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Can Money Buy Happiness With Hal Elrod – Real Estate For Women

 

Can money buy you happiness? People need money to operate. There are a lot of important things you need to do but without money, you can’t do it. How can you find true happiness in your life? Learn more with Hal Elrod and Moneeka Sawyer as they talk all about bliss. Discover how to be blissful at the moment. Find out whether money is the root of all evil. And, know more about Moneeka’s book Choose Bliss. Listen to this episode and understand how to be confident in anything you do.

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Can Money Buy Happiness With Hal Elrod

Real Estate Investing For Women

Welcome to February of 2022. How has this year been going for you so far? I felt blissful in this transition from 2021 to 2022. I feel like there has been this slow roll into the new year. Normally, the new year feels frenzy to me. There’s a lot of that masculine go-getter energy that we get. I love the go-getter energy. That’s not a criticism. It feels a bit spastic and forced in the new year. There’s a random date that people feel they have suddenly got to get all these new year’s resolutions and do all this new stuff. It’s not realistic. It’s not based on what their true ambitions are. It’s this contrived idea of who we are supposed to be in the new year.

I have been trying not to do that over the many past years. What is interesting is that if we have that global energy, we all get swept in it too. Whether we in our own lives do it or not, that energy is still there. It impacts and influences us. What is fun this year is that I have felt the slow, gentle flow, like the flow of a river into this new year. I loved it. Surprisingly, I feel like I have been more productive in January of this year than ever before because it feels so natural like it’s where I’m supposed to be. I hope that you guys are feeling that same energy. I’m feeling that globally. I hope you are feeling it too. I hope that so far, your year has been amazing.

As we move forward, I wanted to share with you a show that I did a while ago with Hal Elrod. He is the author of The Miracle Morning. I know many of you love that episode. I got great responses. I was also on his show and we talked about, “Can money buy happiness?” which is the ultimate question I get all the time. People are like, “Moneeka, do you think that money can buy you bliss?” I have got all sorts of responses to that.

I thought it might be fun for you to read Hal and I talk about this and our meeting of minds on this and also the places where we don’t necessarily agree. It was a great conversation. Hal’s podcast is called Achieve Your Goals. I thought it was appropriate to be talking about goals and how money impacts those goals early in the year as we are moving into this year. I hope you enjoy this show as much as I enjoy doing it. Hal is fascinating. I love him and I hope you love him too. Enjoy the show.

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In the show, we interview successful individuals. Success and successful are two words that are loaded words. I want you to define what success is for you. Is it happiness, health, financial freedom, the impact you make in the world, the legacy you leave or all of the above? For me, success is all of the above and then more that I didn’t even mention. We are going to approach success in a different way. If I was summing it up in one word, success in the context of this conversation that you are about to read with Moneeka Sawyer, in one word, success is bliss.

Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She is a real estate investor. That is her profession and trade. She has been doing that for many years. In the last couple of years, as you can imagine, if you have paid attention to the real estate market, I know mine when it crashed in 2008. That was the lowest point in my life where The Miracle Morning was born from that adversity. She has seen it all. She has been through all the different cycles of the market. She turned $10,000 that she started with into over $2 million. It’s part of the bliss for her. She is working only 5 to 10 hours per month with very little stress. We will talk more about this.

I always say, “In life, you can be stressed out or blissed out.” I say that from the stage all the time. I also say, “It has nothing to do or very little to do with what is going on around you and everything to do with what is going on inside of you.” While Moneeka was building her multimillion-dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries. She dances every single day. It’s part of her bliss. She has spent lots of time with her husband for many years.

She is also the international bestselling author of the multiple-award-winning book, Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment. She is the Host of the show Real Estate Investing For Women. I was on her show and she laughs a lot. She is happy and healthy. She has been featured on stages, radio, podcasts and TV stations, including ABC, CBS, Fox and The CW, impacting over 100 million people. We are going to make it 101 million-plus people as you read this show. Moneeka, welcome to the show.

Hal, thank you so much for having me.

In life, you can be stressed out or blissed out and it has more to do with what’s inside you than around you.

You are welcome. It’s a pleasure. I was on your show a while back. Occasionally, I’m on a show and I love the energy so much of the host that I go, “Will you come on my show? Will you bring that laugh, bliss and message that you have to the Achieve Your Goals readers?” I’m grateful that you are here. It’s a word list that is so rich with meaning. I want to ask you for your definition. A lot of people ask me when I’m on their show, “How do you define a miracle? That’s a loaded word.” Bliss is a mysterious word and maybe loaded. What is bliss as you define it, Moneeka?

Bliss is not just being happy. It’s a much deeper sense of joy, contentment and absolute confidence that you can handle anything that comes your way. It’s all about emotional mastery and emotional resilience. This is one of the things we connected on also on my show. I always say, “You can’t control what happens on the outside but you must control what happens on the inside.”

It sounds like you and I are pretty like-minded. I like that. They say there are no new ideas. I have been studying metaphysics a lot lately. I have been studying the collective field of consciousness. It’s interesting that I often will talk to somebody like you or read a book. I’m sure you experienced this when you were reading something. You have an idea that you feel is an original idea that you have never heard of and then you realize, “That was in Think and Grow Rich 100 years ago. That was in the Bible.”

It’s the collective field of consciousness of intelligence that we can all tap into if we want to. Bliss is happiness and joy. You talked about emotional resilience and emotional mastery and what happens inside of you versus what happens outside of you. It’s that old phrase, “They practically wrote the book on this. No, you wrote the book on this.” You wrote the book, Choose Bliss. How did you come to this idea of bliss?

I was born in a part of America where I was the only person in school that was not White. Due to that, as a young girl, I was bullied, humiliated and tormented constantly. I learned early in life that life was hard, that people weren’t going to like me and that I was all alone. You can imagine that’s not a blissful or happy place to be. As I grew up, the torment became much worse. It got violent and there were some horrible things that happened that boys do to girls.

After all of that, I was in a car accident where I was sitting at a red light. A guy was going 50 miles an hour and smacked me from behind. I became a cripple and was told that I was never going to walk again. That’s not horrifying enough but what you don’t know is that I had been dancing since I was three years old. My deepest dream was to become a professional dancer and now here I was with no legs.

I know that you can relate to this story. I went through this period of, “I’m not going to be in a chair. I’m not just going to walk again. I’m going to dance and compete again.” I went after it. I saw the right doctors. This was in the years when there was no real holistic healing. I still would see a chiropractor, acupuncturist and all these healers but it never got better.

What age was the accident?

I was 21. Things weren’t getting better. The pain was still completely overwhelming. As I realized that things were not getting better about a year in, I started to feel hopeless like, “I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not getting better. I’m not able to find my path.” I started to fall into a very deep depression. I remember it had been about a year of me sinking down this hole where I was still in so much pain. One day, I had been in bed for about a week and crying. I had the covers pulled over my head. I don’t know if anybody else can relate to this. I’m so depressed.

 

I woke up this one morning and heard my mom’s voice in my head. She said, “Get out of bed and go get some air. You will feel better.” I said, “Thanks, mom.” I pushed the covers off my head and swung my legs around to get out of bed. As I tried to stand up, I fell to the ground because my legs were too weak to hold me. I sat there on the ground. I pushed myself up against my bed and cried. At that moment, I prayed and said, “God, it never gets better. It keeps getting worse and I can’t keep going this way. Have mercy on me. Either take me home or teach me how to live.”

About an hour later, a girlfriend who I had not heard from for over two years randomly called. She was the answer to my prayer to God. She asked me how I was doing and turned me on to a coach named Ted. Ted saved my life. As we started chatting, he reminded me of my tenacity and strength. He reminded me of my constant search for happiness and all the things that I had learned. He added some of his own new skills and together we brought me back. It was amazing.

You make a decision to live and be blissful but then you have to go through the journey to get there. It was not an easy journey but once the decision was made, I went for it. I started to experience life in a way I had never experienced before with so much joy and bliss, where before I thought, “Happiness is so fleeting. It was dependent on if I had no pain or if someone I loved was near me or if I had the right things or was around the right people.” In those days, I thought happiness was fleeting. Now, I could see that bliss was about what was going on inside of my mind, heart and soul.

Ted was so excited about my recovery. He hired me on as a bliss mentor underneath him as a coach and I started dealing with his executive clients. It was funny because I would talk to these guys. They are super successful. How do we define success? I know there are lots of different definitions. They had tons of money, the perfect house, perfect marriage, cute kids, an adorable dog, a white picket fence and a nice car. They had it all. As we talked about why their business was failing, what we found is that they were no longer happy. They were not motivated, inspired and creative.

I took my lifelong journey and all the skills I had developed and what Ted taught me. I started to teach these amazingly successful men how to find joy again. That’s how I came to bliss and moved into my work. That’s why I wrote my book because the thing about coaching is I can only reach people one-on-one. Speaking in groups, I can only reach so many people but a book can and has reached millions of people to create bliss around the world.

I don’t know if I’m the male version of you or you are the female version of me.

I have that same feeling. It was amazing.

Coaching can only reach people, one-on-one or in groups. But a book can reach millions and millions of people.

In an accident, I did some inner work. I discovered a better way to live free from emotional pain and be blissed out, happy and grateful. Authentically, it’s all of those things and then the feeling of responsibility, “How we could impact the world is to put it in a book.” I wrote The Miracle Morning. You wrote Choose Bliss. I’m getting chills at how aligned our stories are. It’s two souls that are on a similar journey. It’s very cool.

Let’s start with this and get actionable. I’m only practical and actionable. Too many teachers, messengers, authors and whoever are very philosophical. They teach you philosophy, which can be helpful but if it’s not actionable, you don’t change your behavior. You often forget the philosophy or life gets in the way of the philosophy or your emotions get in the way of the philosophy. With all that said, give us one tip that we can use to be more blissful.

This is my favorite tip to give people because it’s actionable and usable even as you are sitting with me. Maybe you are driving a car and then suddenly someone cuts you off. You get irritated. You can feel this emotion happening. This can happen in lots of cases whether it’s at work or you got cut off. I’m going to use the cutoff one because a lot of us can relate to that. When you are in a moment where you are not blissful and you are the opposite of blissful, you can create a bliss moment.

This is what you do. Someone cut you off in traffic, let’s say. All of a sudden, you are upset. Why are you upset? It’s not because of what happened. It’s the meaning that you give that. Suddenly, a story happens in your mind about, “I can’t believe they cut me off. What if they had hit me?” All of these stories happen in your mind. That’s what causes the stress.

This is how you do a bliss moment. You stop those stories in your mind and do a complete interrupt. For me, I will say, “Moneeka, stop.” I literally interrupt the thought and then I drop into my body, roll my shoulders back a little bit, relax my body and take a couple of deep breaths. Now, you are in a place of being grounded, centered and compassionate. You can approach your life with whatever decision or situation. Whatever you are doing, you can approach that situation from this place of heartfelt bliss.

Let’s say something happens. Somebody cuts you off and you are upset about it. I’m following your process. I interrupt the thought, “Hal, knock it off. This is not productive. Being upset is not going to fix it. There’s no point in being upset. Take that deep breath and get centered in the body.” What if the mind is not obeying? One thing is we are programmed. You can study at a neurological level that there are pathways in the brain. Our brain fires off the same way it fired off last time somebody cut us off in traffic. We keep living our life on repeat.

If somebody does that and they interrupt the pattern, they get into the body and get centered through breath and relaxing the shoulders but they still feel that emotion coming up. Is there any self-talk? Is there more physical work? For me, what you are saying is you are preaching to the choir. If somebody is reading that’s like, “That sounds easier said than done,” that’s what I’m thinking. What would you say to that person? How would they implement this?

First of all, it is hard because we are hardwired to act a different way. It may not work the first time. The first thing that I will say to you is to keep practicing because practice will make perfect. It may not help the first time but once you practice it ten times, you will start to see it. Maybe it’s not even ten. Maybe it’s 1, 2 or 3. You will start to see, “It is having an impact.” If it was easy, everybody would be blissful. We have to focus on this and make it a priority. It’s not always easy. Anything worth having sometimes you have to work for. It’s okay if it does not work the first time.

 

Here are some things. First of all, don’t beat yourself up because it did not work. Like just know, “I need to get better at this.” You practice it again next time. You can turn this into a game. Start looking for those moments that you can utilize this technique so you can practice it so that it starts to build the neural pathways in your brain of how you react like, “I’m upset about that.” Here’s another natural thing that people are like, “I’m upset and I deserve to be upset. That was wrong.” You do have a right to be upset. How does that make you feel and perform? Is that what you want in your life even if you have a right to it? Is it useful? Is it going to make you blissful?

I want to follow up on that. We teach a similar lesson. Truth is truth, especially if you have been through what you and I have been through and the car accident being told you are not going to walk again. Either you let that destroy you emotionally and you become the victim or you rise above it and you learn how to manage your emotions in such a way that adversities don’t deter you in a major way. For me, I teach what I call the Five-Minute Rule, which says, “It’s okay to be negative when something goes unexpected or not according to plan or it’s painful or difficult.”

Set your timer on your phone for five minutes. You get five minutes to bitch, moan, complain, cry, vent or punch a wall. I’m going to say the same thing, “Get into your body and take a deep breath.” You say three liberating words, which are, “Can’t change it.” It’s not that you can’t change the future. It’s that you can’t change the past. That already happened. You can’t change it.

When I learned this, I was nineteen. It was in my sales training. I shared this with audiences because I go, “Raise your hand if you think five minutes is not quite long enough. You need at least a Five-Hour Rule or maybe five days to be pissed off.” A lot of hands go up. They were like, “Come on, five minutes? I’m starting to get upset at five minutes. I’m barely scratching. I’m just getting riled up. My face isn’t even as right as it’s going to be in about ten more minutes.”

That’s the thing. When I learned this, I thought five minutes was not enough and I needed longer. Sure enough, the first time I had a customer cancel an order, it was my biggest order of the week. It was the last day. It helped me hit my goal and now I failed my goal because I lost the order. I set the timer for five minutes. The timer went off five minutes later. This was a week into my sales career. I’m so mad and the timer goes off. I’m ready to throw the phone. I go, “I’m still mad because five minutes went by. I’m still upset.”

It was probably a few days in. It was maybe after a week. I don’t remember the exact day but here’s what happened. It creates what you are talking about. This is conscious awareness. Either you are reactive or proactive in terms of the meaning that you are giving to the things in your life that are not pleasant, desirable or you did not expect or want. The idea is that when the timer would go off the first few times, it was not enough time. Each time, I was being consciously aware, “There’s no point in dwelling on something I can’t change. There’s no point in staying upset.” You can be stressed out or blissed out. It doesn’t matter what is happening to you. As Moneeka said, you give it to it and you respond.

There’s no point in dwelling on something you can’t change. There’s no point in staying upset.

What happened is I can picture the moment. I was in my apartment. I had another woman cancel an order. It was the last day toward my goal. I set the timer for five minutes. I got up and I was like, “I can’t believe she canceled that order. I needed this so bad. I have no time to make up for this.” I picked my phone back up and I had 4 minutes and 32 seconds. I went, “What is the point of me being upset for another four and a half minutes? I could turn the timer off and say, can’t change it, accept it, be at peace with it and schedule more appointments. That seems like a better use of my time and energy.”

The Five-Minute Rule, within a matter of a week, turned into the Five-Second Rule where I’m like, “I need to vent for a second. There’s no point in changing it.” I love what you are saying. I played that devil’s advocate of like, “What if you do that? You interrupt your thought pattern, get centered in your body, relax the shoulder, take a deep breath and then give yourself permission to feel that bliss. What if you are still upset?” For me, that was it.

After a matter of days or a week or so, I realized I was reconditioning the meaning that I have been giving to adversity my entire life, realizing, “I’m not a victim. It’s not a life sentence that whenever something happens that I did not want to happen, I have to be upset about it until I forget about it.” Anytime they think about something, it makes them upset. They get upset whether it happened five days, five months or five decades ago.

People do carry it for five decades. It’s still there for you. It’s like, “Is that still serving you?” I asked you to be on my show because I listened to some of yours. I love this Five-Minute Rule thing because one of the things that I used to say is, “You do have a right to your emotions.” Like you say, truth is truth and sometimes things suck. That’s the truth. Give yourself a time limit where you get to honor your feelings. You get to honor them, live them and be them. Commit to yourself that you will turn it off and commit to your own happiness again in order to move forward.

For me, I left it for people to look inside at what that time limit is whether it’s a day, an hour or a couple of days. If someone dies, maybe you want a month. I love the way you took it from this pick to, “Try this. Just do this.” If something horrible happens, you may still be there for a while. You may still be there for a month. If your intention is to only be there for five minutes, you are so much more likely to succeed at getting back to bliss than if you will not have that intention to get back there in a timely fashion.

The thing is you might as well choose bliss in the midst of your adversity. That’s the difference. People think it’s mutually exclusive like, “I feel bad because bad things happen.” You feel bad because you are not willing to give yourself the gift of acceptance and being at peace with the “bad thing” that happened.

When you talked about can’t change it, the motto that I have used is, “I am at complete peace with exactly how my life is today.” That’s always my motto.

You believe wealth is important to bliss. I do as well. I would love to hear why you think that is.

It has been scientifically proven that people that struggle with money are not happy. It has also been statistically proven that once we can pay the bills and we are comfortable, we tend to be happier. What happens in the world now, especially in our business world is so many people are out there with a real message. They are just not out there to make money. I’m sure that this is true with many of your readers. They are out there to change something and do something important.

 

The honest truth is, it’s hard to do things that are important if you are broke. You need to have wealth supporting you, creating your foundation and taking care of you so it’s not taking up your mind real estate so that your mind real estate can be focused on your passion. It’s the things that you want to do in the world. It’s your message. The more wealth you have, the more good you can do. To the point where you are paying the bills and surviving, it’s going to affect your actual happiness and bliss. Creating more wealth does help to support you in creating more bliss in your own life because it allows you to be authentically who you want to be in the world in the biggest way possible.

One of my mentors used to say, “Money is not the root of all evil. It does not make you a bad person. It makes you more of what you are. It’s the grand amplifier.” If you are a good person, money is a tool for you to do more good in the world. If you are a jerk, money is a tool for you to be a bigger jerk.

That’s why I focus so much on bliss because I want people to experience bliss through that journey. Who they become as they are building wealth is who they get to be when they are wealthy. That’s who they amplify in the world. We are so aligned on that because you don’t want to be amplifying the parts of you that are not the most beautiful parts. As a blissful person, you can amplify that bliss through your work in the world. That’s the important thing.

There’s a very cliché saying that money can’t buy happiness. Would you agree with that? Would you say that money does buy happiness?

It does buy happiness in the way that I talked about. For people who are broke, it’s a lot harder to be happy. Let me qualify this. I don’t believe that we have to be rich or be at the mercy of everything around us to be happy. We have already talked about that. What I will say is that being in pain makes it more difficult to be blissful. It’s harder work. If you are physically, emotionally or financially in pain, you are going to have a harder time finding happiness. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It means that it’s less probable.

You put it out there, which studies show it’s proven. Here’s one context of many. What is the number one cause of divorce? It’s money problems. It’s the stress of not being able to put food on the table, put the roof over your head or pay your bills. It’s the stress that it causes. In the context of a marriage, it breaks the marriage. I like that you said that. You are not saying that you need to be rich but it’s being able to provide for yourself and the necessities of life.

The beauty of it is if you want to live off the land, you might not need any money. It’s almost like you could say it’s resources that you need. You need resources to support your lifestyle. For most of us, money is one of those resources. If you live off the land, hunt your food, live in a hut and don’t have any property taxes, you don’t need money but you do need resources.

What about your future? If you live off the land but you don’t want your children to have to live off the land. You want to send them to college. Money becomes important again. I don’t know whether it’s fortunate or unfortunate but money is our transactional way of creating life and it creates our future. It creates our possibilities. Having it at your disposal gives you more options, possibilities and opportunities.

It does all of those things. It’s the freedom to do what you want with the money that you have. One of my best friends and my business partner is Jon Berghoff. He is wise beyond his years. He is younger than I am. He was in his twenties when he said, “Money is just energy. If you want to put that energy toward providing water for people that don’t have water, that’s what money allows you to do or food for people that don’t have food. They don’t have the means to earn their own food because of maybe the culture that they live in, where it’s not a capitalistic culture. They can’t go out there and earn their own money. Their hands are tied.”

Money is not the root of all evil. It makes you more of what you are. It’s the grand amplifier.

Whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong, I have mixed opinions. In capitalism in some ways. It’s another conversation. Part of me is like, “We should get further back and regress to primal times where we are living off the land. We are not competing for who has the biggest car or all of those things.” I might write a book that they called prehistoric parenting, getting back to what works or something like that. The point is the reality is the culture that we do live in. If somebody is sick, they have bills.

I have a friend. She is a single mom and she has cancer. It’s so sad. She was a teacher and the school let her go because of her appearance. She had lost all her hair and a lot of weight. The parents were afraid of saying their kids were afraid of her. She is the sweetest and most selfless human being on the planet. She almost dedicated her life to being an underpaid teacher. She was trying to teach between her chemo treatments. They had to let her go because the parents were frightened by her appearance.

Her hospital bills are $12,000 a month. She can’t support herself and she has no help. I’m paying her bills. It’s like, “Is money bad? Is money the root of all evil? Does it allow you to help people who are in need of that help and support?” We belabored that point. I read a great book years ago called The Soul of Money. I talked a lot about that. There’s the idea that money is not bad. It’s what you do with it. It can be one of the most beautiful things in the world.

What meaning are you giving to it? You have control over that.

What is your book Choose Bliss about? We have a general idea but I would love to hear how you explain it. Where is the best place to get it?

I was an executive coach for over a decade and I tried a lot of different strategies. There were strategies that worked well for me. There were strategies that worked for every one of my clients. I compiled all of those strategies into my book, Choose Bliss. Guess what the first one is? Create your date with your morning routine.

I was going to say it’s got to be the morning ritual.

It would be some morning routine. It’s another way that we are totally aligned. That’s what Choose Bliss is. It’s written as my story so you get to know who I am and where I’m coming from. There are a lot of good actionable strategies because I’m like you. The theory is awesome. It does not get the job done. You need to get the job done. Bliss is about taking action. That’s what the book is about.

Is it safe to say that if you love The Miracle Morning, you are going to love Choose Bliss?

I absolutely think so. I think we are totally aligned.

Moneeka, you are blissful to talk to. Your energy comes through in your voice and laugh. You have such great energy. I’m very sensitive and in tune. I feel like with people’s energy and yours is blissful. Thank you for doing what you are doing in the world and sharing your bliss with our readers. Where can people learn more from you and about you? Tell me the name of the show again. I know you have a website. Where can people follow and keep up with you?

Choose Bliss is available on Amazon. That’s the one place. You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com to find out more about me and what my philosophy is about wealth. The show is Real Estate Investing For Women. I know that it’s real-estate-focused but it’s a very holistic approach to wealth. We talk about mindset, heart set, strategies and money smart. It’s the whole picture of creating success.

I will give a little tangent soapbox. You may have heard me say this before or you may not have. I’m a big believer in passive income. That’s a word that can sometimes even be a cringe word where you go like, “Get-rich-quick and create passive income.” When I was in the hospital fighting cancer, I had passive income from the thirteen books I had written and the 30-some translations of The Miracle Morning. Every single one of those, I got checks all year long and it supported my family.

I truly believe that’s one of the most important things that you can do if you live in our society, where you need income to put the roof over your head and buy your food if you are not living on the land, which is probably 99.9% give or take of our readers. Creating passive income is what I like, Moneeka. We did not focus on that. Go to Moneeka’s website. It’s for women but I would imagine men could probably implement the same investing strategies. I don’t think that it’s like, “You are a man. These won’t work for you.” It’s investing in real estate unless you are going to be an author.

The thing about writing books and making money off your books is it’s much harder. I’m very blessed, fortunate and lucky that my books have generated significant income because it’s not common. It’s harder to duplicate. When I’m coaching clients or talking to friends, they are like, “How do I create passive income? Should I write books?” One of my best friends in the whole world is Matt Recore. He is already retired at 35 by investing in real estate. He is still going.

It truly is the easiest way to create wealth and passive income.

My other best friend is David Osborn. His net worth is $100 million and it’s all from real estate investing. In terms of bliss, wealth is a big part of that financial freedom. You don’t have to be rich but financial freedom does bring such a quality of life where you are not stressed about it. Check out Moneeka’s stuff at BlissfulInvestor.com and the Real Estate Investing For Women Show. Check out the book on Amazon, Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment.

If you do want to join me in person for 2 to 3 life-changing days, I’m going to start talking more about this because we are getting into the time where it’s time to start looking. Tickets are on sale for the Best Year Ever Blueprint Live Experience. You can check that out at BestYearEverLive.com. This is our sixth year and we have 350 spots. They are already spoken for but that means there are about 100 tickets available. You can check that out. I would love to spend a few days with you on December 13 through 15 in sunny San Diego, California. Moneeka, thank you for being on the show. I appreciate you.

Thank you so much for having me. This was amazing.

I enjoyed our conversation. Goal Achievers, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Until next time, go out there and achieve your biggest goals and dreams because you absolutely deserve nothing less. I love and appreciate you. I will talk to you soon. Take care.

 

Important Links

• The Miracle Morning
• Achieve Your Goals – Apple Podcasts
• Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment
• Real Estate Investing For Women
• Think and Grow Rich
• The Soul of Money
• BlissfulInvestor.com
• BestYearEverLive.com

 

About Hal Elrod

Hal Elrod is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity, one morning at a time. As one of the highest rated keynote speakers in America, creator of one of the fastest growing and most engaged online communities in existence and author of one of the highest rated, best-selling books in the world, The Miracle Morning—which has been translated into 27 languages, has over 2,000 five-star Amazon reviews and is practiced daily by over 500,000 people in 70+ countries—he is doing exactly that.

Hal actually died at age 20. Hit head-on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour, his heart stopped for 6 minutes, broke 11 bones, and eventually woke from a coma to be told by doctors that he would never walk again. Not only did Hal walk, he went on to run a (52 mile) ultra-marathon and become a hall of fame business achiever—before the age of 30. Then, in November of 2016, Hal nearly died again—his kidneys, lungs, and heart on the verge of failing, which led to his being diagnosed with a very rare, very aggressive form of cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukemia).

After enduring the most difficult year of his life, Hal is now cancer-free and furthering his mission as the Executive Producer of The Miracle Morning Movie—a documentary that both shows you the morning rituals of some of the world’s most successful people, as well as takes you around the world to show you the life-changing impact that Miracle Mornings are having, globally.

Hal is also host of the highly acclaimed Achieve Your Goals podcast, creator of the Best Year Ever Blueprint Live Experience, and bestselling author of ten [10] books in The Miracle Morning book series.

______________________________________

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

To see this program in video:

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

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

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Fighting Cybermonsters™ With Mindfulness With Sandra Estok

 

Technology is present in everything you do, which means no one is safe from cybercrime. This is why you need to practice mindfulness because hackers will try every trick to get to you. Join Moneeka Sawyer as she talks to Sandra Estok about cybercrime and cybersecurity. Sandra is the Founder and CEO of Way2Protect where her main goal is to simplify cybersecurity for everyone. She is also the author of Happily Ever Cyber!. Listen to this episode to fully protect yourself from all the cybermonsters™ out there.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Fighting Cybermonsters™ With Mindfulness With Sandra Estok

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show, Sandra Estok. Sandra, Founder of Way2Protect, is a cybersecurity keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and author of the international bestselling series Happily Ever Cyber. Through her publication, Sandra is committed to share her journey, experience and expertise, using simple concepts and inspirational stories to help others protect what most matters to them against hackers, scammers and cybermonsters.

She brings years of multicultural and cross-functional experience in the US, Latin America and Europe in the areas of cybersecurity, IT and data privacy. Sandra has held numerous positions in Fortune 500 companies, private and public organizations. Sandra holds an MBA, Industry Certificate in IT, cybersecurity and data privacy.

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Sandra, how are you? Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here with you.

This is such an interesting topic. I never even considered having anybody talk on this show about this until I met you. First of all, most people talking about cybersecurity make my brain feel like it’s going to blow up. They are often very boring, which you are not. I see a lot of relevance with regards to real estate. I’m excited about what you are going to be talking about with your relationship to real estate. Before we even get into that, could you tell us your amazing story about how you even got into this?

It started many years ago. I was returning from visiting my mom when I was in Columbia. As we were landing in Miami, the pilot announced that Homeland Security Officers were boarding the plane. I hand in my passport with my work visa. The next thing I know, I’m the only one being marched off the plane and thrown into a room. That room exists in every airport and every country. There is a room. I was escorted there. There are no phone calls. I don’t know what’s happening. My husband was waiting for me in Chicago and I’m about to miss my connecting flight. Ten hours later, they handed back my passport and it was revoked.

I did not know what was happening. A few weeks later, I’m back in Venezuela, where I am from. I have everyone supporting me. I have attorneys. We are in the interview trying to get a new visa. In this interview, the officials kept asking me about China. They were like, “Why were you in China? Who do you know in China? Who is your contact?” I don’t know what they are talking about. I have never been to China. Somehow, a smuggler in China got ahold of my information and has been smuggling women into the US using my identity.

Any industry that has money, big or small, is a target of cybercrime.

I convinced them that I’m not a small smuggler. I get my new visa. I come back home and everything is okay. Two weeks later, I’m returning from Europe. My job was to travel. That was part of her idea at the time. I’m returning. I get off the plane. I get to passport control and I’m right back into the same room because I have to prove that I’m the real me over and over. Every time I travel for six years. When I go, my name and everything was in Chinese. I had the import and export companies under my name. Nobody wanted to travel with me, not even my husband.

Finally, I got my US citizenship, passport and my new name. I changed my name. A year later, I entered the world of cybersecurity after I got my US citizenship. At the time, I did not realize what happened to me. I was like, “This is probably normal.” This was back in 2006. We didn’t have a lot of news about cybersecurity. It was not every day we see it now, back then was not. Being only IT, I did not connect the dots. A year later, I joined and it blew my mind. Understanding the cybermonsters, we can talk about that later, but understanding how it works, what, why, how and who is behind all the cybercrime. It became a passion.

I was in the corporate world for a long time. The more I learn about cybersecurity, the more I got passionate about it. The more I wanted to share that passion differently. I had many different positions and having building a team or building a program and teaching the employees of those companies that I worked for. I discovered that I enjoy that part. It is boring, it is not something appealing. Nothing is exciting about cybersecurity. That is what I want to change because the reality is identity theft or cybercrime can happen to any of us. Unless we know how and what to do, it could happen to any of your audience or you as well.

Many people in my family have experienced identity theft, not cybersecurity and such. It’s a big deal. It happens to so many people. Cybersecurity, we don’t think of it on a small scale. We think of that as that happens to the big companies, those are the targets. I would contend to say that the onesies and twosies, us that’s normal person people or consumers, we are the bigger target.

Forty-three percent of all the hacks in 2021 happened to small businesses. If you think about the industries like the financial industry, healthcare and small businesses. You can include all companies from 0 employees to 1,000 employees. That is usually considered small businesses or 2,000. Forty-three percent of all the hacks happened there. Real estate, your industry, is one of the industries that is impacted because any industry that has money, it’s a target. It’s a good place for hackers to get what they want. It’s either your identity or the way to impersonate you so they can get what they want from you, which in most cases is money.

Talk to me a little bit about how your approach is different from cybersecurity.

 

It starts with that realization that cybersecurity is very personal. Everything that we do every day in our lives somehow relates to technology. Why my approach is different is because I’m using that personal connection or stories that we all have and connecting them into the cybersecurity, cybercrime and identity theft world. I didn’t even realize that, but throughout my life, many things have happened to me that connect to cybersecurity in a way.

I’m a cyclist. I do yoga. My identity was stolen, but somehow each part got a connection. That is what I want to share because this is not my story only. The most amazing thing that happens to me when I share either the stories or training is that each person discovers their story. When we start making that connection that cybersecurity becomes personal. It’s not something super technical. I don’t have to be a geek. There are many things we all can do to reduce the chances of identity theft and cybercrime every day. That is the muscle that I want to develop and all of us to start training. When we see it that way, it’s not overwhelming anymore.

Could you tell us the biggest misconception that people might have about cybercrime?

It cannot happen to me because I’m not rich. In real estate, for example, I’m just selling a small house or I’m renting this property. It won’t happen to me. The reality is it can happen to anyone. The amount of scams that happened, especially in your industry in 2021, $149 million were lost in scams related to real estate. There are so many parties involved. In this case, you have a buyer, seller, titles and you have all these many companies. If every person in that chain thinks, “It won’t happen to me.” Unfortunately, if it happens to at least one of those all parties involved, your whole deal could be in jeopardy. That is where the loss happens. The money does not go to the seller, it goes into a different country and you can recover it.

Thinking that it won’t happen to you is one misconception. The second misconception is thinking that it’s all about technology and technical. When we were kids, we learned how to cross the street. We learned how to look both ways. We learned probably not to stick things into electrical outlets. I learned that I should not be doing that. In the same way, if you think about cybersecurity, there are things that are common things that we all can do that can reduce the chances of becoming a victim of cybercrime. The misconception that it is only technology is not true.

When we have a phone call for a deal, you are expecting a transaction to happen in your selling or buying a property. Someone calls you and says, “Your Social Security or any of the information that is related to that property. We are going to validate that. You are going to get the best rate on your mortgage. You are going to have the best deal that you can have for these new investments.” Most of us can recognize that it is a scam, and most of the time, we hang up because they are easy to spot. You know that the IRS is not going to call you. The Social Security surveys are not going to put you in jail.

Most of us have developed that. When we see a call and it’s a scam, we react to it and we hang up. There are many other things like that we will start developing. One common thing is using your password and using one password that has meaning to you. I do yoga and I do all these things. I use a password with an intention and affirmation. It helps me to get centered.

A common misconception about cybercrime is that it’s all technology and all technical. That’s not true.

A password, you won’t think that it could be used in a fun way. You might think it always has to be a lot of characters and boring but you could use that password in a way that has meaning to you. If you are an investor or buying a property and you want a big house on the beach or you have a dream of something bigger for your life, you could use your password in a way that gets you to that dream.

That is a super tip right there. I use that one. My password is also a declaration of how I’m feeling or something that I want for the future. What is funny about that is that normally, you should be changing your password every three months. If it is a declaration or affirmation, it’s fun to change it every three months, too. That is a good security tip is you don’t want to keep the same password for all your accounts. You want to have some different ones that have meaning, but the other thing is you’re wanting to change them frequently. This is a good way to encourage yourself to change them frequently.

A different password for every account is important. I love that you mentioned that. If you get hacked and compromised, you have an account where you have a rental property. You have a password that lets you go into the portals to watch or monitor what that rental property is doing. Somehow, you use the same password for your Netflix account and your Netflix account is compromised. If you are using the same password, your other place where you have sensitive information about your real estate business could be compromised as well.

Using a password manager is one of the best ways to have a very long-phrase with your declaration, but then you don’t have to remember all the other passwords because we have so many other things that we have to do remember and think about. A tool like that allows you to keep track of your passwords and make it easy for you.

Talk to us a little bit more about the password manager. Do you have a favorite? They are going to be a lot of ladies that are reading to this that this is the first time they are knowing it. Tell us a little bit about what that is.

A password manager is a tool and there are many different types, either free versions or paid versions. When it comes to something that protects my password, I would feel more comfortable paying for a service that I know is going to have a more secure solution. This is where one thing that I will caution on free, however, if you are an Apple person, there is a password manager that is embedded into your iPhone or iPad. It is part of the iOS system. There are many other versions and companies that do this. This is their business. A password manager is a tool that you will integrate all of your passwords that are associated with your email address.

If you are using five different email addresses, you can put it into your password manager and it will scan every word you have a password and it will bring that information to you. The good thing is you have a dashboard and you have a tool that will tell you where you repeating the same password. When was the last time you changed that password? How strong that password is?

 

One simple password of seven characters can be broken in less than point .29 seconds. A password manager allows you to have that phrase, your big declaration, inspiration or affirmation. You change everything once you achieve that declaration. It’s one more tool that you can use because you have to type it so many times. I say that phrase to myself every day, “My password makes me happy.”

Do you have a password manager that you particularly like that you might recommend?

I use Dashlane. It’s one of them, LastPass or 1Pass. What I like about that one is it includes a VPN. It’s a way that makes your connection more private. Think about you are going on a highway and when you are on the internet, there are no roads. All the cars are everywhere. When you are using a VPN, it’s like you are on your own freeway. All the information you are sharing goes only through that tunnel or lane that you are going through. Nobody can enter your lane. Especially in real estate because you do so many transactions that are very important with money.

I will suggest when you do those transactions, you activate your VPN. There are either antivirus tools that will have a VPN included or a password manager will have it or you can have a VPN on its own. Every time you do a sensitive transaction, what I recommend is that you use that VPN service because that way your information cannot be taken. Let’s say you are in a public place and using public Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, when you use public services in the same way you have access to those public services, cybermonsters, hackers or cybercriminals have also access to that.

Even if you are sending a simple email, they can intercept that information. Why is that important for your business and real estate? You are buying or selling a property. You are connecting with your buyer or seller and you are interchanging emails. If I am in a public place and I saw that house went for sale because it’s all public records. It goes to the MLS, you see that. I can start watching the communication between the two parties. When I intercept that information, I can know more details when that close is going to happen.

As that date approaches, this is one way the scams have happened is that the person that is supposed to transfer the money receives an email with fake information on the account, but you are seeing it real because it is impersonating that other person. You talked with that person. If I’m watching your email, watching how you communicate, what language did you use and how do you greet each other, it is easier for me to impersonate that agent, lawyer or person and send you a bank account that it’s not real. It sounds like a movie, but if you search online, you can see how many people have fallen for this. In real estate, many people have lost all the money because it went to a foreign country and it cannot be recovered.

In EXTRA, you are going to be talking specifically about how to protect your email. Ladies, make sure that you stay tuned for that because this is a horrifying story. Are there some other basic things that we can do that can help us to protect ourselves?

You’ll use your password every day, so choose one that’ll make you happy.

I love your show because you have a lot of guests that always are bringing positive, good vibes and there are many different topics. One topic that comes to my mind, which is connected to cybersecurity is mindfulness. If I’m going to do an email, go into social media or do this deal I’m practicing mindfulness and less at the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime. Something that simple as being present when you do your work can be a game-changer for identity theft or cybercrime.

Give me an example of that. I’ve got about ten that I can give you, but I’m sure you’ve got some good ones.

I love to know yours, too.

Frequently, you will get something that says in your email, “It’s time for you to change your password. Please press this link.” You have to put in your old password and you have to put in a new password. If you look at the page that it goes to, it is not the actual page where you are changing the password. It was masked and it’s different. That is one.

Don’t ever put in a password unless you go to the site. Use yourself, go to that site and change the password there, don’t do it through a link that is sent to an email. The thing is that sometimes we are moving so fast, we are like, “I got to get that done.” You get it done. You move on and then you’re like, “I gave somebody my password.” You go through and you have to change all your passwords. That is one of them.

Another one is entering your email address for a similar situation. You are asked for your email address so that they can send you a verification, but you sent that email address to someplace that is not where you thought and suddenly, your email has been completely hacked. Those are a couple that I know my husband and I have experienced. How about you?

 

Congratulations for being attentive to all of those. Good job on keeping an eye on those emails or those things that can happen. I can give you one example that has happened a lot. It is related to when you do your banking. Most banks will have two authentications or a two-way to verify that you are you. They send you a text message and they say, “Someone is trying to get into your account. Is this you?” Even if you are not trying to get into your account. When you have to sign up for your banking, you will ask to validate that you are you and it will require a PIN that you have to enter to say that is you.

One way that cybermonsters check you out is they will try to impersonate you. There is a lot of information available to all of us for data breaches or hacks. They call the bank and they try to log in to your bank account like you. They are not going to have that PIN. That PIN, they are going to request the bank to send you a new one. When you go to your online banking and you say, “I forgot my password.” It will email or text you that validation. That scammer or cybermonster will call you and say, “We are from this bank. We sent you a verification code.”

You will be surprised how many people didn’t read the entire text. That is a request for your password to be changed. You give that PIN to the person that is calling you to validate. In some cases, they call you and say, “We are seeing transactions in your account. We are going to stop the hacker.” They are pretending that they are saving you when in reality, they are hacking you. Mindfulness is going to so many levels because whatever situation you are in, my advice is don’t take an action. Breathe.

If it is your bank that is calling you. What I will do is I hang up and I take my credit card number or I have my contacts in my bank and I will call them directly. Whatever it is, you can have a few seconds where you can breathe and then think about, “What actions do I have to do?” Call the bank. Call whoever you need to call and validate that the information that you are receiving is valid.

What I love about what you said is often, we will get a phone call from our bank or credit card company, “Is this charge valid? Are you in this location?” We think, “This is an authority. This is the bank. I don’t get my money unless I cooperate with the bank.” What you said is it may not be the bank. It’s okay to say, “Hold on. This is not a great time to chat. Let me call you right back.”

You hang up and you call the numbers that you know. It’s the same thing as verifying where you are putting your passwords online. Make sure you check the URL. I have never done that before. That’s amazing. You can say, “I’ll call you right back or this connection is not good.” You don’t need to be rude, but you do need to take a couple of more minutes. This is going to be more time out of your schedule, but is it worth it?

If you think about that for a few seconds, it can save you. In my case, six years from the nightmare. If you put it into perspective, how much can you lose for making that extra phone call and whatever transaction you are doing, validating what it is that you are doing?

Pick three things you care about the most. Know what matters most to you and start there—no need to overwhelm yourself.

Tell my ladies how they can reach you if they want more of this good stuff.

They can visit me at HappilyEverCyber.com. They can get in there. I have a gift for them. It’s the three critical but super-simple steps they can take to start protecting their information. They also have access to download a checklist. I did this checklist with all the years working in cybersecurity, data privacy. I incorporated all the things that at minimum, we should be doing to keep ourselves safe. I love for them to get that information. You don’t know, something that you have never heard before or you don’t know how to do it, do not worry because what I am committed to do is to develop content. My book is a book series where I will be creating books that are more specific about different areas.

A book only about social media and how to protect your identity, passwords or computer. You can’t protect everything. You have to know what matters most to you and start there. Pick three things that you care about the most. When you protect those three, you can pick another three and another three. You don’t have to overwhelm yourself with, “I got to do all of this.” That is the misconception that I want us to acknowledge. Don’t let the cybermonsters hack you. Start taking the action to end that. When we are training, you don’t start with a marathon. In the same way, that is how we are going to build a muscle and to make it as easy, fun and relevant to what matters most to you as possible.

The thing that comes to mind for me is technology is changing so fast. What was relevant in the past is not relevant now. Do you feel with regards to cybersecurity, things are constantly evolving and what we need to do changes? Do you feel there is a baseline of things that we need to do and then we can improve it later by working with a professional like you? Is it always changing? Is this something I constantly have to be thinking about and be aware of?

The answer is both. Things are always changing, but there are many things that when we don’t take care of the basics, that’s when we make it easy for cybermonsters to get into our lives. If you are in your house and you see holes in the walls of your house. You get up the next day and see another hole. People can sneak through any of those holes and show up in my living room where my kids, family or business is. When we see all of that, most probably, we will take action right away and close those holes. In the same way, when we don’t update our computers and our phones, they have holes in the programs or operating systems.

Those are the holes that cybermonsters take advantage of. If you are using a computer and you never update it and that is one basic thing. No matter how new technologies come and your refrigerator is talking to you, if you don’t do that basic thing, which is updating your devices and computer, you are leaving with open holes that allow cybermonsters to break in easily. It is both. New technologies are here and cybermonsters are always looking for ways to break in and to innovate, but at the same time use technology and we don’t do the basics, we will make it easy for them.

We are going to be talking about email in EXTRA. I’m excited about that and how to avoid the situation that you talked about where there is a transaction, the emails get intercepted and our money goes somewhere that it should not be going. I’m sure there are many other examples, but that’s a good one. Before we close the show, are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Yes.

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

Be passionate. If you are going to invest either being a buyer or having a business, make sure that is your passion. When that happens, you will breathe, dream and live for that. There is no better feeling than being passionate about and doing what you love to do.

What is one strategy for being successful in real estate investing?

If you are a beginner, have someone that can guide you through your journey. In my case, I have so many mentors and people helping me through the process. Whether in real estate or business, I always seek someone that knows what he is doing. I’m buying and selling a house, so I will never do it without the help of experts because this is what they do and they can learn if that is my passion. If it’s not something I want to do, I want to do it right. Always seek someone with that expertise that can take you much faster to wherever you want to go.

Always find somebody that can get you faster to the place that you want to go. That is so good. I love that. That is a good soundbite. What is one daily practice you do that contributes to your success?

Gratitude. There is not a single day that I wake up and I am not grateful for another day. Grateful for another opportunity to play and serve. Even in the tough moments, when you are not happy, something didn’t go right, I use gratitude. It is amazing how fast I get off whatever negative emotion I have and how much clarity I get even if the situation was tough, how much I understand that it was for good that it happened that way. I am always grateful for everything.

Thank you so much for everything you have offered on this portion of the show. I can’t wait to talk more in EXTRA, but thank you so much.

Always find somebody that can get you faster to the place you want to go.

Thank you. My pleasure. Remember, practice mindfulness. Be present and that alone will help you so much to reduce the chances of being a victim of identity theft for cybercrime. It makes you enjoy much more of what you are doing, which is investing.

If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. We are going to be talking about how to protect yourself in the email. This is that thing that we use all the time, every day for everything we are doing right. It makes us vulnerable in certain ways. We are going to be talking about how to reduce that vulnerability in your email in EXTRA. This is relevant for everybody. If you are not subscribed to EXTRA, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com and sign up. You get the first seven days for free.

Get this EXTRA and find out how to protect yourself. You could read to as many as you like in the first seven days. If you love it, then you stick with it. If not, you can unsubscribe, no big deal. For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining us. You know how much I appreciate you. 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.

 

Important Links

• Way2Protect
• Happily Ever Cyber
• Dashlane
• LastPass
• 1Pass
• HappilyEverCyber.com
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Sandra Estok

Sandra works with organizations to increase their cybersecurity programs’ efficacy by making the content relatable and personal. As a result, companies can increase engagement and awareness of their first line of defense again cyber threats: its people.

She utilizes her journey combined with her 20 plus years of experience in the Cybersecurity, IT, and Data Privacy industries to empower your teams to take charge of their cyber safety. Throughout her career, Sandra has held numerous positions in Fortune 500 companies in the United States, Latin America, and Europe in private and public organizations.

Sandra is the author of the international bestseller and award-winning book series Happily Ever Cyber!™ and the Cyber Literacy Series for children. In addition, she is a keynote speaker and corporate trainer. Her latest project, the Inner Cyber online course, combines a unique, purposeful, and long-lasting way to adopt a cyber safety-focused lifestyle.

 

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

To see this program in video:

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

On YouTube go to Real Estate Investing for Women

0

How Bezos, Buffett, Musk, And YOU Can Pay $0 In Taxes Legally With Mark Willis – Real Estate For Women

 

Taxes take a lot from you – your finances, your time, and your energy. What if you’re told you can legally pay zero in taxes today? Believe it or not, there are ways you can enjoy retirement freely without worrying about the IRS. Mark Willis is a man on a mission to help you think differently about your money, your economy, and your future. Mark is a certified financial planner, a three-time number one bestselling author, and the owner of Lake Growth Financial Services. Mark joins Moneeka Sawyer to talk about how you can grow wealth in ways that are safe so you can enjoy tax-free income in retirement. Listen in as Mark shares how you can become your own source of financing so you can have financial control over your future.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

How Bezos, Buffett, Musk, And YOU Can Pay $0 In Taxes Legally With Mark Willis – Real Estate For Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome back Mark Willis to the show. You’ve heard from Mark several times on this show. We’ve even had webinars with him. He’s shot me an email and said, “I’ve got this new strategy. It’s called BBD.” I’m not going to tell you what that is. I’m so excited to share this strategy with you and include you in this conversation.

Before we move forward with BBD, let me reintroduce Mark to those of you who have not met him yet. Mark Willis, CFP, is a man on a mission to help you think differently about your money, your economy and your future. Mark is a certified financial planner, a three-time number one bestselling author, and the Owner of Lake Growth Financial Services, a financial firm in Chicago, Illinois.

As cohost of the Not Your Average Financial Podcast™, which I’ve been on, he shares some of his strategies for investing in real estate, paying for college without going broke, and creating an income in a retirement that you will not outlive. He works with people who want to grow their wealth in ways that are safe and predictable, to become their own source of financing, and to create tax-free income in retirement. That’s all very exciting. It’s no wonder I always want to have Mark on the show. Mark, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to see what we do here together. It’s always fun to see what sort of magic we can create together.

It always is magic. We were having a conversation before in the green room about this idea of the new year, and you had a question for me. Could you remind me what that was? 

I had been tuning in to your show like all smart real estate investors should be tuning in to your show. In one of your episodes on the very first day of 2022, you brought up a theme or an inspiration toward this year that we’re living in. There was a theme of matching the masculine and the feminine together. Maybe you can speak more eloquently about this than I could.

The world has been so masculinely dominated that even women feel the need to do business as men.

2022 is year six. I studied Numerology many years ago. It’s a very Indian thing to study Numerology. It’s where it came from originally. The six stands for balance. Specifically, the balance between the masculine and the feminine. In year six, what happens is this energy of melding the masculine with the feminine comes into the energy space of the planet. What’s so fun about that is because our world has been so masculinely dominated, even as women, we feel we need to do business as men, this is a year where that balance happens both for the men or the women if we’re able to focus on it. It’s easier to bring that closer. 

This is one of those years where we women can step forward in our power. I am not a feminist who says, “Up with women, down with men.” I have never ever been that person. For me, we both need each other. We all need the masculine and the feminine because they’re both parts of who we are. Women by default experience more of feminine characteristics than masculine, but as you said in the green room, we have both. The true bliss and massive success in life happen when you’re able to plug into the resources of both of those, and this is a year for us to do that. Does that make sense? 

It sure does. There’s a little island in the Nordic countries where the men would go out and fish all day, every day. The women ran all the businesses in town. It was all women-owned businesses. Globalization happened and all the men were put out of work. The women run that whole town now. They run the whole island. They’re the mayors, the politicians, the bakers, the candlestick makers, all that. The point is we need each other. We need each other for these times when the unexpected happens like globalization or a pandemic to help us learn both masculine and feminine in our lives and in our work.

They bring different resources. We bring different skills and different talents, so it’s a big advantage if you can plug into both, and this is the year to do that. Women, step forward in your power. Claim the feminine along with your masculine. Thank you so much for asking that question. Let’s get back to you. First of all, tell us what BBD stands for because it makes me laugh, and then let’s talk all about why are you bringing this forward to your clients and out into the world? 

Tax-Free Wealth

I’ll only tell you and the audience what it stands for if your audience promises not to unsubscribe as soon as I say what it stands for because it’s a little off-putting. The BBD stands for Buy, Borrow, Die. You’ve got to listen a little more to get some context here. Let me ask you, what if you could build massive amounts of wealth and never pay taxes? We’re going to guide you through these three steps to invest completely tax-free even when you’re taking cash out of your investment and you’ve got cashflow to fund your lifestyle here and now, but also in the future in retirement. If we think taxes are even going to be the same or even certainly higher than they are now, this is going to be a very important show for anyone wanting to build wealth.

Let’s dig in. Mark and I are friends now. We’ve been working with each other for a long time. We spent all this time in the green room, and then he suddenly told me, “I got to be gone at this time.” I was like, “We got to go fast.” I’m going to let you jump in there and I’ll ask questions as I go along the way, but why don’t you take it away so that my ladies get all the information that they deserve on this one?

 

Thank you. You’ve done such a great job with your show. I will get right to things here. ProPublica, which is an investigative newsroom, obtained a vast trove of IRS tax data on the wealthiest Americans. It covered more than fifteen years. This data dump, leak or whatever you want to call it, provides an interesting look into the true nature of America’s titans like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk to name a few. It provides an interesting look at not just their income number, which is astounding, but also how they avoid legally any taxes on their investments, stock, trades or gambling winnings.

In 2007, Jeff Bezos didn’t pay a penny in Federal income tax. He did it again in 2011. In 2018, Elon Musk also paid no income taxes. Michael Bloomberg did it in the last few years as well. These are legal and perfectly legitimate ways to avoid paying taxes, not evading, that’s a clear distinction there. There are ways to do it that are well-known and established fundamental parts of the IRC or the Internal Revenue Code. As I say this, my guess is your audience has 1 of 2 responses. They might either say, “How could they do that?” out of anger. They might also say, “How can I do that?” out of curiosity. I hope it’s the latter. There are reasons to have both sides of that conversation.

This is not a political episode, I promise. The goal will be to teach your readers a little bit about how this happens. Most Americans pay income taxes on their paychecks. Most Americans do live paycheck to paycheck, so we’re paying the highest tax rates on the vast majority of our earned income. In fact, the 25 wealthiest Americans only paid 3.4% of their income tax whereas the average American or the median household paid 14%, and the highest bracket is 37% tax. That’s something interesting that the wealthiest are paying 1/10 as much as us mere mortals with earned incomes. What are your thoughts so far?

I do have a quick question. Thank you for that. Clarify avoid versus evade. That’s very important.

The Internal Revenue Code was established in 1913, which is an interesting year because it’s the same year the Federal Reserve was created. Before we had the Internal Revenue Code of 1913, there was no income tax at all. Starting in 1913, it was there to pay for covering the cost of World War I and beyond. It was there to establish itself permanently after World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, it became a series of incentives for us to follow. It’s sort of a psychological experiment, but in many ways when you think about it, why does the government tax you at all? It can print its own money. Let that sink in for a minute. Why does it need our tax money if it can print endless amounts? That’s interesting.

We can’t pay our taxes in Bitcoin or rubber chickens. We have to use US dollars. That’s the one thing there’s an infinite supply of at and at the US government, so why do they tax us? Part of it is to get us to do certain things like buy a house, have children, start a business or invest in real estate. All of these incentives are dancing with your partner, which is the IRS. If we can avoid stepping on the IRS’ toes in this dance and not evade, because we’re not running from the dance. That’s where you end up in jail. You got to dance with this dance partner. As the old saying goes, “You got to dance with the devil who came with you.” We want to avoid stepping on their toes but not run away from the dance party.

Massive success happens when you’re able to plug into the resources of both masculinity and femininity.

I love the analogy of the dance. Thank you for that. 

Buy

Guys and gals, get out a sheet of paper and write down three words for me. The words are Buy, Borrow, and Die. Each of these steps represents a key feature to the IRS Tax Code in the American Tax Law, and where you can live totally income tax-free if you do it right. Let’s talk about each one. The first is buy. You’re supposed to buy assets. Buy an asset that goes up in value. Let’s say you buy a piece of real estate or stock, but it has to be an asset that does not produce cash. It cannot produce cashflow, which is an anathema to us real estate investors. If you’re going to buy an asset that produces cashflow, that’s going to generate an income. That income is taxable.

The buy step works because we’re realizing appreciation but we’re not experiencing an income flow. This would not be your typical mutual fund or a dividend-paying stock. Warren Buffett’s stock, Berkshire Hathaway, hasn’t paid a dividend since 1965. How is that possible? They’re very profitable as a company, but they haven’t paid dividends. Why? It’s so that Warren and his team do not have to realize any income on their income taxes. There are a lot of examples of how much he would have had to pay in terms of his taxes. Multiple billions of dollars of taxes would have been paid if Berkshire Hathaway had paid a dividend. The first step is to buy assets that go up in value that do not generate an income.

Borrow

The second step is to borrow against that appreciating asset. You’re supposed to buy and then borrow against it. Strangely enough in the IRC, loans are not considered income. Any kind of loan you receive whether it’s a credit card, mortgage or business loan is not considered income when you simply borrow money. That’s true whether it’s a credit card or borrowing against highly appreciated stock like Elon Musk does. In fact, he was jostled by Elizabeth Warren because he was not paying his fair share. I’m going to stay away from that conversation and tweet-storms that Elizabeth Warren and Elon Musk might have had. Her basic complaint was he was taking all this income but he’s saying, “I didn’t take income. I simply borrowed against my Tesla shares.”

He said if Tesla was to go down in value, he would immediately and instantly go bankrupt, which is an interesting statement to say from the richest person in the world. Borrowing against your appreciating asset allows you to live with no taxes due. That’s how you’re able to buy your groceries, gas, or in Elon’s case, your tenth yacht, and gives you a chance to live on that without experiencing any income tax. Do you have any thoughts on number one or number two so far?

One of the things that I want to emphasize is we can all borrow on our stock. It’s available to all of us. We can also invest our portfolios on margin with this 50% leverage, which is also borrowing on the value of the stock. You can do those things. However, the stock market is extremely volatile. When you do those things, when you borrow on your stock or go on margin, you have the situation which Elon talked about, which is if the stock goes down, there’s a call on that loan or margin.

 

This is what happened. I believe it was 2001. Many people had so much stock that they had gone from the boom. They had all these options, and now those options had exercised them, but their value was down, so the brokerage firms called them on it because they were out of money. All these people had to sell their homes, go into foreclosure or file bankruptcy. That’s what happened in that part of the financial crisis back then.

When you’re looking at stocks, you have this volatility that you have to deal with. That’s why I love real estate, because first of all, your leverage is you’re putting 1/5. You got five times the leverage rather than double, and you cannot get called on. Banks do not want to own real estate. If the market plummets as it did in 2007, 2008 and 2009, the banks are not going to call out those loans.

That’s a situation where if you can manage to continue to pay your mortgage, you’re in a good market, and the market is going to rise so that your property values will recover, it’s a situation where you can stay in. You never get called and you never go bankrupt or lose your shirt because you’ve taken a loan on a hard asset, and then that hard asset stays a hard asset. They’re not going to call your loan on it unless you stop paying. That’s a big difference in what kinds of loans you’re taking. There are many other kinds of loans. Those are just two examples that Mark gave. I wanted to highlight the differences there and why I love real estate for this sort of thing.

That’s so true. Not to point out political figures, but Donald Trump is a great example of doing exactly this. Regardless of his politics, that’s one wealthy guy or he claims to be anyway. He used it off the back of the real estate and borrows against it for his lifestyle, needs and otherwise. It’s not like he’s flipping burgers at McDonald’s to make his income. You’re exactly right.

The other piece to that puzzle is no income tax is due when you borrow that money. Let’s say you earned $1 at your day job flipping burgers. You might end up with $0.70 when you walk home due to the taxes due on that $1 that you earned. When you borrow $1, you get 100 cents, and you can use that for additional investing, buying your groceries, your yachts or whatever you might want to do with your money. There’s an efficiency standard there when you say borrowing against an asset versus earning income to do it.

You bring up a great point that there is an inherent risk. Even the wealthy understand this. They understand that they could possibly go belly up. If you think about Mark Zuckerberg who had to buy into the strategy. He had to pay billions of dollars in 2013. He paid between $1 billion and $2 billion of taxes in that year alone to buy his ticket. To get on this Buy, Borrow, Die train, you have to buy your ticket. That’s another key element to this BBD strategy. You got to make sure you’re getting on the train. Once you’re on the train and you’ve paid your dues to society with these massive tax bills, you now have this highly appreciating asset that’s growing in value.

Women, step forward, gain your power, and claim your femininity along with your masculinity.

Whatever happens to Facebook stock, Meta stock or whatever they want us to call it now, it will continue to go up and down and he’s got that risk where it might plummet. There’s nothing guaranteed about Facebook or Metaverse stock. In the meantime, borrowing against that asset is a tax-free way to do it. I truly think that even if he was to pass away, which I don’t want to give away the farm here for letter D, he can give that highly appreciated asset to his children, and then the gain continues. The grandma or grandpa does this, and the kids and grandkids get to stay on that train as long as they’re able to keep that wealth and not sell those stocks.

Die

There are a couple of things that come up for me on this. The first thing is I have never recommended borrowing to live your lifestyle. I’d love to address that if we got the time. The other thing is you might be thinking it’s appreciating. Eventually, you have to pay capital gains on that. That’s where the die piece comes in. The tax laws now are very favorable where your basis goes up to when that person died, so your taxes get completely eliminated from that appreciation. We’ll get into that a little bit more in EXTRA because we want to talk about the die piece. We’re not going to die. We’re not going to talk about the morbid subject of dying, but to give you clarity more on how this whole thing can work. Can you address the whole thing about borrowing for lifestyle stuff? 

Yes. I’m playing a little bit of devil’s advocate here because I don’t recommend that your Average Jane or Average Joe does exactly what we’re talking about on borrowing against your stock account or borrowing heavily for consumer purchases, for example. I agree with you, Moneeka. In fact, I specifically specialize in an asset class that has no risk for loss. It builds and grows on a guaranteed basis every single day, every single year. The asset of whole life insurance grows on a guaranteed basis every single year, and there’s nothing that we can do to stop it in times of good, in times of bad, the market crashes, the market is booming.

A whole life insurance policy of all things in the financial universe grows on a guaranteed basis. Interestingly enough, the cash value does not automatically spin-off income, so it meets the criteria of not churning out an income. You can borrow against the life insurance cash value. When you borrow against the life insurance cash value, it continues to grow. The life insurance cash value will continuously compound and grow uninterrupted like a house but guaranteed.

If I’ve got a house worth $500,000 and I use a HELOC on my house to go invest in another real estate deal, people sometimes do that. I’m not saying it’s a good idea or not. For all people, it’s certainly not, but sometimes it works. Now your money is doing two things at once there. Your house is still growing as if there was no HELOC. Zillow doesn’t care if we have a HELOC or not, but we also use the HELOC money to go buy this other real estate deal. What could possibly go wrong? See reference 2008.

As long as you can hold it, you’re okay.

 

That’s right. As long as you can hold it and pay those HELOC fees and everything, you’re okay. The risk of going underwater with a whole life policy is zero. There’s no way to go underwater with a life insurance policy because it continuously compounds. You can lapse a policy but the worst that could happen there is you just get to keep the house purchase that you made and the life insurance goes away. You have to watch that, but it’s guaranteed to grow for you on every day or every year basis. It can be used in the Buy, Borrow, Die way. We’ve got clients that are putting a couple of hundred bucks a month into one of those whole life policies. You don’t need to be a billionaire to do this strategy. Maybe there’s a thought there that you have or feedback on that.

I love that you brought that back in. For me, there’s a resistance to thinking about borrowing for lifestyle. Maybe that’s a different conversation that we have. Ladies, so you understand that that’s something very definitively to think about, for me, the paradigm shift that’s happening at this moment is I have a resistance to that because I’ve built my financial world based on we don’t borrow to live, but it sounds like the rich really do. 

The goal of the use of that policy especially as you’re working and in your younger years is to simply use it for increasing your assets, leveraging your assets, and using it to buy cashflow producing assets like real estate and whatnot. This is a key difference between a credit card and a regular loan. When you borrow against a life insurance policy in retirement, let’s say I’m 75 years old and I want to live on $150,000 this year, for example, I can borrow against my life insurance policy, pay no taxes on that, and it’s a non-recourse loan. If I was to borrow against life insurance, I don’t have to pay it back. There’s no requirement by the insurance company for me to pay it back during my lifetime.

If I take that loan to my grave, my death benefit is simply reduced by whatever I borrowed against the policy. Let’s say I’ve got a $5 million death benefit and I borrow $10 million over ten years. That’s $1 million a year tax-free, then I pass away and die. I’d still leave my family $4 million income-tax-free even though I had borrowed against those policies for the policy cash value for all those years. There are no taxes due on that money when I simply pass away. I could use that to invest in real estate, but I could as easily use it for the grandkids, groceries or whatever I might need. I wouldn’t recommend that when I’m 35 or 45 though.

It’s a $5 million cash benefit and you take $1 million for ten years, so that’s $10 million.

I did my math too quickly there. There’s a $5 million death benefit. Let’s say I took $1 million over ten years, so that’s $100,000 a year, and you spend that money over the ten-year period and you pass away. $5 million minus $1 million is $4 million tax-free.

Find assets that grow on a predictable schedule.

We’ve got buy and borrow, which we covered in the first part of the show, and I want to make sure that we can get to EXTRA. We’re out of time a little bit, but is there anything you want to add regarding Buy and Borrow? I’ve got a couple of things that I want to share with the audience about you and then we’ll move to EXTRA. 

The best thing we can say here is to find assets that grow on a predictable schedule. Real estate and whole life insurance have more wealth created. The fundamental underlying idea between real estate and whole life insurance is they are both contracts. If you think about it, the real power of the real estate deal is the contract. The real power of whole life insurance is the contract, and that’s where real wealth is built. It’s not paper wealth like Wall Street. From a philosophical standpoint, that’s where I particularly love to build real wealth. It’s on the contract and not just on paper up and down on Wall Street.

Mark is this huge resource of information. He loves chatting with you, ladies. I know many of you have already called him. For those of you that have not and would like to get in touch with him, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/mark. You can go do that. That’s his personal calendar so you can get on the schedule to chat with him.

I am so excited about this whole concept. We touched the tip of the iceberg here. There’s so much information. I don’t even feel complete with this conversation. Mark warned me that it’s a big topic. We’ve decided that in order to go deeper and answer the questions and understand this, we’re going to be doing a webinar. That webinar is going to be on February 3rd, 2022 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Pacific time. To sign up for that, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/markwebinar. We will be talking much more in-depth about the BBD strategy. Is there anything you wanted to add after that before we go into your three Rapid-fire questions? 

Everybody, give Moneeka a super awesome high-five in your heart and give her a five-star review because it really makes a difference. Thank you, Moneeka.

Thank you so much. Tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate. 

 

It’s about scaling up. Here’s a simple thing to do. Find your bank account balance, print it out, and then draw two zeros at the end to see how it feels.

Give us a strategy for being successful in real estate investing.

Pick one area and make it your niche. Don’t listen to 10,000 gurus. Make it one person that you know is doing it for real and chase after it with all your heart.

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

Starting with an affirmation that says something against what the world would want you to believe about yourself or the world itself. It’s something that is true and good and focuses on the positive.

Ladies, thank you so much for joining Mark and me for this portion of this show. We’ve got more in EXTRA. We’re going to be talking about the D portion of BBD. It’s a little bit morbid but it’s such an interesting conversation because you need to know what happens as you move forward building all this wealth. We’re going to be talking about the die portion in EXTRA. Stay tuned if you’re subscribed. If not, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com and you can sign up there.

Remember, we’ve got a webinar. Go to BlissfulInvestor.com/markwebinar. Sign up for that. If you want to talk to mark specifically about your own strategy, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/mark. Thank you again for joining us. I will look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember that goals without action are just dreams, so get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.

 

Important Links

• Lake Growth Financial Services
• Not Your Average Financial Podcast™
• BlissfulInvestor.com/mark
• BlissfulInvestor.com/markwebinar
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

 

About Mark Willis

Mark Willis, CFP® is a man on a mission to help you think differently about your money, your economy and your future. After graduating with six figures of student loan debt and discovering a way to turn his debt into real wealth as he watched everybody lose their retirement savings and home equity in 2008, he knew that he needed to find a more predictable way to meet his financial objectives and those of his clients.

Mark is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, a three-time #1 Best Selling Author and the owner of Lake Growth Financial Services, a financial firm in Chicago, Illinois. Over the years, he has helped hundreds of his clients take back control of their financial future and build their businesses with proven, tax-efficient financial solutions. He specializes in building custom-tailored financial strategies that are unknown to typical stock-jockeys, attorneys, or other financial gurus. As host of the Not Your Average Financial Podcast™, he shares some of his strategies for working with real estate, paying for college without going broke, and creating an income in retirement you will not outlive. Mark works with people who want to grow their wealth in ways that are safe and predictable, to become their own source of financing, and create tax-free income in retirement.

 

 

 

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

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Understanding The Fluctuations In The Value Of Money With Dina Buchanan – Real Estate Women

 

The value of money is decreasing because of how much is getting printed these days. In a span of six months, money is being printed in the trillions, and America is in debt. Discover how the value of money fluctuates with your host Moneeka Sawyer and her guest Dina Buchanan. Dina is the Director of Investor Relations and Business Development of the PCRP Group. Join them as they dive into the supply and demand of money and discover the difference between real estate and stock. Stop treating money like it’s a commodity today!

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Understanding The Fluctuations In The Value Of Money With Dina Buchanan – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome back to the show our guest Dina Buchanan. You met Dina when she talked about syndication and doing that in climate-resilient markets. She and I had this conversation about the value of money and how money is losing value. It’s such a deep topic. It has come up several times on this show and I liked the way that she talked about it.

I thought I would bring her back and we could discuss, as she says, unpack the concept so you, ladies, understand the way that investors, financial professionals, and people that have been in the industry for a long time and study money how we look at money to give you a perspective on that. Before we get moving, let me re-introduce Dina.

Dina is the Director of Investor Relations at PCRP Group, a firm that provides direct access to tax-advantaged, passive income, and commercial real estate opportunities. Dina has been investing in both residential and commercial properties in the United States and internationally for years and has been responsible for overseeing approximately $200 million of assets under management.

—

Welcome back, Dina. It’s so nice to see you.

It’s so nice to see you too and thanks for welcoming me back. It’s a pleasure to talk with you again. It’s so fun because when you meet people that are like-minded and you gel on the same topics, it makes them more fun to talk and learn about. The learning is so much more impactful because we learn from each other when we have in-depth conversations. They’re serious but they’re also interesting. It’s stuff that we can implement in our lives when we understand all about money. What we were talking about was financial education, money and what that means.

A lot of people, myself included, wondered. I remember thinking money was something like when the government is going to pay for this or is going to take the money and pay for this, where did it come from? We know that people pay taxes, businesses pay taxes and everybody’s probably aware that we were in a huge deficit. I’m not sure if everybody knows what that means but it means that we are printing more money.

Here is a little history lesson. Back in 1971, President Nixon took us off the gold standard. What that means is every dollar that was printed before 1971 was backed by that exact amount of gold in the treasury. If somebody had $100, it was like they had $100 worth of gold. Since he deregulated that, money can be printed. The reason he deregulated it is because we owed money to another country. He printed that money to pay back that debt.

 

The issue is the amount of money that’s being printed. Think of March of 2020 to October of 2020. Do you have any idea how much money was printed during that six months? It was $4 trillion. How do you wrap your head around that? When the government is printing money, a lot of people don’t understand what that means for them and their dollars. Every time the money prints, the value of money goes down. In other words, the more dollars that are in circulation that are not backed by gold, the less they are valued.

This is the interesting thing of what we hear about money, “The government is printing money and we were at a huge deficit.” People are like, “That doesn’t affect me. No big deal.” Think of it as supply and demand. The more dollars there are out there, the less they’re worth. It’s basic economics. Let’s think of a Model 3 for the Tesla, which we’re trying to buy.

It’s in labor and production but there were very few. I had to wait three years to get my Tesla. I was willing to pay more for that because there were fewer of them. As they become more mass market, I don’t know what Tesla is going to do about it. I’m not sure that was a great example but it is a supply and demand thing. The more that there is, the fewer people value it. Therefore, its value will go down. Is that true?

That is very true. With money, the one element that is problematic is people do value money. What they are valuing is going down and that’s the problem. People are treating money like it is a commodity. For example, if somebody has $1,000 and they put it in a savings account. What are the rates that savings account pay? I don’t even know. It’s probably 1%. Maybe less like 0.5%.

When you do the math on that, it’s not worth it but yet a lot of people say it is safe. People like us are going, “I want my dollars to make more money than that because saving is not going to make money.” Think about it if money is losing value, the rate of inflation. What is the rate of inflation? Four percent, that’s what they tell us, anyway. They don’t include food and fuel in that as you probably know.

I want to unpack that. I would love your input on this, Dina, when we talk about the cost of living and cost of living increases. When many people have a job, each year they get a raise, hopefully. That’s a cost of living raise. The cost of living raise is 3% usually. You say, “I got a 3% raise. I’m keeping up with how fast the economy is growing.” That’s how the layman might think like, “That’s great. I’m keeping up.” What happens as you notice ten years later? “If I’m keeping up, why do I feel so far behind?” The reason is that at 3%, we’re not keeping up. Do you know why?

It’s because when the government calculates the cost of living, they are not including housing, food or fuel. Those are the things we need. Dina said to me, “Could you imagine putting together your monthly budget and not including the cost of housing, food and fuel? What kind of budget is that?” It’s true. That is what the government does.

Stop treating money like it’s a commodity.

It’s like taking your money and saying, “I don’t have to worry about any of that. I’m going to take it and go shopping.”

People do that, and then they end up in huge debt. That’s the thing. Why we’re having this conversation is to get it real so that people understand how money works. The cost of living is not 3%. If you calculate everything in Dina, what would you say it is? I would say between 6% to 8%.

I would venture to say at the rate that they’re calculating money, it’s probably closer to 10% and we’re nowhere near that as far as the cost of living raise. Here is the worst part because with what you are saying, I 1000% agree. The worst part is people are thinking and believing that they take that thousand dollars.

If you take money that is losing to, your example, 6% and you’re going to put it in a savings account that is making 0.2%, money is going down 6% and there’s only a bump up of 0.2%. You’re in a deficit of 5.8%. This is why people can’t keep up no matter what their spending habits are. It has less to do with that. The way we make money is to have money duplicate itself, and because it’s losing value, it’s not going to duplicate itself. You’re number 6 to 8 more times somebody to be able to retire into the lifestyle that retiring out of. That’s significant and huge.

6% to 8% is to keep head above water. That’s keeping even, but if you want to retire, you got to add a percentage above that. We were not just head above water. We were increasing our net worth. Our money is increasing its value. That is why when we talked to Dina about syndication. She said, “You’re going to get double-digit returns.” Here is an opportunity to make more than the 8% to 10% that keeps you completely level. You get to keep this lifestyle but there is no opportunity for growth. You get to stay as you are. If you love what you are but you’re going to have to work until the end of time. There’s no opportunity.

There’s one other thing too. It would be one thing if we were stopping here. What you’re saying is true. As long as we stayed here and there was no more money printed but we already know that’s not going to happen, it can’t. This is a great little piece to unpack. Somebody asked one time, “What are they going to do?” I said, “Look at it this way. Let’s say that you were on a budget for a household. You had two kids and you promised them you would pay for college. That was part of the plan. Let’s say they both get to the point where they’re eighteen. They come up like, ‘Mom, I’m ready to go to college. Where’s my college money?’” You’re like, “I don’t have it.”

Here are my two choices. I can go back on the promise or borrow. The governments are in the same position. All the things they promised, they have to pay. They either have to default on their promises or print more money to keep them. Psychologists say the best predictor of future behavior is past performance. What have they always done in the past? Printed money. What are they going to keep on doing? Printing money. A lot of people will say, “Raise taxes,” but that won’t work. If it were that easy, they would have already done it. The reason it won’t work is our tax code is capitalist. It’s structured that we are allowed to make as much in our country. We can keep on making a lot of money.

 

We want it to stay that way and we want that freedom. The tax code, the way it’s written, is about 14,000 something pages. It allows business owners who do create jobs to get tax breaks. We don’t want to hurt the business owners because they will create fewer jobs if we do. Hence, there will be fewer people at work. It is a very delicate balance. This is where we, as women and people, can get together and say, “For me to retire into the lifestyle that I’m in or want to increase it, my money needs to duplicate itself faster. It needs to be able to go in and compound.”

It’s that Rule of 72. If we go back to that and we look at that in the previous video, we look at, “How many years is it going to take from my money to double? If I put $100,000 into this syndication and I can double it in 3 to 5 years, there’s no way $100,000 in a savings account at those rates is going to even compare or compete with that.” That’s the bigger picture.

Let’s say we were doubling our money in syndications, not always but let’s say we could do that 5, 7 to 10 years. Syndication gives you access to this but most real estate that you invest in has a built-in accommodation for the cost of living. One of the things that’s amazing about real estate is the values move up as inflation goes up. It moves with the markets. When you invest in the stock market, it also moves with the economy but it is not stable. Real estate is what I consider the truest depiction of the economy’s movement. Am I saying that clearly, Dina? Can you say it in another way that makes more sense?

I do get asked the same thing a lot of times. The truth is, we can make money in both stocks and real estate, for sure. I do think education is key but the difference between a stock and real estate is, real estate is tangible. It’s a product that people need. A stock is not necessarily a need-based product. It means people need land to grow food on, shelter and a place to do business. What the tangibility that you’re referring to why it dominates a lot of times the market and the valuation of markets is because it’s a necessary item. It’s that supply and demand thing again. That’s the big piece that you’re hitting on that makes me go, “What’s powerful about this is if we are investing in something, that’s tangible.”

Real estate markets can go down because that’s another thing people say. Are you telling me they never go down? They do. If we look back in history, that does have ebb and flow. However, over ten years, the National Association of Realtors will tell you, “Real estate increases approximately 10% across the board every decade.” That means it increases. It’s eventually going to go back up and you have got that supply and demand. That is what’s going on. There are affordable housing needs. This is why multifamily is so impactful. If you bring the resilient climate piece into that, which everybody should be aware of, that’s the piece that I am passionate about. We reduce our carbon footprint so when we can do multifamily.

We can get some great tax incentives in certain places when we’re doing energy-efficient upgrades in our buildings. All of these things together can create that portfolio that allows an investor to duplicate their money on a faster level. That’s the game we were playing with money. It’s quicker. The money can reproduce itself. The more comfortable retirement will be, the more comfortable life will be. You don’t have to worry about what Elon Musk is doing and what is the price of Teslas. Maybe we could take a trip on Blue Origin. It’s different.

For me, it was never about the stuff. Although, we have stuff and we love to travel. We all have our things but it’s about the fact that I don’t have to worry about that stuff. It’s a tool and it allows me to be 100% who I want to be in the moments that I want to be that person. That’s the big piece that we’re both passionate about. We get to do what we do, help lift people and understand this.

The best predictor of future behavior is past performance.

I have often said in schools, I don’t know that I ever used Calculus. I had to take it when I was in college and high school. I don’t even remember it. My kids will ask me, “How?” “Ask your dad. That’s not mommy’s thing. Ask me ROI and how you can duplicate money. I can tell you that.” It is a better skill for a kid to go out into the world with. If you are going to be a rocket scientist, you need Calculus. If you build a Tesla, I don’t know.

Dina, there is another thing that I wanted to ask and we were going to wrap up this show with this because this is a huge amount of information. Ladies, I hope that you appreciated Dina’s perspective on this. We broke this down so that you got a perspective, maybe a different way to look at money. Dina, thank you so much for sharing that. In EXTRA, I’d like to go even a little bit deeper because I got the question from one of my ladies. She bought a house. It was a $1 million home and she got an $800,000 loan. She was like, “How am I ever going to pay this off?”

You have a response to that. I know what my response is to that but we were going to talk about that EXTRA because that brings it home for us. It makes it real. What should our perspective be on that? Let’s talk about that in EXTRA but for now, Dina, remind everybody how they can get in touch with you.

You can find me at PCRPGroup.com. Go to our website. We’ve got tons of free information and education. We’re doing a webinar series that we were releasing at the beginning of January 2022. Also, you can always email me at [email protected]. Any questions that anybody has or if you want to talk about passive investing, I make myself open to your audience.

Ladies, as always, let Dina know you came from this show. It’s good marketing information for her as well as for me. Please let her know that you came from Real Estate Investing For Women from Moneeka Sawyer. Dina, thank you so much for all that you shared in this show.

You are so welcome. Anytime. My pleasure.

Ladies, watch out for EXTRA. We’re going to be talking about how do I pay off that house or should I? Go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com if you’re not subscribed but would like to be. Remember, you get seven days for free. For those of you that are leaving Dina and me now, thank you so much for joining us. I hope this is helpful. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are dreams, so get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.

 

Important Links

• Dina Buchanan – Past episode
• PCRP Group
• National Association of Realtors
• [email protected]
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

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

 

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

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Growing Your Success By Plugging Into A Community With Deborah Razo

Real Estate Investing for Women

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, I am.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Thank you, Moneeka. This has been great.

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

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

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

 

Important Links

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

 

About Deborah Razo

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

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

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

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

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