It’s not fair. You always have to take the high road. You always have to be the one who understands. You always have to be the one who accommodates.” However, what we’re talking about here when I’m talking about what Moneeka highlighted. This is you growing into the strong, powerful and empowered woman that you would like to feel like. It’s a personal growth pattern. It is not saying, “I have to change because of the hijackal.” It’s saying, “I’ve got this in front of me. I don’t like it. How can I do my bit and come into a wonderful space where I know I’ve got my stuff together? I am being who I want to be. I have good skills. I can quietly say what’s so for me.”

We were talking about my books. In the Kaizen for Couples books that I wrote, I put in there a technique that I created many years ago called the Personal Weather Report. That’s got to be one of the most powerful things I can ever teach anyone. It’s how to speak in a way that is assertive and feel good about it. I’ll give you my definition of assertiveness. It means that you come to a place where you honestly believe that you deserve to take up space and draw breath on this earth. From that place, you learn to say, “I have the right then to say what I think, feel, need and want as long as I do not mention another human by name or pronoun.” If I get in the habit of doing a Personal Weather Report where I speak about what’s so for me, not mentioning another human by name or pronoun, I can be assertive because I know what I think, feel, need, want and remember. As long as I am not talking about anybody else, I have the absolute right to do that. That’s the first way to prepare. It’s to change your communication.

Can you give us an example of that?

You might want to say, “Nobody respects me around here. When you do that, it simply drives me crazy. You’re doing it on purpose and I hate it so change.” That’s not going to help.

REW 9 | Freeing Yourself From Relationships

Freeing Yourself From Relationships: If you understand that you are treating someone wrong and you feel badly about it, it’s highly unlikely you’re a hijackal.

 

That’s our normal response.  

If I sent her myself and I say, “I find that I do better in a place where I feel there’s respect. At the moment it doesn’t feel like that to me, what would help me is this.” I clearly take responsibility for the fact that I’m not feeling it. I am communicating what would help me feel better and then say, “Would that be possible?” You then can get agreement or no agreement or the silent treatment, but you are beginning to say, “I can only deal with my inner self. I can say what’s so for me. I could put it out there.” I can then ask if I can have that agreement to operate between us in that way. I can then learn something about the other person. If I train myself to use the Personal Weather Report, it sounds simple but it’s not easy.

It is not what we’ve been raised to do and this is basic to take back your sense of being an empowered woman. I know I can count on myself to say something I won’t regret. I can say something that’s true for me. I can say something that if someone doesn’t believe it, that will give me information about them. They don’t want me to be like that. They want me to change. They want me to be different. They want to judge how I am. I’ve already checked in with myself that I am being how I most want to be. I’m living from my values, my vision from my life, my beliefs, and my next best steps.

Thank you, Rhoberta. That was amazing.

Back in the day, I was training teachers. I was going all over the province of British Columbia training teachers. That was back in the day when people thought that “I message” was a stellar way to solve problems and it caused my gut to go, “I don’t like that.” For people reading, an “I message” was, “I feel this way when you do that.” That’s just bail blame. Maybe it was an upgrade from screaming and yelling at what an idiot you are. Maybe there was a middle ground there, but it caused me to develop the Personal Weather Report as a respectful thing. We are the experts on what’s going on here. The other person is not the expert on what’s going on in here. If I simply say, “I care enough to tell you what’s going on in here and I lay it out and then I watched. Do you pick it up or are you curious about it? What do you do with it? Do you get angry about it? Do you refute it?” That will give me information about the other person.

If I’m in a fog, which hijackal wants to keep you in the fog. Susan Forward wrote a book a long time ago called Emotional Blackmail. In there, she talked about FOG as an acronym for Fear, Obligation, and Guilt. That’s where they want to keep you. If you have heightened anxiety, which certainly happens when you’re housebound with a hijackal especially if you have a few kids thrown into the mix, you already are washing chemicals. You then have somebody who wants fear, obligation, and guilt to pile on that and they can’t be wrong so that you must be, what a horrible soup you’re living in. For you to be able to step back and say, “Who do I want to be right now?”

Don't be marginalized, isolated, excluded, demeaned. Stand up, not in a confrontive way, but in a positive, affirmative way. Share on X

All I can do is say who I am, what’s going on within me, give a Personal Weather Report, and watch what they would do with it. A hijackal will have very little interest, but here’s where it provides some effectiveness. It’s when a hijackal gaslights you. That means that the hijackal tries to tell you what you think, feel, need, want, remember, all of that. They want to define your reality for you. They’ll say something like, “I know you better than you know yourself and this is what it is.” When you’re practiced in the Personal Weather Report in that instance, you can come back and you can say, “That’s not how I feel. I’m happy to tell you how I feel if you’re interested in inquiring.” That brings everything into this neutral ground. The hijackal doesn’t like it but they’re not going to go ballistic.

You just say, “I’m happy to tell you, but that isn’t how I feel.” When you start to do that, you start doing it internally. You start practicing it internally. You then start saying it quietly, genuinely and neutrally. You start to get a little bigger in the situation. You start to open up a little stronger and you grow into more sense of, “I have the right to exist. I have the right to take up space. Therefore, I have the right to be assertive.

This whole thing about us taking space. One of the bliss practices is owning your footprint to knowing that you have the right to that footprint. God put you here to take that footprint. It is interesting that you talk about even having a right to breathing air. There are people out there that have that feeling. Thank you so much for that.

Let me give you a little visual. This is a poorly, quickly drawn one but I’ll give it to you anyway. This is a healthy relationship.

It’s a yin and yang.

It is a beautiful balanced yin and yang sign. However, in a hijackal relationship, it looks like that, which is a huge one side and a tiny marginalized, isolated pushed to the edge of the other’s side. That will continue. What I’m inviting you to do in this empowerment is to come back and fill your half of the space. Don’t be marginalized, isolated, excluded, demeaned, discarded, devalued, and let that continue. Stand up not in a confrontative way, but in a positive and affirmative way.

REW 9 | Freeing Yourself From Relationships

Freeing Yourself From Relationships: Escaping the Hijackal Trap: Volume 1 – The Truth About Hijackals and Why They Are Crazy-making

Do you have any other advice for maybe how to protect your children or how to create a safe space within your home with everything that’s going on?  

It’s difficult if you have a hijackal because when they’re agitated, they do what I call Personal Surveillance. They go to the rooms you’re in. They blow up your phone. They want to know where you are. They want to know what you’re doing. They want to know why you’re doing it. They want to tell you shouldn’t be doing it. You may have to carve out internal space because you can’t find it in physical space. Preferably, find some physical space. Go outside in the yard, do something, and have some time to breathe. I mentioned the 4-7-8 breathing. That breathing through your nose as fully as you can for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, exhale through your mouth as completely as you can for a count of 8 and repeat. What this does is it re-oxygenates your system. It helps you get rid of carbon dioxide.

That will allow you to relax. It will allow your muscles to relax. It will allow you then to be able to think more clearly. You can practice that even while you’re in the middle of a conversation or you’re simply smiling. You can exhale while you’re talking or smiling. If somebody is agitated in front of you, you can practice that purposeful breathing. Also, if you have children, everybody’s a little agitated. Have a designated space in your home for everybody if you possibly can. If they don’t have their own bedrooms, let them have their own sacred corners where when they’re in that, nobody can come in. Therefore, you will be accorded that rate too. The hijackal is constantly going to trespass, but you keep saying, “No, this is my space. Please step out.”

You begin to have some physical boundaries. They may not be walls but they are, “This is my corner. I’m having a quiet time now.” Those are important practices. Children have both your DNA and I want to address the children. Children’s brains grow until they’re 30 years old. The strongest and largest growth capacity is before the age of 5 or 6. Up until that time, children are taking everything in emotionally. They’re figuring out how to get their needs met. They learn whether you come when they cry. They learn when you smile at them. They learn when they smile at you, do you smile back? How do they get your attention? What do they have to do? They’re learning all kinds of things that are survival because as humans, we are not like cows or horses. We don’t get spit out of our mothers and licked off, and then we leap up and run around the meadow.

We know that we’re loved. Intrinsically, we know that we need those giants in order to be transported, to be fed, and to be taken care of. We’re coming from that premise. How do I get them to take care of me? Because we’re emotional beings at that time, primarily we are learning who we are by whether or not they take care of us or how interested they are in us. That is locked in there. When you’re dealing with your children, they have one side coming from the hijackal, which is telling them that their only value is when they make the hijackal happy or look good. I know you don’t want the extra work, but you’re with the hijackal so it comes with the territory. You have to balance it out by being very interested, validating, and present with the children.

When they complain about daddy, you say, “I know you’re feeling such and such. You’re feeling this way.” You legitimize and validate their feelings without making daddy wrong because that’s not going to work. That’s going to come back to hunt. I was working with a client whose children are 8 and 5. The eight-year-old has already been taught by the father to spy on the mother. She has been told repeatedly that she needs to repeat every conversation that she hears the mother is having to him when he gets home. I had a situation in my office and a woman’s babysitter bailed. She came in for a session. She had to bring her 1-year-old and her 5-year-old. Her five-year-old was sitting outside the door with the door cracked and he had an iPad. The little one was with me.

Recognize what's something you can do something about, and what you can't do anything about. What's within your power, and what isn't. Share on X

I watched the five-year-old insert himself around the door. A couple of times, we told him to go back out. The third time, he came in and kept edging towards mom. He then had what I call the hijackal smirk on his face. It’s that clear, superior, “I got you” look. He looked at me and he said, “I’ve recorded everything you said.” I said, “Come and show me your iPad.” He showed it to me and I said, “Where did you record it?” He showed it to me. “How did you learn to do that?” “My daddy gave me this and he told me to record everything and send it to him.” I said, “That’s interesting,” and I erased what he had recorded.

I was hoping you would push delete.  

I said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that here.” This is the way they operate. If you’re with a hijackal, you have to do some double duty. That’s just the way it is until you practice and prepare to decide if you’re going to stay with that hijackal. Now, you’re not going anywhere because the courts are backed up and they’re working virtually. Some of them are closed and nothing’s going to happen. It is very important for you to understand what it is you’re telling those children and you are responsible for that balancing act. You don’t make the partner wrong. You validate the children’s feelings and you ask them, what would work better for you? What do you think you could say when that happens? You do some practicing with them. If you happen to have a resentful teenager, I did a Facebook Live not long ago with Aaron Huey from Fire Mountain Programs for teenagers who were troubled. We did a great thing about how to manage teenagers. I highly invite everybody to listen to that. It’s on my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is For Relationship Help. There’s a whole Facebook Live stream there with Aaron Huey on Cooped Up With Unhappy Teenagers.

Rhoberta, normally I would say, “Let’s go into an EXTRA,” but you have already given some deep, impactful stuff. I don’t feel like we need to move into that other section, but I’m in complete awe. Thank you so much for all you’ve offered.

You’re welcome. Thanks for the great questions. I know how difficult it is if you are housebound with a hijackal. If you’re not housebound with a hijackal because even though they’re not there, they want you to be housebound or at least attached to them by the hip. They want to know where you are, what you’re doing and then they make up a whole lot of bad things that you didn’t do or think, and then they blame you for that. Do get the help that you need if any of this is making sense and what’s happening at your house.

How can people get in touch with you?

Stop, That’s Crazy-Making!: How to quit the Passive-Aggressive game

Go to TransformingRelationship.com. That’s the easiest thing to do. Also, you can arrive there by going to ForRelationshipHelp.com. You can see all this there for you. I have a membership program. You can have a one-hour full session as a new client for only $97. It’s all there for you. It will also lead you to the podcast and the YouTube channel.

You also have books. Those are also available on Amazon.  

They’re both in print form and in eBook form. On my website, there are courses and webinars and all kinds of things to help you on your journey.

Ladies, this can be difficult, so now you’ve got a resource. If you’re needing some help, even if you don’t have the privacy to make a phone call, you can still read books. You can still take coursework. You can do some things for yourself. Make sure you reach out to Rhoberta and get some of that information.

If you’re stuck, I also have a Facebook group and you can find it. It’s called Optimize Life After Emotional Abuse.

Rhoberta, that was truly an amazing episode. Thank you so much for all you offered my ladies.

You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Ladies, thank you so much for joining Rhoberta and me for this show. Always remember, bliss is your birthright. Choose to live your bliss every single day. I’ll see you soon.

 

Important Links

 

About Rhoberta Shaler, PhD

Rhoberta Shaler, PhD, The Relationship Help Doctor, provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis.  Her mission is to provide the insights, information, and inspiration for clients and audiences to transform relationship with themselves and other humans to be honest, respectful, and safe in all ways.  Even the United States Marines have sought her help!

Dr. Shaler focuses on helping the partners, exes, and adult children of the relentlessly difficult, toxic people she calls Hijackals® to stop the crazy-making and save their sanity.

Author of sixteen books including Escaping the Hijackal Trap and Stop! That’s Crazy-Making, she hosts the internationally popular podcast, Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships. Her YouTube channel, ForRelationshipHelp, has reached over 350,000 views.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:

Get Dr. Shaler’s free EBook: “How to Spot a Hijackal”  at https://www.forrelationshiphelp.com/help-handling-hijackals-spot-signup/

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

——————————————————

Learn how to create a consistent income stream by only working 5 hours a month the Blissful Investor Way.

Grab my FREE guide at http://www.BlissfulInvestor.com

Role Reversal with your Aging Parents with Angela Alvig

REW 7 | Role Reversal

 

Are you looking to get your parents finances in order? In this episode, Angela Alvig, Founder and President of Simplify Wealth, joins Moneeka Sawyer to tackle role reversal with your aging parents and how it can be a daunting task without losing your insanity. Angela talks about preparing for the worst before anything happens and trying to encourage conversation before it becomes an emergency. They discuss the areas you will need to address for your parents’ well-being, and strategies such as downsizing and decluttering that you can apply to handle your parents’ and your family’s assets to keep them in order. Get to know what is a sandwich generation and how you can manage dealing with all the emotions that come with it all.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Role Reversal with your Aging Parents with Angela Alvig

I am so excited to welcome back to our show Angela Alvig. We’re going to be talking about role reversal with your aging parents, getting their finances in order without losing your sanity. The reason that I invited Angela back for this particular conversation is that there are a lot of ladies that are in that situation. I know that I am too. I thought that this would be a relevant conversation for all of you ladies. As part of your bliss planning, financial planning, or wealth planning, this is going to be a piece of the puzzle. I know that Angela is going to give us some great information but if you don’t remember who Angela is, let me read her bio to you. Angela is a personal wealth CFO for her clients.

A trusted advisor who is intimately familiar with their financial situation, values, and priorities. She is a passionate result-oriented CPA who possesses a unique combination of technical expertise and interpersonal skills with a proactive action-oriented approach. With years of experience in financial accounting in the family office industry, Angela is Founder and President of Simplify Wealth, LLC and leads a team of ten professionals. Angela and her team provide a suite of financial and organizational services for their clients, giving them time and life freedom, which we all want. She effectively leads the strategy and implementation of her firm with vision and heart to ensure she and her team deliver optimal results for their valued clients. Angela, welcome back to the show.

Moneeka, I’m thrilled to be back. It’s great to see you.

You, too. This is so awesome. Thank you. Let’s talk a little bit and remind everybody what a personal CFO looks like. Could we start with that?

A personal CFO can mean all kinds of different things but it is, we all have our whole personal financial life that we’re responsible for and you involve lots of professionals, attorneys, accountants, wealth managers, but there are still a lot of details to manage. If you’re a real estate investor, there are even more details to manage. You may have many legal entities, properties, and different tax things you have to track. What a personal CFO does is help you keep your eye on the big picture and the details. As I like to say, help you wrestle those details to the ground. My job as my client’s personal CFO is to partner with them and take that burden of managing details off of them.

That’s what my team and I do so that our clients can operate in there, I call it a zone of genius. How they want to spend their time whether it’s because they are having more leisure time and don’t want to spend their time doing paperwork. They’re aging and we’ll get into some of those topics here. They’re successful and they’re the visionary of their business, they either aren’t detail-oriented or they are and they want someone they can trust to handle the details, as well as they, would have themselves. It’s a partner in keeping track of everything.

Part of why I asked you back is because I have had several conversations with some of my ladies where they’ve got children that are getting ready to go to college. They’ve got parents that are starting to age, and now they’re responsible for either handling the finances of their parents or their parents don’t have the finances and they have to find it within their own budget to take care of their parents. This is a big topic in my generation and I’m hearing it a lot from my ladies. Could you talk about what that looks like and what you’re seeing out there?

It’s exactly what you’ve said. Those of us who are in the prime of our professional careers whether we have children or we don’t. My children are getting ready to go off to college. I’m feeling a little bit like, “I can do what I want to do.” You have the freedom to pick anyone up at 3:00 in the afternoon, but then my parents are aging too but they’re doing well. You’ve got to think about these things and also things happen that you don’t expect. Expect the best, prepare for the worst. Some people find themselves in that where they’re managing both and their parents suddenly need care and support.

REW 7 | Role Reversal

Role Reversal: A personal CFO helps you keep your eye on the big picture and the details.

 

Other people want to get ahead of it and collect the information from your parents or have them collect it for you while they are still doing grace and have a handle on their personal finances. They’re doing a great job being their own personal CFO. If something happens, someone in your family, or a sibling, whatever, you’re going to be squarely in the middle of having to do that and potentially with no information to do so if you know nothing about your parents’ situation which is common. It’s not something families share.

It’s also an uncomfortable conversation. A lot of times, you don’t want to say, “You might get sick and I’m going to need to take care of you.” You don’t ever want to approach it that way and I know you’re going to talk about it but that’s what it feels like so much of the time if we aren’t careful in how we approach this. It becomes an offensive conversation to our parents.

I don’t know that I made this up but I call it a love letter. If you said to your parents like, “I want you to write a love letter to me that would help me. In the event that something happens, we hope it doesn’t happen for 50 years.” I have bosses that I’m working with where the husband is super organized. The wife wants to know who I am because if something happened to him, she would want me to be her CFO. Our personal CFO was him or the other spouse. That’s what I call it. Write a love letter to your spouse whichever spouse is responsible for finances. It makes it less, it makes it fun and meaningful.

Being stuck in the middle here, parenting your parents, or whatever you want to call it. Even having people understand that they’re not alone that there are tons of people going through this, the generation term is not a new thing but there are many things that people have to manage. Furthermore, the information that you need to collect for your parents is not as readily available as it may have been at one time. Years ago, you go through your parents’ file cabinets and find all the paper they had saved from the paper mail. Now there are logins, usernames, and passwords. You could lose track of financial assets or other things if you don’t take certain steps to collect that information.

What parts of your parents’ financial wellbeing or general wellbeing that you do you need to address and be aware of?

We touched on their financial wellbeing and again, it’s even less like, “Do mom and dad have enough money?” It’s more selfishly that you would learn where to find their stuff if you had to act on their behalf while they’re alive or after they pass. You need to be concerned about their living situation. We’ll talk a little bit about downsizing later but aging in place is more and more a thing. Helping them get situated in their home. That’s a whole expertise that not everyone has. There are firms that have expertise in care management, helping you advocate for your parents, and getting the right care. In general, their social health but also social engagement which gets into mental wellbeing and all of those things and helping them. Retirement can be an interesting phase of life. I’m not sure. I plan to retire because I don’t know what I would do although I could fill my days.

What is true about retirement is a lot of people identify themselves with what they do for a living. When they stopped doing that, they don’t know who they are. There’s a period. I’ve seen this consistently because I’ve got six parents, two sets of in-laws and my parents, and they all went through these retirement days. Some of them were easier. Some of them were not as easy but in general, it was a two-year transition of things that are rough, trying to support them through that can be a challenge. That’s another one of those things that we don’t think about.

That’s an important factor in wellbeing. That’s easier to discover if you’re healthy if something changes with your health situation. I’m trying to encourage conversation before it becomes an emergency. It’s being proactive. It’s the most boring thing in the world. People generally wait until something happens to deal with it. We have clients who we’ve been hired by their adult children to help mom and dad pay their bills and do things. In a way, it makes those adult kids spend their time with mom and dad on fun things.

It’s not like, “Can you look at this mail? Can you help me with this?” We can do it in a way that keeps them independent too. They have a person who comes over and helps them do this that isn’t their kid. I always joke that I’ll send someone on my team to take care of my own parent’s bills and stuff when the time comes. My poor mother doesn’t deserve the eye roll I’m probably going to give her. It’s not right and I know it isn’t. It can be an interesting dynamic.

Things happen that you don't expect. Share on X

Especially as things are changing in their lives. You do want more quality time with them. Talking about finances and paperwork, it doesn’t feel like quality time on anybody’s put book.

You can do it yourself with them. You can delegate it to a professional, whatever it may be. What are the things I would have to walk through? At a minimum, find out if your parents even have a will. I’m going to have any of this stuff figure it out. If you’re that person who’s been named as their personal representative, walk through what you have to know and do it now. Try to make it fun. Make it a love letter, not a sad conversation.

Talk a little bit about what you’re going to need to inventory in order to make a plan for them and to help them make the plan.

You have to build a personal financial statement. You need to inventory the assets they have, the financial assets, any liabilities they have, mortgages, credit cards. I always say the least important thing about this personal financial statement is the dollar value. What’s more important is where these accounts are. What bank? What’s the account number? How are they titled? In whose name? Are they joint? Some people as their lives get more sophisticated, they might have trusts and life insurance. All these things can get misplaced or misunderstood. That’s the first thing. Inventory what you have and what you owe.

The second thing is to inventory your income and expenses. The least interesting thing here is also the amounts. Who are the vendors? What are the usernames and passwords for all these logins? Some of these vendors may be more or less have varying degrees of being critical to your life and keeping things moving. At a minimum, if your parents were here, their bills still have to get paid or you’ve got to figure this stuff out. You can’t even log into their cable bill if you don’t know this information or you may not know who those vendors are. The third thing touches on what I talked about, you have to inventory all of their digital assets and I don’t mean Bitcoin.

It’s usernames, passwords, and social media accounts. We’ve all heard horror stories of people who can’t get into people’s accounts after they passed away. If you document everything, there are password managers. Some people have a spreadsheet. I’m fine with that as long as it’s stored in a secure place. Don’t print it out and carry it around in your briefcase. That’s not a good idea. If it’s in a drawer at your office desk at home, that’s fine. I like password managers because then you can share them as the passwords change if they should.

Password change is communicated automatically. Make sure that your loved ones know where stuff is. Think it all the way through. Some people are like, “I have my passwords. They’re all on my computer but then they failed to give people their password to get into their computer.” That’s a fail. Take it step-by-step. I have a simple mind so that you have to take it like, “What would I do first? What would I do second?” Collect that information.

Let’s talk a little bit about downsizing. That is a great topic.

REW 7 | Role Reversal

Role Reversal: Retirement can be an interesting phase of life.

 

I’m going to confess. My favorite thing to do is to help people downsize and deal with dumpster management. It’s more fun to do it for other people than it is to yourself. Here’s what I would say. Downsize before you have to. I sound like a broken record on the proactivity comment. I have one client, she has no intention of moving anytime soon. It might be 2 or 3 years, whatever, we’re making it fun. We’re tackling things a little bit out a time. One corner doesn’t matter. To my point about the love letter, think of the downsizing as a gift to your family that you’ll leave behind. Don’t leave them with your 500 Beanie Babies that they don’t want. These are tough conversations too because it can be sad to find out that people don’t want your stuff. I feel like that’s been talked about enough.

That’s a thing too. There are articles written about it. You’re 30 or 40-year-old kids don’t want your junk. I don’t even mean that’s not nice junk, it’s nice but they don’t want it. They’re minimalist. It’s not their taste. You’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off on that deal and acknowledge that. Taking control of your destiny when you do your own downsizing and again, bring in resources. If you want a partner, it’s better done with a partner. It’s hard to sift through things yourself. When we help clients sort through stuff and sometimes in the middle, we’re doing this after clients have passed away and helping their kids with it. We’re much faster at sifting through the information. What we do is we can tell what are sentimental items versus, “This is truly like a dumpster.” If someone else goes through it then they can make some bins for you that are sentimental and you can go through those at your pleasure.

At least, you’re moving forward in the process. You’re not going to leave it because every box is an emotional experience for you and taking control of the situation. My other tip would be to keep good records for income tax deduction purposes. Make a list to maximize the tax deduction value depending on how much you have, you may want to get an appraisal that’s qualified for the IRS. Get somebody who’s an expert in what’s valuable. I find these conversations are more steered, “I’m sorry, what you thought was valuable isn’t.” At the same time, there are things that are and a person with a keen eye and expertise for this can walk through your home and may or may not even charge you to do so. Although, they’ll walk through and tell you like, “This has value and this doesn’t.”

They can help you do an auction or whatever for the items that do have value. Some people will even take those things off-site. You don’t have to have an estate sale in your home. A lot of people don’t want to do that or they may be ready to do that but they want to maximize it. If a charity puts something you donate to a related use, meaning the charity uses it for its exempt purpose. If you gave away a car to a school that teaches kids how to repair cars, you would get a higher value deduction for that if the charity is using that asset for its purpose. People have what I call hobby assets.

It might be a collection that your kids don’t want but if you can get creative on finding charities that these items are collection or something, it might fit right into their exempt purpose, you can get some better tax exemptions there and feel good that your stuff is going to good use. You can’t do this good research if you’re trying to get rid of this stuff so that you can get the house on the market in a month. It takes some time to do it. Have your parents do it themselves with your help while they’re still perfectly able to do so. They can feel good about that.

This whole idea of downsizing, all of my parents have gone through this whole thing. I’ve gone through it a couple of times because I moved to France. We had to downsize our house. When we moved back, we had to downsize from France. Every time we move, I do a full downsize because I don’t want to carry stuff. I wanted to give the other side of that perspective is hire somebody that loves it. I have an organizer who loves it. When she talks me into, “Moneeka, someone else will enjoy this much more. You haven’t worn this for two years.” We can have these conversations but it is emotionally and mentally exhausting for me.

I bet you could organize somebody else’s stuff. It’s more enjoyable than your own.

I probably could but it’s not a blissful experience for me. Every once in a while, my organizer will have to smack me like, “Moneeka, you need to let go of this.” A lot of times, I smacked back. You are like, “No, I’m not going to make that decision right now.”

Put it in a clear bin for later. That’s what I say.

Expect the best, prepare for the worst. Share on X

We’re going to talk about the emotional side but I wanted to give a little perspective on having compassion because if I want to smack my organizer, I would never do that. I love her but we get into these snips where I’m like, “Don’t make me.” I’m in control of my life. Imagine your parents, when they’ve got an entire lifetime of memories.

That is why you want to do it more in advance, you can do it a couple of hours at a time because it’s exhausting.

You want to make sure that it’s someone who enjoys doing it. At least, that will uplift your parents. Working with Giana, at least it’s uplifting. Every time she walks into my house, I know my house is going to look better afterward. No matter what trauma I go through, it’s worth it.

That’s what I tell my team. You’ve got to make this fun. Even if you’re going to someone’s house, telling them to pay their bills. We’re delightful. We show up as we bring flowers. We want to make this a fun experience. It’s not awesome for them sometimes so we want to make it fun. They’re excited that we’re coming over because they like us and they feel accomplished when we leave.

That’s how I feel about my organizer even when we’re downsizing. That was a good segue. I have my own emotional experience of my downsizing. What emotional stuff should we be looking out for?

Having some compassion around it and acknowledging that that’s a huge walk down memory lane. It’s a lot of things. First of all, it’s the least about the actual things. The prospect of losing their independence, like why are they moving? Where are they moving to? It might be fun when it’s not an imminent thing happening. You want to be patient because if they haven’t gone through their stuff, they’re going to come across things that spark a walk down memory lane. Use that as a fun thing to do. If it takes three hours to go through one box, so be it. If you had a nice time with your parents, you laughed about some things, had some good memories, and making the time and space for them to do that on their own times.

A lot of it is patience, compassion, and remembering that this isn’t about you. You’re helping them.

This is the role reversal because when they were parenting you, it was all about you.

REW 7 | Role Reversal

Role Reversal: You could absolutely lose track of financial assets or other things if you don’t take certain steps to collect that information.

 

It gets to be all about them and you get to be compassionate and hold their hand through this whole thing because this process can be very emotional for them.

Acknowledging that it’s stressful for them. Trying to take some opportunities to if you can do some work and then reduce the stress in some way. Mix it up a little bit. Seeking help with it too if you’re not an expert or you don’t love organizing either then you get your parents some help that someone who is enthusiastic about it, it might make it fun.

Before we move to EXTRA and the three rapid-fire questions, could you tell everybody how they can reach you?

You can get ahold of me through my website which is Simplify-Wealth.com. My email, everything about me, my team, and my contact information is all on there.

I know that you have a free gift for my audience. Why don’t we talk a little bit about that?

I have a life organizer tool. When you’re collecting information about your parents or your own life, people ask, “What should I be collecting?” If you go to my website, this tool is best viewed on your desktop versus on mobile. If you click on the top upper right next to my blog, there’s a thing that says Life Organizer. If you click on that, there’s a seven day free trial for the life organizer website which is a working grid on all the things you need to collect to get a handle on your finances. All of the things I talked about and all those passwords. It’s intended to jog your memory on what you need to collect. If you are looking it on mobile, you go all the way down to the bottom of my website.

Thank you for that. That’s valuable. I know that a lot of times when you think about your finances, there are so many moving parts, it can be intimidating. Having a list of all the things that you should be looking for, that would be helpful. Ladies, go and take a look at that at Simplify-Wealth.com and then go to the area that says Life Organizer. Are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Yes, I am.

Normally, we talk about these in terms of real estate investing but I’d like to change them to creating or simplifying your wealth and finances. Let’s do it from that perspective. You answered those questions before.

People need a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. Share on X

I’ll accidentally give the same answers. That would have happened.

We’ll do something a little different. Keep it spicy. Give us one super tip on how to get started in managing your finances and your wealth.

I would say start inventorying what you have. Start and get a partner or a personal CFO. If you’re helping your parents, partner with your parents if you’re doing this for them. Get some resources like the Life Organizer or something to start tackling it. If it’s stressing you out, the stress isn’t going to go away if you don’t start somewhere. There is some relief and tackling some chunks at it but also don’t feel like you have to do it all in one day.

What would you say is a strategy for being successful in that whole process?

I would say a strategy would be, be proactive so that you’re not having to do this when you’re under stress because something has happened to your parents or in your own life. Have a system to be organized whether you’re using a checklist, you’re tracking it in a spreadsheet, or you’re using password managers. You’ll come up with some system that once you gather the information, you’re keeping it somewhere that’s organized. Otherwise, you’re having to deal with it twice.

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

I started meditating every morning. For anyone who knows me, it was like, “She’s meditating.” I found a meditation recording if you will whenever I listened to. I have a good morning routine now. I work out, I do my meditating and it puts me in a good place to be in my zone and set my intention for the day. That state usually lasts five minutes until my life gets crazy. That’s been good practice for me.

That’s good that you added that in. It’s surprisingly important. You wouldn’t believe how many people on this show are successful, multimillionaires and that’s the thing that they say is they find a way to be mindful every single day. Angela, this has been amazing. Thank you for sharing this information with my ladies. In the next portion, we’re going to do a deep dive into how to get specifically involved in your parents’ finances and what to do. A little bit more about that conversation and what you need to collect and all that stuff. We’ve got a lot more from Angela coming in EXTRA. If you ladies are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. We’ve got more coming. If you’re not subscribed to EXTRA but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You can subscribe there. You get seven days for free.

You can test up the content, make sure you love it. You’ll be getting your EXTRA set portions of the show wherever you are reading this blog. You don’t have to have a new app. You don’t need to go anywhere else. Once you’re subscribed, it will be downloaded directly to you. For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you for joining Angela for this portion of this show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. We’ll see you next time. Bye.

 

Important Links

 

About Angela Alvig

REW 7 | Role ReversalAngela Alvig is a Personal Wealth CFO for her clients – a trusted advisor who is intimately familiar with their financial situation, values and priorities. She is a passionate, results-oriented CPA who possesses a unique combination of technical expertise and interpersonal skills, with a proactive, action-oriented approach. With over 20 years’ experience in finance, accounting and the family office industry, Angela is Founder and President of Simplify Wealth LLC and leads a team of 10 professionals.

Angela and her team provide a suite of financial and organizational services for their clients, giving them time and life freedom. She effectively leads the strategy and implementation of her firm with vision and heart, to ensure she and her team deliver optimal results for their valued clients.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:

Reaching True Success by Focusing on Your Foundation with Ian Lobas

REW 6 | True Success

 

What is true success to you? It is so easy to get lost in all the grind of work and home responsibilities that we tend to lose sight of what really matters to us. How do you get out of this fix and kick-start your journey towards a truly fulfilling life? You will learn from this episode that it all starts with focusing on your foundation, knowing who you really are, what ticks you, what really matters to you and building your vision board around that foundation. Joining Moneeka Sawyer to talk about this is Ian Lobas, a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor podcast, host speaker, and full time high performance coach. Your life is not in the future. It is now. Learn how to take the reins back and have it go your way.

Listen to the podcast here

 

Reaching True Success by Focusing on Your Foundation with Ian Lobas

I am excited to welcome to the show Ian Lobas. He’s a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor, podcast host, speaker, and full-time high-performance coach. Ian Lobas absolutely loves life. After years of grinding it out in the shipping and real estate sales businesses and making sacrifices in every other area of his life, he was burnt out. The money, the power, the success, none of it mattered anymore. He was in a failing marriage and barely knew his kids. Every day he would ask himself, “Is this really it? Is this all there is to life? Am I meant to do this forever? How can I have the life I want in every area?”

That’s what Ian set out on a mission of intense personal development to figure out why he was avoiding fear, what was causing the pain, how to clear and remove it from his life, and how to make sure it didn’t get between life and what mattered to him most. His family and living life fully with no regrets. I’m excited to share him and his wisdom with you on our show. Afterwards, if you would like to connect with Ian, you can reach him at [email protected]. Ian, welcome to the show. How are you?

Moneeka, I am fantastic. When you read that bio, it still gets me because it was almost like you were describing some other guy. What you were describing is a different guy than I am now.

We all have a journey to bliss. That’s why I wanted to chat with you because in that bio, I could see myself. I went through very similar things and a lot of the ladies on the show have gone through a lot of different things. What’s amazing about this crazy time in our lives, with everything that’s been going on with the Coronavirus and everything, we’re all getting a chance to look at it. We’re getting some more downtime. We’re living our lives differently because we have to. It’s allowing us to do a reset. Many people are in that place. I know I was. I know you were. As we’re re-evaluating what we’re going to do going forward, here’s an opportunity for a conversation that could change everything. I’m excited for you to share with us a little bit more about that journey and how did you pull yourself out.

I appreciate you having me on. I love meeting you at New Media Summit and being a part of this journey with you now. Men or women, it doesn’t matter. It’s the obsessive identity-rich journey of power, what money, and what success can give you to mask what you’re hiding from, what you’re running from, what your fear points are, and what you’re generally avoiding in your life. It is that stuff that’s deep down that scares you. People use success, money, power, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, and whatever else you want as an avoidance technique. As I said in my bio, I got to the point where at the end of 2016, I had done hundreds and hundreds of hours, even thousands, of personal development. Reading 65 books, going to fifteen seminars, and spending $50,000-plus on personal development.

At the end of the year, I’m thinking, “I did so much. I’m changing.” My wife says, “I’m out.” I thought I was doing so much work and look at all the stuff I’m doing. Look at all the work I’m doing in my life. I’m like, “I don’t like who you are still.” At that moment, what my wife said to me was, “Are you the model of a man that you want your daughter to attract into her life?” It still brings up emotion in me because it was like an eighteen-wheeler running into me. At that moment, I stopped and thought, “No, I’m not.” That’s when my wife said, “You’re doing all this stuff but it hasn’t changed anything about you. It added to all the things you now know and you’re already self-righteous enough. You already try to look smart and look good all the time, anyway. Now, it gave you more ammo.”

That is when I learned the difference between being and doing. That real big quest of like, “How do I change my being? I don’t like myself. I don’t want to get divorced.” Truthfully, it was a divorce attorney who said to me, “I’m not going to take this case. This isn’t what you want. You’re selfish. You’re a jerk. If you can figure out the guy deep down inside that you’re hiding behind all this stuff, when you figure that guy out, you’re going to live a great life because it’s in there. I hear you. I see you. You’re not the guy that’s masculine, tough guy. You’ve got a side to you that people enjoy. If you can have him come out all the time, you’ll have a great relationship in life.” That’s what I did.

There’s something that I say to my audience all the time is that we can’t control what’s going on outside of us in the world. We can’t always control how we choose to respond. What that has to do with is who are we being in the world? Who are we truly inside that is showing up in the world? Many of us may not like that person. Part of that has to do with we don’t even know how to keep ourselves happy. We don’t even know how to create that inside job that everybody is talking about that most of us are giving lip service too. My journey with bliss has been about creating that bliss equilibrium within myself so that no matter what is going on outside whether the economy, election, Coronavirus, my husband is having problems at work, or whatever. No matter what is going on out there, Moneeka is the same person. I show up the same way everywhere.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t have challenges, I don’t fall off the horse, I don’t have my own issues but it means that I am in the habit of coming back to this place of bliss, joy, and being the kind of person I want to be in the world. I may fall off the horse but I don’t stay off for very long. That’s the key. The conversation is about there’s a lot going on out there that we can’t control. There are cycles in what’s been happening. A lot of us are experiencing a lot of emotion up, down, and sideways. What is going on? How do we become blissful in those circumstances? I love your input on what you think would help people.

One of my areas of specialty in my coaching consulting business is helping people to separate from the identity that they created around that avoidance, around that pain, trauma from the past, or whatever it might be and realize who they are inside or who they choose to be. The choices that they can make at every moment going forward because it’s your responsibility to every moment. You have a choice and it’s not 50 million variables, it’s two. Toward the goal or away from the goal. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out how to do that.

If you can find the person you are hiding deep inside you, you are going to have a really great life. Share on X

It takes a very clear mind to set a clear goal and to understand the path to get there. When you face an obstacle that you can go left when you know the goal is right, you have a choice to go left. Go left and understand that when you kick a ball downhill, it will not stop. Whatever happens on the other side of that choice, that’s your responsibility. It’s not the other guy who cuts you off or the other guy who made you late. It’s none of that stuff and you have to start owning that responsibility of those choices that you make.

I talked about this a lot. Take 100% responsibility and it can be scary because it’s like, “I’m responsible for all of those bad things that are happening to me.” Not really. What taking 100% responsibility gives you is the opportunity to create change. Those bad things are happening to me and if I take responsibility then I have the power to create change. It’s about empowering yourself to run your own life. One of the things that you talked about that I love and has not been on this show before but I’m very aware of and I teach to my coursework is towards goals and away goals.

There are a lot of people running away from the fear of the Coronavirus or it’s fall out like, “What’s going to happen?” There’s a lot of ifs and there’s a lot of fear. People don’t know what’s happening and they’re running away from that fear. Let’s get into the mode of the towards. First, why don’t you define a way in toward goals because we think it’s intuitive but there might be some people going, “That’s an interesting concept. How does that work in my life?” Let’s talk about how we can utilize that concept now.

I always want to foundationalize with something that a lot of people know, maybe not everybody. If you’re familiar with Michelangelo’s David, I don’t know if this story is true, but I’ve read, I’ve always been fascinated with the David especially in personal development in myself as a coach, a leader, and somebody who helps people shift and change their lives. Michelangelo was quoted and somebody asked him, “How did you create the David?” He said, “I didn’t. I knew what pieces of marble to remove and David was already there.” I equate the same thing to who we are. What we put on in terms of the pieces of marble that we don’t need on ourselves, our spirits, our souls, whatever is from all that stuff that happened to us in the past.

Whatever happened at high school and childhood, your first breakup, all that pain started to build the armor. All we’re talking about here is identifying the pieces of that armor that no longer serve you and removing them. The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, the choice you make is not toward anger. You understand and have identified, “I know why I get angry at this. I can take that off. It no longer serves me.” The next time someone cuts you off, you don’t make meaning of it and you move on. It’s easier said than done. It all comes with practice and building a habit. There’s still stuff that irritates me. There’s still stuff that makes me upset and angry. It’s just in that moment, I choose to be responsible for my choice.

Does this either go toward the goal of building this business, getting home on time, spending time with my kids, going out to dinner with my wife, or does me chasing this guy down and flipping them off to prove some point that doesn’t even matter, does that go toward my goal or not? The biggest thing that people can do is clearly identify goals that are not based on who they become in their job or social circle. It’s pure, “I want to spend more time at home with my kids, or I want to take my wife out on a date twice a week.” If you’re single, it could be something that’s a hobby. It doesn’t take identity. Some of this stuff takes money but it doesn’t take your identity around those things to get this goal accomplished. It’s you who can do it.

I always tell people, if you get fired from your job and your bank account is empty, will you still have any goals? Most people say no. The fact is you’re still going to have a goal or you’re going to die that moment. The exercise is you got fired from your job or your business failed, you have no money but the people around you who you love whether it’s your family, your friends, or extended family, they’re still there. What’s the foundational piece? Once you have the foundational piece, you can start building from there. I guarantee you, that goal sheet looks much different than most people’s dream boards or vision boards that have fancy cars, big vacations, and stuff like that. That’s all-important but foundationalizing it, that’s how you get that built.

What do you mean by foundationalizing it? Let’s go deeper there.

I work with a lot of people and I’ll ask them, “Build me a vision board. Let me see your vision board.” They’ll show me pictures of yachts, jets, ten-carat diamond rings, vacations for $50,000 to Tahiti, and they’ve got $500 in a bank account. They have this dream of one day being able to achieve that stuff. The challenge is that who they are within that. They have no idea how to attain that because the person that they are can’t attain that. Do they have the skills? Sure, they can acquire those. Could they find the money? I’m sure they can but the person that they are is never going to put all that stuff together. That was the problem with me. I could do all this work on myself but until it soaked into the bone, that’s the only time that it’s going to change things radiating outward.

For everybody reading, it’s not about more stuff you can add to your plate. It’s not about the next book, podcast, seminar, or big things that made these big impacts. It’s about these little tiny choices, not yelling at your two-year-old kid because they spilled something. Saying like, “This is a two-year-old, what am I doing?” Make a choice at that moment to say, “I want my kid to spend more time with me. I want to be a better example.” Be a better example of that moment. As you start to do those things where it’s like, “I could stay at the office for another hour to get this work done,” or “I could fulfill on the promise to my kid or my girlfriend to go out to dinner or go see my grandmother in the hospital,” whatever it might be.

REW 6 | True Success

True Success: Remove all barriers and blind spots. Find your foundational piece and start building your success from there.

 

Those little things that don’t register as a giant on your radar because it was high consumers and our minds are moving so fast and we want big dopamine hits, those are the things that when you start to think about the little tiny pieces that make a widespread effect, those are how you build the foundation. Instead of saying like, “I couldn’t see my grandmother for the last six months. She’s been in the hospital because I’m going out to dinner with clients. I’ve got this or I’ve got a deadline at work.”

Compartmentalizing that stuff and saying, “If all that work stuff goes away, am I still going to make up reasons why I can’t go see my grandmother in the hospital or why I can’t take my girlfriend on a date?” It’s not true because you’re going to be depressed because your identity is gone. You have to create an identity around what would be there without any of the other stuff that runs your life. What I became an expert on is how to remove all the other barriers, all the blind spots, see what matters most, and build from there.

That’s a lot of what people are going through. We were spending an awful lot of time with ourselves and for some people, it’s uncomfortable because all the external stuff is not available for us or it’s showing up differently. Do you have any specific tips on how to get to that person? What can we do? I know that you’re going to give some good juicy stuff. What could we do to get that started?

I agree with you. I’ve been talking to my neighbors from a distance. I was the guy that could never work from home. I had to get out of here on a routine, a structure, and a schedule. I also realized through the work that was an identity was to go to Starbucks and be that guy, get this parking spot and I’m that guy, show my car off and I’m that guy, have this office and I’m that guy. All of that stuff was wrapped up in this fake facade and this balloon that can be popped in any time. What I tell people because I’ve had a lot of calls with people literally going crazy because they can’t be that person. They can’t get up on Monday morning, go to the office, and escape the things at home or the problems that they had.

The tiny things you can do, you can start to fill in with what you’ve always wanted to do or dreamed about doing, you have the time. Don’t sit around and complain about it or be depressed over it. If you’re at home with your kids, that’s amazing. That’s a God-send. That’s a blessing and a half. What people are seeing now is a spotlight shine on what they’ve created around them. I have some friends who are like, “I can’t stand my kid for more than an hour a day. This kid is driving me crazy. He’s jumping around. His language. I never realized this.” I’m like, “You created that. Why don’t you sit down and be present with your kid?” I posted a video on my Facebook page of my daughter doing her affirmations in the mirror.

I never would’ve done something like that. I was having conversations, she started getting up with me at 5:00 AM. She was already up. In the moment making that decision, instead of me being irritated because she’s affecting my morning routine, why don’t I be a nice parent, a dad, and include her? I said, “Why don’t you follow Daddy, we’ll go in, and you can see what I do in the morning?” I would brush my teeth and I would do my affirmations in the mirror. I would come and do a little meditation then I’ll do my journaling. I do some pushups and sit-ups. As she went on throughout the weeks, she started doing it with me.

She’s been saying affirmations since she was a year old. Now we run them in her bathroom mirror and she does them. I can tell you that this kid is so happy in the morning to get up with me and to do the things that I like to do. It also has a bonus of she’s building confidence in herself as a woman who’s four years old. It melts my heart as a dad to watch her. I taught her how to snorkel in the bathtub which sounds weird but I want her to scuba dive. I was watching YouTube videos and it says, “Teach them how to snorkel in the bathtub.” I watched her and she was like, “I can’t go under.”

I’m like, “If you say you can’t, then you can’t. Take the snorkel off.” She said, “I want to.” I said, “Tell yourself that you are afraid and it’s okay. You can get yourself through it.” Sharing those moments with her, teaching her life’s lessons, and that’s the stuff that I’m talking about which isn’t like these monumental moves. It’s not a big fat paycheck. It’s not your promotion or your brand-new car. It’s not that dopamine hit. It’s a long, slow burn but you’re creating something in somebody else that has major lasting effects. If everything else went away, my daughter still has confidence in herself and a belief in herself that most kids her age would never even know until they’re teenagers when it gets shattered anyway.

They still have tools that a lot of teenagers don’t have.

Those are little tiny things. It could be the morning routine that you’ve always wanted to do but you’ve never made time. It can be the time with the children, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whoever that it’s always been work, this, or my hobby comes before. You don’t have any of those options right now. As far as we know, because the world could end, you’ll never have those options again. If the world delivers it, great. If it delivers it the next day, great. In the present moment, this is your life. Make the absolute best of it. Read that book, watch that show, spend time with your kids, or take them outside and play with them. I built this swing set that I’ve had in my shed for a year because I didn’t make time.

Your life is right now. Make the absolute best of it. Share on X

Just little tiny things and start with the morning routine. I tell people to focus on children, spouse, and yourself if you have a family. If you don’t, it’s all about self-love and self-care. If you want an easy way to do self-love and self-care, boil a pot of water and make yourself loose tea. You have to strain it, you have to steep it for fifteen minutes, you’ll be with yourself doing something for yourself for 25 minutes for a cup of tea. If that’s not self-love, I don’t know what is because you’re saying yourself like, “I care enough to spend this time making myself a little cup of tea, not rush the microwave, and not run around 50 million things but I’m going to spend this time on me right now.”

First of all, it’s such an easy thing that all of us can do. It’s something none of us would ever think about. It can be such a meditative beautiful experience because normally, what do we do in the morning? We’re like, “I’ve got to get my cup of coffee, a cup of tea, or whatever.” We’re running around while it’s steeping and doing tons of things. What if we slowed down? What if we took that moment? We don’t have to rush around in many cases. Even we did, it’s okay to give ourselves fifteen minutes just for us. Have a bubble bath, wait for a half-hour for the water to heat up, fill up, and all that stuff. It’s something that can happen at the moment that will slow us down. It’s something to do. I know so many people, when we talk about slowing down, they’re like, “I’ve got to be doing something.” This is something they can do that also slows them down.

Doing something is an avoidance tactic for facing who you are. When people have to sit by themselves and be with themselves, it’s scary. Friday evening, you can go, “Two days.” I’m only speaking to those people. There are people that are reading and they’re like, “I’m content with my life. I’m going to take some of these tips and add them.” For those people that hit Friday night and they’re like, “Two days, I’ve got to make it through, get home, make it through two days. Get back to the office.” What I’ve found in my business is a lot of those people, not hate but dislike the weekend because they don’t have something to keep them busy and their mind off of work that they need to do on themselves. They also hate their job.

They’re in this vicious cycle of monotonous negativity filled lifestyle that affects their health and their relationships and then at the end, you don’t have anything. It’s not a way to live. The teething is a small example of how someone can take care of themselves. I know the naysayers, it’s not going to be your audience, it’s going to be whoever hears it like this. Somebody is saying, “He doesn’t have four kids. He doesn’t know.” I have two kids. I take care of my daughter in the morning and my wife takes care of our son. That’s our commitment. I’m sure my wife would want me to step in a little bit more with the baby but he’s so small. He needs her all the time.

I take care of my daughter. I understand if you have a little bit too much to do. That’s no excuse to not take time for yourself and make yourself a cup of tea. What you’re saying to yourself is with all the stuff going on in this world, I care about me. I care about taking a couple of minutes for myself to do something for me that doesn’t mean anything but what I make it mean to myself. I’m making myself a cup of tea. That’s it. I’ve found that to be so symbolic of the love I’m feeling for myself at the moment that on those days when I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” It’s a Japanese tea ceremony. I don’t go the full gamut but it’s about meditation, the steeping of the tea, and the releasing of the important medicinal pieces of that tea leaf. There’s a lot of stuff going on in there.

It’s a ritual that serves us. There’s a reason that many spiritual practices, many religious practices, business practices, family practices, all of these things, we have rituals that help to enhance or amplify the experience. When you have a ritual that you can do that represents self-love, you have access to that ritual at any moment. We started talking about something to do. To do is often an escape tactic. It also can be a ritual. It depends on how we use it. This is all in our mind and the experience that we make it. I know that we’re going to talk a little bit more about what we make of things, the meaning that we give things but this is something that we have control of in our mind. What are we turning this experience into for ourselves and for the people around us even? Here’s the thing. You, as a dad, and he has a wife, daughter, those sorts of things, if I’m taking care of myself, I’m a nicer person to be around.

Most of the time. There’s always stuff that’s going to come in and do its best to affect how we’re being on a minute-to-minute basis. That’s our choice.

Because you’re doing those things to take care of yourself, you’re not as vulnerable too.

That’s the biggest point, as you remove that armor that we talked about from that identity, that’s created on a foundation of sand. You start to open up the possibility for yourself. What could be? It’s a habit that you have to build. Try something little. The tea thing might not work for you. You might not tea but it could be with your coffee. For those people that are coffee crazy and they’ve got to have it first thing in the morning, wake up 30 minutes early or 20 minutes early and have a ritual. I brush my teeth and it’s not about boiling water or this. It’s about the separate ingredients going together and not it being an instant world because instant gratification is what pulls us so quickly off of our mark that when we slow down and we have to put something together, this could be with a puzzle too or things like that. You can do it with your kids.

I say that as a dad and an entrepreneur. From a dad who could care less about the family. If I had time for them, I might make it if something else didn’t come up. That’s where I’m coming from. It could be literally anything, wake up a little bit earlier. If you’ve got a bunch of kids at home, if you’ve got a job and you still have to go to telecommute, give yourself that and own that. If you can take the next step and write in a journal, write in a journal, “I love myself.” I guarantee you 95% this audience has never said, in words, in a mirror, or in a journal, I love myself. I care for myself. I have 50 million exercises and different things that people can do but that’s something simple. Make yourself a cup of tea and write in a journal that I love myself, I took time for myself. I’m telling you, the foundation that that can build, although it sounds very simple, is monumental.

REW 6 | True Success

True Success: Start with small with things that you absolutely love. You have the time; don’t spend it all whining about it.

 

It’s delightful to hear that somebody else is doing that stuff. I have never admitted this because I feel like it sounds a little bit narcissistic and it’s not, it’s exactly what you expressed. Every day, I do a lot of physical therapy because my shoulder is bad. After the physical therapy, the reward is I stand right in front of my full-length mirror because I have to do physical therapy and be able to watch myself. I’m standing there sweating, hurting, and feeling bad because it hurts to do this. It’s called pain therapy, not physical therapy because I stand in front of the mirror. After all of that, I look directly at my own eyes and say, “Moneeka, I love you, powerful woman.” Saying it now without looking in my eyes tears me up but when I’m looking at my own eyes, it is powerful.

For someone that tries that and it doesn’t register right away because you’ve done that to yourself. I’m saying that from someone that took almost six months for it to register. When I look in the mirror and say, “I love you,” it was nothing. All of a sudden, one day I teared up and I’m like, “I got it.”

I heard it from myself.

“I allowed it in.” The symbolism or the reflection of you being able to say that to yourself is the amount of armor that you have up. In the moment when you’re doing this work to remove that armor, to reveal the true you, that makes it easier on people. They don’t have to build a whole new them. They have to remove the stuff that doesn’t work anymore for them with your marriage, your job, and your relationships with your kids. When you finally say I love you that day, whether it’s six months, a year, or two weeks later and it registers, you know that you’ve got stuff clear that you were intending to clear. You’re free. You’re revitalized and you have a new life at that moment.

We need to wrap up this part of the show and I’m excited to go into EXTRA. There are a couple of things I want to ask you. First of all, what are you going to be talking about in EXTRA?

We’re going to go deeper into the stuff that I talked about. For people that are curious, we’re going to be going deeper into the meaning and the outcome that we tie to things that affect us from the outside in, and then from the inside out. It’s this vicious cycle.

We’re going to turn it from a vicious cycle into a magical cycle. We’re going to turn it to a blissful cycle. That sounds amazing. I’m excited about that. Ladies, you’ll definitely stay tuned for that but before we sign off, could you tell us again how people can get in touch with you?

I’m in a transition period. I’m purchasing a new business and a new podcast. You will be able to catch me on that very soon. Ian Lobas on Facebook, you’ll see it because there’s a little picture of my daughter. On Instagram, I am @YourDefiningMoments which will be changed. My email is [email protected].

Thank you so much.

It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Ladies, we are going to move into EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, please stay tuned. If you’re not, but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com and you can subscribe there and get all this EXTRA content. I was telling one of my guests that EXTRA is my true hard work. This is the gift that I want to give all of you because this is the place where my guests who are amazing on this normal show, they get to shine, go deep, and give you those special things that are going to change your life. It’s my true gift to you. If you haven’t checked it out, go check it out. It is worth it. I learned so much from my guests in every single show and I am completely blown away by what I personally take away in every single EXTRA episode. For those of you that are leaving us. Thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. Always remember, bliss is your birthright. Choose to live your bliss every single day. I’ll see you next time.

 

Important Links

 

About Ian R. Lobas

REW 6 | True SuccessMy name is Ian R. Lobas and I am a professional Realtor with Keller Williams Gateway in White Marsh, MD. I’ve had a vested interest in real estate from a young age, and I bring a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, and negotiation to my clients. I’ve been consistently ranked as a top sales agent due to the detailed focus I put into my core values. The values I rely heavily on are energy, effort, education and passion. These help me best serve and create long-lasting client relationships.

Prior to my career in real estate, I worked at an international shipping and custom brokerage business. In this role, I gained valuable experience in negotiation and transaction management, sales team management, cargo logistics & operations, marketing, advertising, and import/export complex international contracts. I’m committed to taking my past experience and using it for the benefits of my clients now and in the future. I would love the opportunity to help you buy or sell in Baltimore today.

As a Full-time, full-service REALTOR, I specialize in Residential Purchase and Sales, New Home Sales, Luxury Condos, Luxury Homes, Investment Properties, Waterfront, Renovation/Rehab, Property Staging/Decoration.

Energy and effort make the difference! For the most in-depth information and exceptional experience, call me today!

Check out my TV Commercial for National Association of Realtors!

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:
1 37 38 39 40 41 70
>