Freeing Yourself From Crazy-Making Relationships with Dr. Rhoberta Shaler
The lockdown and quarantine during this pandemic is sure to make a lot of changes in how people live and interact. There are may even be times that you start to think it may be better to start freeing yourself from toxic relationships. Joining Moneeka Sawyer this episode is The Relationship Help Doctor, Dr. Rhoberta Shaler. She talks about the signs to watch out for in determining if your partner is a hijackal and shares her knowledge on what you can do to improve your relationship. She dives into why it’s important not to run away and instead empower yourself and learn how you can divert potentially intense conversations into the neutral zone and create a safe space for you and your children.
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Freeing Yourself From Crazy-Making Relationships with Dr. Rhoberta Shaler
I am excited to welcome to the show, Dr. Rhoberta Shaler, PhD. The Relationship Help Doctor. She provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis. Her mission is to provide insights, information, and inspiration for clients and audiences to transform relationships with themselves and other humans to be honest, respectful, and safe, and always. Even the United States Marines had sought her help. Dr. Shaler focuses on helping the partners, exes, and adult children of the relentlessly difficult toxic people she calls hijackals. She stopped the crazy-making and saved their sanity. She is the author of sixteen books including Escaping The Hijackal Trap and Stop! That’s Crazy Making. She hosts the popular podcast, Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships. Her YouTube channel, For Relationship Help has reached over 350,000 views. Dr. Rhoberta, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Moneeka. It’s great to be here.
It’s nice to see you again. Dr. Rhoberta and I were both Icons of Influence at the New Media Summit. We got to hang out for a few days down in San Diego. It was nice to reconnect. Rhoberta, could you tell us a little bit about your backstory? How did you get into this work?
I started out wanting to be a medical doctor from the time I was five. I was born into a family where I had two hijackal parents and I’m an only child. I had the great joy of having both of them focus on me. They didn’t like each other. It was a very interesting childhood. I learned a great deal. I was very much under the spell of all that had happened to me when I was young as every one of us. I had to do a lot of undoing and a lot of figuring out and there wasn’t a lot of help. Once I got my Doctorate in Psychology, I shifted to this specialty because few people understand what’s going on.
Many times when you go for help with your marriage or your relationship, therapists are not familiar with this. They don’t see it quickly. They do the thing that most therapists would do. They would say, “If you only did more.” In actual fact, that is inappropriate when one of the partners is a hijackal because the other doesn’t need to do more. I am slowly learning all of that. There is a lot of unpacking and a lot of taking the tentacles of my soul, and then learning how to help other people do that. That’s the path that brought me to this particular specialty.
It’s appropriate these days because what’s happening is we’re all stuck together in our houses. Even if they’re crazy about each other and love each other, families are driving each other nuts. It is because we’re not used to be in a close-quarters so much for so long. We’ve got families that even they love each other, they are having trouble. They’re not in toxic relationships but they’re turning into difficult relationships. There are parents that are home with their teenage children or their young children that may not be used to hanging out with them that much. It’s on the same side for the children.
You don't have power over others, but you have power over your own processing. Share on XThe statistic that breaks my heart the most is that domestic abuse has gone up by double digits in the United States. I have 100,000 followers to this show and I hope and pray that none of my ladies or their children are going through those issues. Statistically, I know someone’s going to hear this and be like, “That’s me.” The other piece is there are also toxic relationships and those people are now all stuck together. All of that stuff is what I want to talk about and how to deal with that because it’s such a big deal.
Let me add something to what you said, Moneeka. It could be men who are having hijackal partners too. It’s not just the women. There’s an equal number of male and female hijackals. They present a little differently, but there are equal numbers and they’re equally as disturbing and difficult. It’s important to know, but I’ve done three episodes of my Save Your Sanity Podcast on the topic of housebound with a hijackal because people need strong strategies to recognize what’s going on. You get a little relief when people go off to work, or kids go off, or your mother isn’t calling you all the time and she may be the hijackal or your father isn’t being demanding. The whole idea is that you are in your house and if the hijackal is in your house too, you’re going to have trouble with it. Here’s one big reason why. It’s because hijackals have to be in charge. Imagine how crazy they are without being the one who’s calling the shots.
They don’t get to say if they go to work or not. They don’t get to say if their industry is open. They don’t get to say if they can stay home or not. They’ve been told and they don’t like it. There is a whole bunch of underlying tension and resentment just in the fact that they are not in charge. What that does is it increases their charge and you become more of the target. You are the lightning rod for all of their resentment and the children may get that too. That is going to be very unhappy making and very much less than blissful.
Let’s move with that. Tell us what we can do about it. Give us some strategies to help my ladies if they’re in that situation. The reason I keep saying “my ladies” is because this is a women’s show. I am fully aware that sometimes the ladies are the hijackal. I’m not taking sides. A lot of us ladies know we’re toxic. Sometimes we’re so stuck there and we don’t know how to pull out of it. We feel badly sometimes. Some hijackals don’t see it. That’s true for men and women. Some of us though feel it. We’re seeing it more in the way that we relate to our families now. For those of you, ladies, this conversation is interesting because you get to know what the other side of that is like. Hopefully, you can take some strategies away for yourself on how to be less of that person or get the help that you need.
I understood that but I just wanted everybody to know that if you are a lady and you’re reading this, you could be the hijackal treating your man that way. If you understand that you are treating someone that way and you won’t feel bad about it, it’s highly unlikely that you’re a hijackal. It means that you have learned some coping mechanisms from having been raised with one or previously lived with one. We call it having hijackal fleas. You’ve got some fleas leftover in your behaviors. The fact is that if you are cognizant of what you are doing and feel badly about it and want to change it, you do not have typical hijackal traits. Hijackals are not interested in you. They’re only interested in them and what they can get and how they can have power.
If you are in any way aware and conscious that, “I don’t like myself when I do that. It makes other people hurt or feel badly and I don’t like that.” That means that your empathetic mechanism is working and you want to do better, and that’s great. There are a bunch of people in the world who don’t want to do better because the hijackals will tell you outright, “There is nothing wrong with me. I am perfect. If only you were different, we wouldn’t be having this problem.” It’s important to see that distinction. If a person says, “I had a bad day. I behaved badly,” or “I slipped into a way that’s less than loving here. I recognize it and I want to change it,” that means you have empathy. You recognize and you care that somebody else is hurting. You care that maybe you are not presenting a loving face. A hijackal doesn’t care.
Freeing Yourself From Relationships: There’s an equal number of male and female hijackals. They present a little differently, but there are equal numbers and they’re equally as disturbing and difficult.
Thank you so much for that distinction because I know that in conversations I’ve had with you before, it occurred to me that everyone will act like that person. We’ve all had bad days. We all have a piece of us that we don’t love that lashes out and deals with frustration in bad ways. In our last conversation, I remember that and I thought, “Am I a part of that? Is it a real relief that I’m not part of that problem?” I’m sure there are some ladies who might hear this conversation and have the same path. Let’s talk about how to deal with these toxic people if we’re stuck with them.
First of all, you have to recognize what’s something that you can do something about and what you can’t do anything about. What’s in your power and what isn’t? Changing a hijackal is not in your power. They don’t want to change. They see no reason to change. Every time you bring up change, they see it as criticism and they’re not interested. What can you do? You look at your own behaviors and say, “How am I responding to this? Am I responding in a way that is in alignment with who I want to be? They may be bringing out the worst in me or having the most awful thoughts, but who am I being? That’s a big thing.
I have clients all over the world and I always tell them, “The beginning stages are to prepare and practice. You have to see things differently. You have to practice new skills and you’re preparing yourself for making better decisions.” I don’t know if you’re going to stay with the hijackal. Maybe we can do several things that the hijackal will respond to and everything will be better, if not it’s never fine. You also have to change you. Here’s why I say that, Moneeka, and because many of your audience are women. About 70% of my practice is women. They’ll say, “I don’t care if I get anything. I just want to be out of here. I would rather be out of here and not bother with anything.”
I’m going, “Do not do that. That’s exactly what they want you to do.” You need to empower yourself before you leave unless there’s sexual or physical abuse. You need to be that empowered woman. That woman who knows her values, vision for her life, and her belief. She has good communication and conflict management skills. She knows how to set good boundaries and hold them. Have the consequences of them felt before you leave because you want to take that empowered women into your new life. You don’t want to take the one that is broken down, tired, fed up, scared, beam me up, get me out of here. If I have to be in absolute poverty and have to live in some tiny little place with my children, so be it. Sometimes that has to happen because there’s physical and sexual abuse.
If there isn’t, you want to prepare and practice. The things that you see that you have to accept are the first thing. They are not going to change. They’re not interested in change so don’t keep having that conversation. Don’t poke hijackals. It never ends well. Don’t make them angry. Don’t criticize them. Don’t demand or threaten. Don’t do those things. I know you want to because you are frustrated, but don’t do it. You know what you get back, the rage and/or the silent treatment, and the withholding affection, money or anything like that. Accept the fact that you don’t poke a hijackal and then know that you do have some power in your own processing. You don’t have power over them, but you have power in your own processing. Learn to do deep yoga breathing, preferably 4-7-8 breathing purposefully so that you keep yourself in the best state possible, you are as relaxed as possible. You can’t solve a problem when you’re in high tension very well because your body goes into fight or flight.
You’re in a hormone wash that makes things a bit foggy. You want to be as relaxed as you can be in a very tense situation. You want to be able to stay present. You don’t want to go into the, “It’s always like this,” or “It’s never like this.” You don’t want to go into the future, “It’s going to be terrible. It’s always going to be like this.” You need to stay present. “At this moment, I was bound with a hijackal. Let me stay within the parameters of what I can deal with. There’s no point in picking fights. There’s no point in making threats. There’s no point in trying to make big changes now.” What you want is the dullest roar you can possibly have in your home, as quiet as you can make it. Neutralize things. If a hijackal makes a statement that is inflammatory, neutralize it in your head. “That’s what they’re talking about. That doesn’t have to affect me. I don’t have to respond to it. I don’t have to have a comeback.”
Check in with yourself. That you are being how you most want to be. Share on XMany of us women are like, “I’m always the one that has to change. I’m always the one that has to take responsibility.” It can be frustrating. What I would want to say here is you’re changing and taking responsibility for you. You’re not doing it for the benefit of this abusive person. You’re doing it for the benefit of you and your children. Sometimes it’s frustrating that you’re in a relationship where you’re responsible for everything. Remember that this is about empowering you. This isn’t about making someone else right. It’s not about condoning anybody else. It’s not about saying, “I am throwing your arms up in there and saying, ‘Fine, I give up.’” It’s none of that stuff. This is about empowering yourself so that you can keep yourself and your children safe. That’s what this is about.
As I was hearing this and hearing, “You need to change,” it is true and Rhoberta says it very kindly, but I know that some of us through our filters are like, “Really, again? It’s all about me having to change?” We have these feelings. This is about empowering yourself because unless you do it, you’re going to get more abuse. Your children are going to suffer. The dog may suffer. Suffering happens more unless you’re willing to take responsibility to empower yourself to deal with things. Wouldn’t you agree?
I do and it’s a good point. I would like to emphasize it by saying, “Yes, I understand. It’s not fair. You always have to take the high road. You always have to be the one who understands. You always have to be the one who accommodates.” However, what we’re talking about here when I’m talking about what Moneeka highlighted. This is you growing into the strong, powerful and empowered woman that you would like to feel like. It’s a personal growth pattern. It is not saying, “I have to change because of the hijackal.” It’s saying, “I’ve got this in front of me. I don’t like it. How can I do my bit and come into a wonderful space where I know I’ve got my stuff together? I am being who I want to be. I have good skills. I can quietly say what’s so for me.”
We were talking about my books. In the Kaizen for Couples books that I wrote, I put in there a technique that I created many years ago called the Personal Weather Report. That’s got to be one of the most powerful things I can ever teach anyone. It’s how to speak in a way that is assertive and feel good about it. I’ll give you my definition of assertiveness. It means that you come to a place where you honestly believe that you deserve to take up space and draw breath on this earth. From that place, you learn to say, “I have the right then to say what I think, feel, need and want as long as I do not mention another human by name or pronoun.” If I get in the habit of doing a Personal Weather Report where I speak about what’s so for me, not mentioning another human by name or pronoun, I can be assertive because I know what I think, feel, need, want and remember. As long as I am not talking about anybody else, I have the absolute right to do that. That’s the first way to prepare. It’s to change your communication.
Can you give us an example of that?
You might want to say, “Nobody respects me around here. When you do that, it simply drives me crazy. You’re doing it on purpose and I hate it so change.” That’s not going to help.
Freeing Yourself From Relationships: If you understand that you are treating someone wrong and you feel badly about it, it’s highly unlikely you’re a hijackal.
That’s our normal response.
If I sent her myself and I say, “I find that I do better in a place where I feel there’s respect. At the moment it doesn’t feel like that to me, what would help me is this.” I clearly take responsibility for the fact that I’m not feeling it. I am communicating what would help me feel better and then say, “Would that be possible?” You then can get agreement or no agreement or the silent treatment, but you are beginning to say, “I can only deal with my inner self. I can say what’s so for me. I could put it out there.” I can then ask if I can have that agreement to operate between us in that way. I can then learn something about the other person. If I train myself to use the Personal Weather Report, it sounds simple but it’s not easy.
It is not what we’ve been raised to do and this is basic to take back your sense of being an empowered woman. I know I can count on myself to say something I won’t regret. I can say something that’s true for me. I can say something that if someone doesn’t believe it, that will give me information about them. They don’t want me to be like that. They want me to change. They want me to be different. They want to judge how I am. I’ve already checked in with myself that I am being how I most want to be. I’m living from my values, my vision from my life, my beliefs, and my next best steps.
Thank you, Rhoberta. That was amazing.
Back in the day, I was training teachers. I was going all over the province of British Columbia training teachers. That was back in the day when people thought that “I message” was a stellar way to solve problems and it caused my gut to go, “I don’t like that.” For people reading, an “I message” was, “I feel this way when you do that.” That’s just bail blame. Maybe it was an upgrade from screaming and yelling at what an idiot you are. Maybe there was a middle ground there, but it caused me to develop the Personal Weather Report as a respectful thing. We are the experts on what’s going on here. The other person is not the expert on what’s going on in here. If I simply say, “I care enough to tell you what’s going on in here and I lay it out and then I watched. Do you pick it up or are you curious about it? What do you do with it? Do you get angry about it? Do you refute it?” That will give me information about the other person.
If I’m in a fog, which hijackal wants to keep you in the fog. Susan Forward wrote a book a long time ago called Emotional Blackmail. In there, she talked about FOG as an acronym for Fear, Obligation, and Guilt. That’s where they want to keep you. If you have heightened anxiety, which certainly happens when you’re housebound with a hijackal especially if you have a few kids thrown into the mix, you already are washing chemicals. You then have somebody who wants fear, obligation, and guilt to pile on that and they can’t be wrong so that you must be, what a horrible soup you’re living in. For you to be able to step back and say, “Who do I want to be right now?”
Don't be marginalized, isolated, excluded, demeaned. Stand up, not in a confrontive way, but in a positive, affirmative way. Share on XAll I can do is say who I am, what’s going on within me, give a Personal Weather Report, and watch what they would do with it. A hijackal will have very little interest, but here’s where it provides some effectiveness. It’s when a hijackal gaslights you. That means that the hijackal tries to tell you what you think, feel, need, want, remember, all of that. They want to define your reality for you. They’ll say something like, “I know you better than you know yourself and this is what it is.” When you’re practiced in the Personal Weather Report in that instance, you can come back and you can say, “That’s not how I feel. I’m happy to tell you how I feel if you’re interested in inquiring.” That brings everything into this neutral ground. The hijackal doesn’t like it but they’re not going to go ballistic.
You just say, “I’m happy to tell you, but that isn’t how I feel.” When you start to do that, you start doing it internally. You start practicing it internally. You then start saying it quietly, genuinely and neutrally. You start to get a little bigger in the situation. You start to open up a little stronger and you grow into more sense of, “I have the right to exist. I have the right to take up space. Therefore, I have the right to be assertive.
This whole thing about us taking space. One of the bliss practices is owning your footprint to knowing that you have the right to that footprint. God put you here to take that footprint. It is interesting that you talk about even having a right to breathing air. There are people out there that have that feeling. Thank you so much for that.
Let me give you a little visual. This is a poorly, quickly drawn one but I’ll give it to you anyway. This is a healthy relationship.
It’s a yin and yang.
It is a beautiful balanced yin and yang sign. However, in a hijackal relationship, it looks like that, which is a huge one side and a tiny marginalized, isolated pushed to the edge of the other’s side. That will continue. What I’m inviting you to do in this empowerment is to come back and fill your half of the space. Don’t be marginalized, isolated, excluded, demeaned, discarded, devalued, and let that continue. Stand up not in a confrontative way, but in a positive and affirmative way.
Freeing Yourself From Relationships: Escaping the Hijackal Trap: Volume 1 – The Truth About Hijackals and Why They Are Crazy-making
Do you have any other advice for maybe how to protect your children or how to create a safe space within your home with everything that’s going on?
It’s difficult if you have a hijackal because when they’re agitated, they do what I call Personal Surveillance. They go to the rooms you’re in. They blow up your phone. They want to know where you are. They want to know what you’re doing. They want to know why you’re doing it. They want to tell you shouldn’t be doing it. You may have to carve out internal space because you can’t find it in physical space. Preferably, find some physical space. Go outside in the yard, do something, and have some time to breathe. I mentioned the 4-7-8 breathing. That breathing through your nose as fully as you can for a count of 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, exhale through your mouth as completely as you can for a count of 8 and repeat. What this does is it re-oxygenates your system. It helps you get rid of carbon dioxide.
That will allow you to relax. It will allow your muscles to relax. It will allow you then to be able to think more clearly. You can practice that even while you’re in the middle of a conversation or you’re simply smiling. You can exhale while you’re talking or smiling. If somebody is agitated in front of you, you can practice that purposeful breathing. Also, if you have children, everybody’s a little agitated. Have a designated space in your home for everybody if you possibly can. If they don’t have their own bedrooms, let them have their own sacred corners where when they’re in that, nobody can come in. Therefore, you will be accorded that rate too. The hijackal is constantly going to trespass, but you keep saying, “No, this is my space. Please step out.”
You begin to have some physical boundaries. They may not be walls but they are, “This is my corner. I’m having a quiet time now.” Those are important practices. Children have both your DNA and I want to address the children. Children’s brains grow until they’re 30 years old. The strongest and largest growth capacity is before the age of 5 or 6. Up until that time, children are taking everything in emotionally. They’re figuring out how to get their needs met. They learn whether you come when they cry. They learn when you smile at them. They learn when they smile at you, do you smile back? How do they get your attention? What do they have to do? They’re learning all kinds of things that are survival because as humans, we are not like cows or horses. We don’t get spit out of our mothers and licked off, and then we leap up and run around the meadow.
We know that we’re loved. Intrinsically, we know that we need those giants in order to be transported, to be fed, and to be taken care of. We’re coming from that premise. How do I get them to take care of me? Because we’re emotional beings at that time, primarily we are learning who we are by whether or not they take care of us or how interested they are in us. That is locked in there. When you’re dealing with your children, they have one side coming from the hijackal, which is telling them that their only value is when they make the hijackal happy or look good. I know you don’t want the extra work, but you’re with the hijackal so it comes with the territory. You have to balance it out by being very interested, validating, and present with the children.
When they complain about daddy, you say, “I know you’re feeling such and such. You’re feeling this way.” You legitimize and validate their feelings without making daddy wrong because that’s not going to work. That’s going to come back to hunt. I was working with a client whose children are 8 and 5. The eight-year-old has already been taught by the father to spy on the mother. She has been told repeatedly that she needs to repeat every conversation that she hears the mother is having to him when he gets home. I had a situation in my office and a woman’s babysitter bailed. She came in for a session. She had to bring her 1-year-old and her 5-year-old. Her five-year-old was sitting outside the door with the door cracked and he had an iPad. The little one was with me.
Recognize what's something you can do something about, and what you can't do anything about. What's within your power, and what isn't. Share on XI watched the five-year-old insert himself around the door. A couple of times, we told him to go back out. The third time, he came in and kept edging towards mom. He then had what I call the hijackal smirk on his face. It’s that clear, superior, “I got you” look. He looked at me and he said, “I’ve recorded everything you said.” I said, “Come and show me your iPad.” He showed it to me and I said, “Where did you record it?” He showed it to me. “How did you learn to do that?” “My daddy gave me this and he told me to record everything and send it to him.” I said, “That’s interesting,” and I erased what he had recorded.
I was hoping you would push delete.
I said, “I’m sorry, but you can’t do that here.” This is the way they operate. If you’re with a hijackal, you have to do some double duty. That’s just the way it is until you practice and prepare to decide if you’re going to stay with that hijackal. Now, you’re not going anywhere because the courts are backed up and they’re working virtually. Some of them are closed and nothing’s going to happen. It is very important for you to understand what it is you’re telling those children and you are responsible for that balancing act. You don’t make the partner wrong. You validate the children’s feelings and you ask them, what would work better for you? What do you think you could say when that happens? You do some practicing with them. If you happen to have a resentful teenager, I did a Facebook Live not long ago with Aaron Huey from Fire Mountain Programs for teenagers who were troubled. We did a great thing about how to manage teenagers. I highly invite everybody to listen to that. It’s on my YouTube channel. My YouTube channel is For Relationship Help. There’s a whole Facebook Live stream there with Aaron Huey on Cooped Up With Unhappy Teenagers.
Rhoberta, normally I would say, “Let’s go into an EXTRA,” but you have already given some deep, impactful stuff. I don’t feel like we need to move into that other section, but I’m in complete awe. Thank you so much for all you’ve offered.
You’re welcome. Thanks for the great questions. I know how difficult it is if you are housebound with a hijackal. If you’re not housebound with a hijackal because even though they’re not there, they want you to be housebound or at least attached to them by the hip. They want to know where you are, what you’re doing and then they make up a whole lot of bad things that you didn’t do or think, and then they blame you for that. Do get the help that you need if any of this is making sense and what’s happening at your house.
How can people get in touch with you?
Stop, That’s Crazy-Making!: How to quit the Passive-Aggressive game
Go to TransformingRelationship.com. That’s the easiest thing to do. Also, you can arrive there by going to ForRelationshipHelp.com. You can see all this there for you. I have a membership program. You can have a one-hour full session as a new client for only $97. It’s all there for you. It will also lead you to the podcast and the YouTube channel.
You also have books. Those are also available on Amazon.
They’re both in print form and in eBook form. On my website, there are courses and webinars and all kinds of things to help you on your journey.
Ladies, this can be difficult, so now you’ve got a resource. If you’re needing some help, even if you don’t have the privacy to make a phone call, you can still read books. You can still take coursework. You can do some things for yourself. Make sure you reach out to Rhoberta and get some of that information.
If you’re stuck, I also have a Facebook group and you can find it. It’s called Optimize Life After Emotional Abuse.
Rhoberta, that was truly an amazing episode. Thank you so much for all you offered my ladies.
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Ladies, thank you so much for joining Rhoberta and me for this show. Always remember, bliss is your birthright. Choose to live your bliss every single day. I’ll see you soon.
Important Links
- Dr. Rhoberta Shaler
- Escaping The Hijackal Trap
- Stop! That’s Crazy Making
- Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships – podcast
- For Relationship Help – YouTube Channel
- Kaizen for Couples
- Emotional Blackmail
- Fire Mountain Programs
- Cooped Up With Unhappy Teenagers on YouTube
- TransformingRelationship.com
- ForRelationshipHelp.com
- Optimize Life After Emotional Abuse – Facebook group
About Rhoberta Shaler, PhD
Rhoberta Shaler, PhD, The Relationship Help Doctor, provides urgent and ongoing care for relationships in crisis. Her mission is to provide the insights, information, and inspiration for clients and audiences to transform relationship with themselves and other humans to be honest, respectful, and safe in all ways. Even the United States Marines have sought her help!
Dr. Shaler focuses on helping the partners, exes, and adult children of the relentlessly difficult, toxic people she calls Hijackals® to stop the crazy-making and save their sanity.
Author of sixteen books including Escaping the Hijackal Trap and Stop! That’s Crazy-Making, she hosts the internationally popular podcast, Save Your Sanity: Help for Toxic Relationships. Her YouTube channel, ForRelationshipHelp, has reached over 350,000 views.
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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com
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Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
Role Reversal with your Aging Parents with Angela Alvig
Are you looking to get your parents finances in order? In this episode, Angela Alvig, Founder and President of Simplify Wealth, joins Moneeka Sawyer to tackle role reversal with your aging parents and how it can be a daunting task without losing your insanity. Angela talks about preparing for the worst before anything happens and trying to encourage conversation before it becomes an emergency. They discuss the areas you will need to address for your parents’ well-being, and strategies such as downsizing and decluttering that you can apply to handle your parents’ and your family’s assets to keep them in order. Get to know what is a sandwich generation and how you can manage dealing with all the emotions that come with it all.
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Listen to the podcast here
Role Reversal with your Aging Parents with Angela Alvig
I am so excited to welcome back to our show Angela Alvig. We’re going to be talking about role reversal with your aging parents, getting their finances in order without losing your sanity. The reason that I invited Angela back for this particular conversation is that there are a lot of ladies that are in that situation. I know that I am too. I thought that this would be a relevant conversation for all of you ladies. As part of your bliss planning, financial planning, or wealth planning, this is going to be a piece of the puzzle. I know that Angela is going to give us some great information but if you don’t remember who Angela is, let me read her bio to you. Angela is a personal wealth CFO for her clients.
A trusted advisor who is intimately familiar with their financial situation, values, and priorities. She is a passionate result-oriented CPA who possesses a unique combination of technical expertise and interpersonal skills with a proactive action-oriented approach. With years of experience in financial accounting in the family office industry, Angela is Founder and President of Simplify Wealth, LLC and leads a team of ten professionals. Angela and her team provide a suite of financial and organizational services for their clients, giving them time and life freedom, which we all want. She effectively leads the strategy and implementation of her firm with vision and heart to ensure she and her team deliver optimal results for their valued clients. Angela, welcome back to the show.
Moneeka, I’m thrilled to be back. It’s great to see you.
You, too. This is so awesome. Thank you. Let’s talk a little bit and remind everybody what a personal CFO looks like. Could we start with that?
A personal CFO can mean all kinds of different things but it is, we all have our whole personal financial life that we’re responsible for and you involve lots of professionals, attorneys, accountants, wealth managers, but there are still a lot of details to manage. If you’re a real estate investor, there are even more details to manage. You may have many legal entities, properties, and different tax things you have to track. What a personal CFO does is help you keep your eye on the big picture and the details. As I like to say, help you wrestle those details to the ground. My job as my client’s personal CFO is to partner with them and take that burden of managing details off of them.
That’s what my team and I do so that our clients can operate in there, I call it a zone of genius. How they want to spend their time whether it’s because they are having more leisure time and don’t want to spend their time doing paperwork. They’re aging and we’ll get into some of those topics here. They’re successful and they’re the visionary of their business, they either aren’t detail-oriented or they are and they want someone they can trust to handle the details, as well as they, would have themselves. It’s a partner in keeping track of everything.
Part of why I asked you back is because I have had several conversations with some of my ladies where they’ve got children that are getting ready to go to college. They’ve got parents that are starting to age, and now they’re responsible for either handling the finances of their parents or their parents don’t have the finances and they have to find it within their own budget to take care of their parents. This is a big topic in my generation and I’m hearing it a lot from my ladies. Could you talk about what that looks like and what you’re seeing out there?
It’s exactly what you’ve said. Those of us who are in the prime of our professional careers whether we have children or we don’t. My children are getting ready to go off to college. I’m feeling a little bit like, “I can do what I want to do.” You have the freedom to pick anyone up at 3:00 in the afternoon, but then my parents are aging too but they’re doing well. You’ve got to think about these things and also things happen that you don’t expect. Expect the best, prepare for the worst. Some people find themselves in that where they’re managing both and their parents suddenly need care and support.
Role Reversal: A personal CFO helps you keep your eye on the big picture and the details.
Other people want to get ahead of it and collect the information from your parents or have them collect it for you while they are still doing grace and have a handle on their personal finances. They’re doing a great job being their own personal CFO. If something happens, someone in your family, or a sibling, whatever, you’re going to be squarely in the middle of having to do that and potentially with no information to do so if you know nothing about your parents’ situation which is common. It’s not something families share.
It’s also an uncomfortable conversation. A lot of times, you don’t want to say, “You might get sick and I’m going to need to take care of you.” You don’t ever want to approach it that way and I know you’re going to talk about it but that’s what it feels like so much of the time if we aren’t careful in how we approach this. It becomes an offensive conversation to our parents.
I don’t know that I made this up but I call it a love letter. If you said to your parents like, “I want you to write a love letter to me that would help me. In the event that something happens, we hope it doesn’t happen for 50 years.” I have bosses that I’m working with where the husband is super organized. The wife wants to know who I am because if something happened to him, she would want me to be her CFO. Our personal CFO was him or the other spouse. That’s what I call it. Write a love letter to your spouse whichever spouse is responsible for finances. It makes it less, it makes it fun and meaningful.
Being stuck in the middle here, parenting your parents, or whatever you want to call it. Even having people understand that they’re not alone that there are tons of people going through this, the generation term is not a new thing but there are many things that people have to manage. Furthermore, the information that you need to collect for your parents is not as readily available as it may have been at one time. Years ago, you go through your parents’ file cabinets and find all the paper they had saved from the paper mail. Now there are logins, usernames, and passwords. You could lose track of financial assets or other things if you don’t take certain steps to collect that information.
What parts of your parents’ financial wellbeing or general wellbeing that you do you need to address and be aware of?
We touched on their financial wellbeing and again, it’s even less like, “Do mom and dad have enough money?” It’s more selfishly that you would learn where to find their stuff if you had to act on their behalf while they’re alive or after they pass. You need to be concerned about their living situation. We’ll talk a little bit about downsizing later but aging in place is more and more a thing. Helping them get situated in their home. That’s a whole expertise that not everyone has. There are firms that have expertise in care management, helping you advocate for your parents, and getting the right care. In general, their social health but also social engagement which gets into mental wellbeing and all of those things and helping them. Retirement can be an interesting phase of life. I’m not sure. I plan to retire because I don’t know what I would do although I could fill my days.
What is true about retirement is a lot of people identify themselves with what they do for a living. When they stopped doing that, they don’t know who they are. There’s a period. I’ve seen this consistently because I’ve got six parents, two sets of in-laws and my parents, and they all went through these retirement days. Some of them were easier. Some of them were not as easy but in general, it was a two-year transition of things that are rough, trying to support them through that can be a challenge. That’s another one of those things that we don’t think about.
That’s an important factor in wellbeing. That’s easier to discover if you’re healthy if something changes with your health situation. I’m trying to encourage conversation before it becomes an emergency. It’s being proactive. It’s the most boring thing in the world. People generally wait until something happens to deal with it. We have clients who we’ve been hired by their adult children to help mom and dad pay their bills and do things. In a way, it makes those adult kids spend their time with mom and dad on fun things.
It’s not like, “Can you look at this mail? Can you help me with this?” We can do it in a way that keeps them independent too. They have a person who comes over and helps them do this that isn’t their kid. I always joke that I’ll send someone on my team to take care of my own parent’s bills and stuff when the time comes. My poor mother doesn’t deserve the eye roll I’m probably going to give her. It’s not right and I know it isn’t. It can be an interesting dynamic.
Things happen that you don't expect. Share on XEspecially as things are changing in their lives. You do want more quality time with them. Talking about finances and paperwork, it doesn’t feel like quality time on anybody’s put book.
You can do it yourself with them. You can delegate it to a professional, whatever it may be. What are the things I would have to walk through? At a minimum, find out if your parents even have a will. I’m going to have any of this stuff figure it out. If you’re that person who’s been named as their personal representative, walk through what you have to know and do it now. Try to make it fun. Make it a love letter, not a sad conversation.
Talk a little bit about what you’re going to need to inventory in order to make a plan for them and to help them make the plan.
You have to build a personal financial statement. You need to inventory the assets they have, the financial assets, any liabilities they have, mortgages, credit cards. I always say the least important thing about this personal financial statement is the dollar value. What’s more important is where these accounts are. What bank? What’s the account number? How are they titled? In whose name? Are they joint? Some people as their lives get more sophisticated, they might have trusts and life insurance. All these things can get misplaced or misunderstood. That’s the first thing. Inventory what you have and what you owe.
The second thing is to inventory your income and expenses. The least interesting thing here is also the amounts. Who are the vendors? What are the usernames and passwords for all these logins? Some of these vendors may be more or less have varying degrees of being critical to your life and keeping things moving. At a minimum, if your parents were here, their bills still have to get paid or you’ve got to figure this stuff out. You can’t even log into their cable bill if you don’t know this information or you may not know who those vendors are. The third thing touches on what I talked about, you have to inventory all of their digital assets and I don’t mean Bitcoin.
It’s usernames, passwords, and social media accounts. We’ve all heard horror stories of people who can’t get into people’s accounts after they passed away. If you document everything, there are password managers. Some people have a spreadsheet. I’m fine with that as long as it’s stored in a secure place. Don’t print it out and carry it around in your briefcase. That’s not a good idea. If it’s in a drawer at your office desk at home, that’s fine. I like password managers because then you can share them as the passwords change if they should.
Password change is communicated automatically. Make sure that your loved ones know where stuff is. Think it all the way through. Some people are like, “I have my passwords. They’re all on my computer but then they failed to give people their password to get into their computer.” That’s a fail. Take it step-by-step. I have a simple mind so that you have to take it like, “What would I do first? What would I do second?” Collect that information.
Let’s talk a little bit about downsizing. That is a great topic.
Role Reversal: Retirement can be an interesting phase of life.
I’m going to confess. My favorite thing to do is to help people downsize and deal with dumpster management. It’s more fun to do it for other people than it is to yourself. Here’s what I would say. Downsize before you have to. I sound like a broken record on the proactivity comment. I have one client, she has no intention of moving anytime soon. It might be 2 or 3 years, whatever, we’re making it fun. We’re tackling things a little bit out a time. One corner doesn’t matter. To my point about the love letter, think of the downsizing as a gift to your family that you’ll leave behind. Don’t leave them with your 500 Beanie Babies that they don’t want. These are tough conversations too because it can be sad to find out that people don’t want your stuff. I feel like that’s been talked about enough.
That’s a thing too. There are articles written about it. You’re 30 or 40-year-old kids don’t want your junk. I don’t even mean that’s not nice junk, it’s nice but they don’t want it. They’re minimalist. It’s not their taste. You’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off on that deal and acknowledge that. Taking control of your destiny when you do your own downsizing and again, bring in resources. If you want a partner, it’s better done with a partner. It’s hard to sift through things yourself. When we help clients sort through stuff and sometimes in the middle, we’re doing this after clients have passed away and helping their kids with it. We’re much faster at sifting through the information. What we do is we can tell what are sentimental items versus, “This is truly like a dumpster.” If someone else goes through it then they can make some bins for you that are sentimental and you can go through those at your pleasure.
At least, you’re moving forward in the process. You’re not going to leave it because every box is an emotional experience for you and taking control of the situation. My other tip would be to keep good records for income tax deduction purposes. Make a list to maximize the tax deduction value depending on how much you have, you may want to get an appraisal that’s qualified for the IRS. Get somebody who’s an expert in what’s valuable. I find these conversations are more steered, “I’m sorry, what you thought was valuable isn’t.” At the same time, there are things that are and a person with a keen eye and expertise for this can walk through your home and may or may not even charge you to do so. Although, they’ll walk through and tell you like, “This has value and this doesn’t.”
They can help you do an auction or whatever for the items that do have value. Some people will even take those things off-site. You don’t have to have an estate sale in your home. A lot of people don’t want to do that or they may be ready to do that but they want to maximize it. If a charity puts something you donate to a related use, meaning the charity uses it for its exempt purpose. If you gave away a car to a school that teaches kids how to repair cars, you would get a higher value deduction for that if the charity is using that asset for its purpose. People have what I call hobby assets.
It might be a collection that your kids don’t want but if you can get creative on finding charities that these items are collection or something, it might fit right into their exempt purpose, you can get some better tax exemptions there and feel good that your stuff is going to good use. You can’t do this good research if you’re trying to get rid of this stuff so that you can get the house on the market in a month. It takes some time to do it. Have your parents do it themselves with your help while they’re still perfectly able to do so. They can feel good about that.
This whole idea of downsizing, all of my parents have gone through this whole thing. I’ve gone through it a couple of times because I moved to France. We had to downsize our house. When we moved back, we had to downsize from France. Every time we move, I do a full downsize because I don’t want to carry stuff. I wanted to give the other side of that perspective is hire somebody that loves it. I have an organizer who loves it. When she talks me into, “Moneeka, someone else will enjoy this much more. You haven’t worn this for two years.” We can have these conversations but it is emotionally and mentally exhausting for me.
I bet you could organize somebody else’s stuff. It’s more enjoyable than your own.
I probably could but it’s not a blissful experience for me. Every once in a while, my organizer will have to smack me like, “Moneeka, you need to let go of this.” A lot of times, I smacked back. You are like, “No, I’m not going to make that decision right now.”
Put it in a clear bin for later. That’s what I say.
Expect the best, prepare for the worst. Share on XWe’re going to talk about the emotional side but I wanted to give a little perspective on having compassion because if I want to smack my organizer, I would never do that. I love her but we get into these snips where I’m like, “Don’t make me.” I’m in control of my life. Imagine your parents, when they’ve got an entire lifetime of memories.
That is why you want to do it more in advance, you can do it a couple of hours at a time because it’s exhausting.
You want to make sure that it’s someone who enjoys doing it. At least, that will uplift your parents. Working with Giana, at least it’s uplifting. Every time she walks into my house, I know my house is going to look better afterward. No matter what trauma I go through, it’s worth it.
That’s what I tell my team. You’ve got to make this fun. Even if you’re going to someone’s house, telling them to pay their bills. We’re delightful. We show up as we bring flowers. We want to make this a fun experience. It’s not awesome for them sometimes so we want to make it fun. They’re excited that we’re coming over because they like us and they feel accomplished when we leave.
That’s how I feel about my organizer even when we’re downsizing. That was a good segue. I have my own emotional experience of my downsizing. What emotional stuff should we be looking out for?
Having some compassion around it and acknowledging that that’s a huge walk down memory lane. It’s a lot of things. First of all, it’s the least about the actual things. The prospect of losing their independence, like why are they moving? Where are they moving to? It might be fun when it’s not an imminent thing happening. You want to be patient because if they haven’t gone through their stuff, they’re going to come across things that spark a walk down memory lane. Use that as a fun thing to do. If it takes three hours to go through one box, so be it. If you had a nice time with your parents, you laughed about some things, had some good memories, and making the time and space for them to do that on their own times.
A lot of it is patience, compassion, and remembering that this isn’t about you. You’re helping them.
This is the role reversal because when they were parenting you, it was all about you.
Role Reversal: You could absolutely lose track of financial assets or other things if you don’t take certain steps to collect that information.
It gets to be all about them and you get to be compassionate and hold their hand through this whole thing because this process can be very emotional for them.
Acknowledging that it’s stressful for them. Trying to take some opportunities to if you can do some work and then reduce the stress in some way. Mix it up a little bit. Seeking help with it too if you’re not an expert or you don’t love organizing either then you get your parents some help that someone who is enthusiastic about it, it might make it fun.
Before we move to EXTRA and the three rapid-fire questions, could you tell everybody how they can reach you?
You can get ahold of me through my website which is Simplify-Wealth.com. My email, everything about me, my team, and my contact information is all on there.
I know that you have a free gift for my audience. Why don’t we talk a little bit about that?
I have a life organizer tool. When you’re collecting information about your parents or your own life, people ask, “What should I be collecting?” If you go to my website, this tool is best viewed on your desktop versus on mobile. If you click on the top upper right next to my blog, there’s a thing that says Life Organizer. If you click on that, there’s a seven day free trial for the life organizer website which is a working grid on all the things you need to collect to get a handle on your finances. All of the things I talked about and all those passwords. It’s intended to jog your memory on what you need to collect. If you are looking it on mobile, you go all the way down to the bottom of my website.
Thank you for that. That’s valuable. I know that a lot of times when you think about your finances, there are so many moving parts, it can be intimidating. Having a list of all the things that you should be looking for, that would be helpful. Ladies, go and take a look at that at Simplify-Wealth.com and then go to the area that says Life Organizer. Are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?
Yes, I am.
Normally, we talk about these in terms of real estate investing but I’d like to change them to creating or simplifying your wealth and finances. Let’s do it from that perspective. You answered those questions before.
People need a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning. Share on XI’ll accidentally give the same answers. That would have happened.
We’ll do something a little different. Keep it spicy. Give us one super tip on how to get started in managing your finances and your wealth.
I would say start inventorying what you have. Start and get a partner or a personal CFO. If you’re helping your parents, partner with your parents if you’re doing this for them. Get some resources like the Life Organizer or something to start tackling it. If it’s stressing you out, the stress isn’t going to go away if you don’t start somewhere. There is some relief and tackling some chunks at it but also don’t feel like you have to do it all in one day.
What would you say is a strategy for being successful in that whole process?
I would say a strategy would be, be proactive so that you’re not having to do this when you’re under stress because something has happened to your parents or in your own life. Have a system to be organized whether you’re using a checklist, you’re tracking it in a spreadsheet, or you’re using password managers. You’ll come up with some system that once you gather the information, you’re keeping it somewhere that’s organized. Otherwise, you’re having to deal with it twice.
What would you say is one personal daily practice that you use that contributes to your personal success?
I started meditating every morning. For anyone who knows me, it was like, “She’s meditating.” I found a meditation recording if you will whenever I listened to. I have a good morning routine now. I work out, I do my meditating and it puts me in a good place to be in my zone and set my intention for the day. That state usually lasts five minutes until my life gets crazy. That’s been good practice for me.
That’s good that you added that in. It’s surprisingly important. You wouldn’t believe how many people on this show are successful, multimillionaires and that’s the thing that they say is they find a way to be mindful every single day. Angela, this has been amazing. Thank you for sharing this information with my ladies. In the next portion, we’re going to do a deep dive into how to get specifically involved in your parents’ finances and what to do. A little bit more about that conversation and what you need to collect and all that stuff. We’ve got a lot more from Angela coming in EXTRA. If you ladies are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. We’ve got more coming. If you’re not subscribed to EXTRA but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You can subscribe there. You get seven days for free.
You can test up the content, make sure you love it. You’ll be getting your EXTRA set portions of the show wherever you are reading this blog. You don’t have to have a new app. You don’t need to go anywhere else. Once you’re subscribed, it will be downloaded directly to you. For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you for joining Angela for this portion of this show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. We’ll see you next time. Bye.
Important Links
- Simplify Wealth, LLC
- Life Organizer tab – Simplify Wealth, LLC
- RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com
About Angela Alvig
Angela Alvig is a Personal Wealth CFO for her clients – a trusted advisor who is intimately familiar with their financial situation, values and priorities. She is a passionate, results-oriented CPA who possesses a unique combination of technical expertise and interpersonal skills, with a proactive, action-oriented approach. With over 20 years’ experience in finance, accounting and the family office industry, Angela is Founder and President of Simplify Wealth LLC and leads a team of 10 professionals.
Angela and her team provide a suite of financial and organizational services for their clients, giving them time and life freedom. She effectively leads the strategy and implementation of her firm with vision and heart, to ensure she and her team deliver optimal results for their valued clients.
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
Reaching True Success by Focusing on Your Foundation with Ian Lobas
What is true success to you? It is so easy to get lost in all the grind of work and home responsibilities that we tend to lose sight of what really matters to us. How do you get out of this fix and kick-start your journey towards a truly fulfilling life? You will learn from this episode that it all starts with focusing on your foundation, knowing who you really are, what ticks you, what really matters to you and building your vision board around that foundation. Joining Moneeka Sawyer to talk about this is Ian Lobas, a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor podcast, host speaker, and full time high performance coach. Your life is not in the future. It is now. Learn how to take the reins back and have it go your way.
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Listen to the podcast here
Reaching True Success by Focusing on Your Foundation with Ian Lobas
I am excited to welcome to the show Ian Lobas. He’s a successful entrepreneur, real estate investor, podcast host, speaker, and full-time high-performance coach. Ian Lobas absolutely loves life. After years of grinding it out in the shipping and real estate sales businesses and making sacrifices in every other area of his life, he was burnt out. The money, the power, the success, none of it mattered anymore. He was in a failing marriage and barely knew his kids. Every day he would ask himself, “Is this really it? Is this all there is to life? Am I meant to do this forever? How can I have the life I want in every area?”
That’s what Ian set out on a mission of intense personal development to figure out why he was avoiding fear, what was causing the pain, how to clear and remove it from his life, and how to make sure it didn’t get between life and what mattered to him most. His family and living life fully with no regrets. I’m excited to share him and his wisdom with you on our show. Afterwards, if you would like to connect with Ian, you can reach him at [email protected]. Ian, welcome to the show. How are you?
Moneeka, I am fantastic. When you read that bio, it still gets me because it was almost like you were describing some other guy. What you were describing is a different guy than I am now.
We all have a journey to bliss. That’s why I wanted to chat with you because in that bio, I could see myself. I went through very similar things and a lot of the ladies on the show have gone through a lot of different things. What’s amazing about this crazy time in our lives, with everything that’s been going on with the Coronavirus and everything, we’re all getting a chance to look at it. We’re getting some more downtime. We’re living our lives differently because we have to. It’s allowing us to do a reset. Many people are in that place. I know I was. I know you were. As we’re re-evaluating what we’re going to do going forward, here’s an opportunity for a conversation that could change everything. I’m excited for you to share with us a little bit more about that journey and how did you pull yourself out.
I appreciate you having me on. I love meeting you at New Media Summit and being a part of this journey with you now. Men or women, it doesn’t matter. It’s the obsessive identity-rich journey of power, what money, and what success can give you to mask what you’re hiding from, what you’re running from, what your fear points are, and what you’re generally avoiding in your life. It is that stuff that’s deep down that scares you. People use success, money, power, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, and whatever else you want as an avoidance technique. As I said in my bio, I got to the point where at the end of 2016, I had done hundreds and hundreds of hours, even thousands, of personal development. Reading 65 books, going to fifteen seminars, and spending $50,000-plus on personal development.
At the end of the year, I’m thinking, “I did so much. I’m changing.” My wife says, “I’m out.” I thought I was doing so much work and look at all the stuff I’m doing. Look at all the work I’m doing in my life. I’m like, “I don’t like who you are still.” At that moment, what my wife said to me was, “Are you the model of a man that you want your daughter to attract into her life?” It still brings up emotion in me because it was like an eighteen-wheeler running into me. At that moment, I stopped and thought, “No, I’m not.” That’s when my wife said, “You’re doing all this stuff but it hasn’t changed anything about you. It added to all the things you now know and you’re already self-righteous enough. You already try to look smart and look good all the time, anyway. Now, it gave you more ammo.”
That is when I learned the difference between being and doing. That real big quest of like, “How do I change my being? I don’t like myself. I don’t want to get divorced.” Truthfully, it was a divorce attorney who said to me, “I’m not going to take this case. This isn’t what you want. You’re selfish. You’re a jerk. If you can figure out the guy deep down inside that you’re hiding behind all this stuff, when you figure that guy out, you’re going to live a great life because it’s in there. I hear you. I see you. You’re not the guy that’s masculine, tough guy. You’ve got a side to you that people enjoy. If you can have him come out all the time, you’ll have a great relationship in life.” That’s what I did.
There’s something that I say to my audience all the time is that we can’t control what’s going on outside of us in the world. We can’t always control how we choose to respond. What that has to do with is who are we being in the world? Who are we truly inside that is showing up in the world? Many of us may not like that person. Part of that has to do with we don’t even know how to keep ourselves happy. We don’t even know how to create that inside job that everybody is talking about that most of us are giving lip service too. My journey with bliss has been about creating that bliss equilibrium within myself so that no matter what is going on outside whether the economy, election, Coronavirus, my husband is having problems at work, or whatever. No matter what is going on out there, Moneeka is the same person. I show up the same way everywhere.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t have challenges, I don’t fall off the horse, I don’t have my own issues but it means that I am in the habit of coming back to this place of bliss, joy, and being the kind of person I want to be in the world. I may fall off the horse but I don’t stay off for very long. That’s the key. The conversation is about there’s a lot going on out there that we can’t control. There are cycles in what’s been happening. A lot of us are experiencing a lot of emotion up, down, and sideways. What is going on? How do we become blissful in those circumstances? I love your input on what you think would help people.
One of my areas of specialty in my coaching consulting business is helping people to separate from the identity that they created around that avoidance, around that pain, trauma from the past, or whatever it might be and realize who they are inside or who they choose to be. The choices that they can make at every moment going forward because it’s your responsibility to every moment. You have a choice and it’s not 50 million variables, it’s two. Toward the goal or away from the goal. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out how to do that.
If you can find the person you are hiding deep inside you, you are going to have a really great life. Share on XIt takes a very clear mind to set a clear goal and to understand the path to get there. When you face an obstacle that you can go left when you know the goal is right, you have a choice to go left. Go left and understand that when you kick a ball downhill, it will not stop. Whatever happens on the other side of that choice, that’s your responsibility. It’s not the other guy who cuts you off or the other guy who made you late. It’s none of that stuff and you have to start owning that responsibility of those choices that you make.
I talked about this a lot. Take 100% responsibility and it can be scary because it’s like, “I’m responsible for all of those bad things that are happening to me.” Not really. What taking 100% responsibility gives you is the opportunity to create change. Those bad things are happening to me and if I take responsibility then I have the power to create change. It’s about empowering yourself to run your own life. One of the things that you talked about that I love and has not been on this show before but I’m very aware of and I teach to my coursework is towards goals and away goals.
There are a lot of people running away from the fear of the Coronavirus or it’s fall out like, “What’s going to happen?” There’s a lot of ifs and there’s a lot of fear. People don’t know what’s happening and they’re running away from that fear. Let’s get into the mode of the towards. First, why don’t you define a way in toward goals because we think it’s intuitive but there might be some people going, “That’s an interesting concept. How does that work in my life?” Let’s talk about how we can utilize that concept now.
I always want to foundationalize with something that a lot of people know, maybe not everybody. If you’re familiar with Michelangelo’s David, I don’t know if this story is true, but I’ve read, I’ve always been fascinated with the David especially in personal development in myself as a coach, a leader, and somebody who helps people shift and change their lives. Michelangelo was quoted and somebody asked him, “How did you create the David?” He said, “I didn’t. I knew what pieces of marble to remove and David was already there.” I equate the same thing to who we are. What we put on in terms of the pieces of marble that we don’t need on ourselves, our spirits, our souls, whatever is from all that stuff that happened to us in the past.
Whatever happened at high school and childhood, your first breakup, all that pain started to build the armor. All we’re talking about here is identifying the pieces of that armor that no longer serve you and removing them. The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, the choice you make is not toward anger. You understand and have identified, “I know why I get angry at this. I can take that off. It no longer serves me.” The next time someone cuts you off, you don’t make meaning of it and you move on. It’s easier said than done. It all comes with practice and building a habit. There’s still stuff that irritates me. There’s still stuff that makes me upset and angry. It’s just in that moment, I choose to be responsible for my choice.
Does this either go toward the goal of building this business, getting home on time, spending time with my kids, going out to dinner with my wife, or does me chasing this guy down and flipping them off to prove some point that doesn’t even matter, does that go toward my goal or not? The biggest thing that people can do is clearly identify goals that are not based on who they become in their job or social circle. It’s pure, “I want to spend more time at home with my kids, or I want to take my wife out on a date twice a week.” If you’re single, it could be something that’s a hobby. It doesn’t take identity. Some of this stuff takes money but it doesn’t take your identity around those things to get this goal accomplished. It’s you who can do it.
I always tell people, if you get fired from your job and your bank account is empty, will you still have any goals? Most people say no. The fact is you’re still going to have a goal or you’re going to die that moment. The exercise is you got fired from your job or your business failed, you have no money but the people around you who you love whether it’s your family, your friends, or extended family, they’re still there. What’s the foundational piece? Once you have the foundational piece, you can start building from there. I guarantee you, that goal sheet looks much different than most people’s dream boards or vision boards that have fancy cars, big vacations, and stuff like that. That’s all-important but foundationalizing it, that’s how you get that built.
What do you mean by foundationalizing it? Let’s go deeper there.
I work with a lot of people and I’ll ask them, “Build me a vision board. Let me see your vision board.” They’ll show me pictures of yachts, jets, ten-carat diamond rings, vacations for $50,000 to Tahiti, and they’ve got $500 in a bank account. They have this dream of one day being able to achieve that stuff. The challenge is that who they are within that. They have no idea how to attain that because the person that they are can’t attain that. Do they have the skills? Sure, they can acquire those. Could they find the money? I’m sure they can but the person that they are is never going to put all that stuff together. That was the problem with me. I could do all this work on myself but until it soaked into the bone, that’s the only time that it’s going to change things radiating outward.
For everybody reading, it’s not about more stuff you can add to your plate. It’s not about the next book, podcast, seminar, or big things that made these big impacts. It’s about these little tiny choices, not yelling at your two-year-old kid because they spilled something. Saying like, “This is a two-year-old, what am I doing?” Make a choice at that moment to say, “I want my kid to spend more time with me. I want to be a better example.” Be a better example of that moment. As you start to do those things where it’s like, “I could stay at the office for another hour to get this work done,” or “I could fulfill on the promise to my kid or my girlfriend to go out to dinner or go see my grandmother in the hospital,” whatever it might be.
True Success: Remove all barriers and blind spots. Find your foundational piece and start building your success from there.
Those little things that don’t register as a giant on your radar because it was high consumers and our minds are moving so fast and we want big dopamine hits, those are the things that when you start to think about the little tiny pieces that make a widespread effect, those are how you build the foundation. Instead of saying like, “I couldn’t see my grandmother for the last six months. She’s been in the hospital because I’m going out to dinner with clients. I’ve got this or I’ve got a deadline at work.”
Compartmentalizing that stuff and saying, “If all that work stuff goes away, am I still going to make up reasons why I can’t go see my grandmother in the hospital or why I can’t take my girlfriend on a date?” It’s not true because you’re going to be depressed because your identity is gone. You have to create an identity around what would be there without any of the other stuff that runs your life. What I became an expert on is how to remove all the other barriers, all the blind spots, see what matters most, and build from there.
That’s a lot of what people are going through. We were spending an awful lot of time with ourselves and for some people, it’s uncomfortable because all the external stuff is not available for us or it’s showing up differently. Do you have any specific tips on how to get to that person? What can we do? I know that you’re going to give some good juicy stuff. What could we do to get that started?
I agree with you. I’ve been talking to my neighbors from a distance. I was the guy that could never work from home. I had to get out of here on a routine, a structure, and a schedule. I also realized through the work that was an identity was to go to Starbucks and be that guy, get this parking spot and I’m that guy, show my car off and I’m that guy, have this office and I’m that guy. All of that stuff was wrapped up in this fake facade and this balloon that can be popped in any time. What I tell people because I’ve had a lot of calls with people literally going crazy because they can’t be that person. They can’t get up on Monday morning, go to the office, and escape the things at home or the problems that they had.
The tiny things you can do, you can start to fill in with what you’ve always wanted to do or dreamed about doing, you have the time. Don’t sit around and complain about it or be depressed over it. If you’re at home with your kids, that’s amazing. That’s a God-send. That’s a blessing and a half. What people are seeing now is a spotlight shine on what they’ve created around them. I have some friends who are like, “I can’t stand my kid for more than an hour a day. This kid is driving me crazy. He’s jumping around. His language. I never realized this.” I’m like, “You created that. Why don’t you sit down and be present with your kid?” I posted a video on my Facebook page of my daughter doing her affirmations in the mirror.
I never would’ve done something like that. I was having conversations, she started getting up with me at 5:00 AM. She was already up. In the moment making that decision, instead of me being irritated because she’s affecting my morning routine, why don’t I be a nice parent, a dad, and include her? I said, “Why don’t you follow Daddy, we’ll go in, and you can see what I do in the morning?” I would brush my teeth and I would do my affirmations in the mirror. I would come and do a little meditation then I’ll do my journaling. I do some pushups and sit-ups. As she went on throughout the weeks, she started doing it with me.
She’s been saying affirmations since she was a year old. Now we run them in her bathroom mirror and she does them. I can tell you that this kid is so happy in the morning to get up with me and to do the things that I like to do. It also has a bonus of she’s building confidence in herself as a woman who’s four years old. It melts my heart as a dad to watch her. I taught her how to snorkel in the bathtub which sounds weird but I want her to scuba dive. I was watching YouTube videos and it says, “Teach them how to snorkel in the bathtub.” I watched her and she was like, “I can’t go under.”
I’m like, “If you say you can’t, then you can’t. Take the snorkel off.” She said, “I want to.” I said, “Tell yourself that you are afraid and it’s okay. You can get yourself through it.” Sharing those moments with her, teaching her life’s lessons, and that’s the stuff that I’m talking about which isn’t like these monumental moves. It’s not a big fat paycheck. It’s not your promotion or your brand-new car. It’s not that dopamine hit. It’s a long, slow burn but you’re creating something in somebody else that has major lasting effects. If everything else went away, my daughter still has confidence in herself and a belief in herself that most kids her age would never even know until they’re teenagers when it gets shattered anyway.
They still have tools that a lot of teenagers don’t have.
Those are little tiny things. It could be the morning routine that you’ve always wanted to do but you’ve never made time. It can be the time with the children, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whoever that it’s always been work, this, or my hobby comes before. You don’t have any of those options right now. As far as we know, because the world could end, you’ll never have those options again. If the world delivers it, great. If it delivers it the next day, great. In the present moment, this is your life. Make the absolute best of it. Read that book, watch that show, spend time with your kids, or take them outside and play with them. I built this swing set that I’ve had in my shed for a year because I didn’t make time.
Your life is right now. Make the absolute best of it. Share on XJust little tiny things and start with the morning routine. I tell people to focus on children, spouse, and yourself if you have a family. If you don’t, it’s all about self-love and self-care. If you want an easy way to do self-love and self-care, boil a pot of water and make yourself loose tea. You have to strain it, you have to steep it for fifteen minutes, you’ll be with yourself doing something for yourself for 25 minutes for a cup of tea. If that’s not self-love, I don’t know what is because you’re saying yourself like, “I care enough to spend this time making myself a little cup of tea, not rush the microwave, and not run around 50 million things but I’m going to spend this time on me right now.”
First of all, it’s such an easy thing that all of us can do. It’s something none of us would ever think about. It can be such a meditative beautiful experience because normally, what do we do in the morning? We’re like, “I’ve got to get my cup of coffee, a cup of tea, or whatever.” We’re running around while it’s steeping and doing tons of things. What if we slowed down? What if we took that moment? We don’t have to rush around in many cases. Even we did, it’s okay to give ourselves fifteen minutes just for us. Have a bubble bath, wait for a half-hour for the water to heat up, fill up, and all that stuff. It’s something that can happen at the moment that will slow us down. It’s something to do. I know so many people, when we talk about slowing down, they’re like, “I’ve got to be doing something.” This is something they can do that also slows them down.
Doing something is an avoidance tactic for facing who you are. When people have to sit by themselves and be with themselves, it’s scary. Friday evening, you can go, “Two days.” I’m only speaking to those people. There are people that are reading and they’re like, “I’m content with my life. I’m going to take some of these tips and add them.” For those people that hit Friday night and they’re like, “Two days, I’ve got to make it through, get home, make it through two days. Get back to the office.” What I’ve found in my business is a lot of those people, not hate but dislike the weekend because they don’t have something to keep them busy and their mind off of work that they need to do on themselves. They also hate their job.
They’re in this vicious cycle of monotonous negativity filled lifestyle that affects their health and their relationships and then at the end, you don’t have anything. It’s not a way to live. The teething is a small example of how someone can take care of themselves. I know the naysayers, it’s not going to be your audience, it’s going to be whoever hears it like this. Somebody is saying, “He doesn’t have four kids. He doesn’t know.” I have two kids. I take care of my daughter in the morning and my wife takes care of our son. That’s our commitment. I’m sure my wife would want me to step in a little bit more with the baby but he’s so small. He needs her all the time.
I take care of my daughter. I understand if you have a little bit too much to do. That’s no excuse to not take time for yourself and make yourself a cup of tea. What you’re saying to yourself is with all the stuff going on in this world, I care about me. I care about taking a couple of minutes for myself to do something for me that doesn’t mean anything but what I make it mean to myself. I’m making myself a cup of tea. That’s it. I’ve found that to be so symbolic of the love I’m feeling for myself at the moment that on those days when I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” It’s a Japanese tea ceremony. I don’t go the full gamut but it’s about meditation, the steeping of the tea, and the releasing of the important medicinal pieces of that tea leaf. There’s a lot of stuff going on in there.
It’s a ritual that serves us. There’s a reason that many spiritual practices, many religious practices, business practices, family practices, all of these things, we have rituals that help to enhance or amplify the experience. When you have a ritual that you can do that represents self-love, you have access to that ritual at any moment. We started talking about something to do. To do is often an escape tactic. It also can be a ritual. It depends on how we use it. This is all in our mind and the experience that we make it. I know that we’re going to talk a little bit more about what we make of things, the meaning that we give things but this is something that we have control of in our mind. What are we turning this experience into for ourselves and for the people around us even? Here’s the thing. You, as a dad, and he has a wife, daughter, those sorts of things, if I’m taking care of myself, I’m a nicer person to be around.
Most of the time. There’s always stuff that’s going to come in and do its best to affect how we’re being on a minute-to-minute basis. That’s our choice.
Because you’re doing those things to take care of yourself, you’re not as vulnerable too.
That’s the biggest point, as you remove that armor that we talked about from that identity, that’s created on a foundation of sand. You start to open up the possibility for yourself. What could be? It’s a habit that you have to build. Try something little. The tea thing might not work for you. You might not tea but it could be with your coffee. For those people that are coffee crazy and they’ve got to have it first thing in the morning, wake up 30 minutes early or 20 minutes early and have a ritual. I brush my teeth and it’s not about boiling water or this. It’s about the separate ingredients going together and not it being an instant world because instant gratification is what pulls us so quickly off of our mark that when we slow down and we have to put something together, this could be with a puzzle too or things like that. You can do it with your kids.
I say that as a dad and an entrepreneur. From a dad who could care less about the family. If I had time for them, I might make it if something else didn’t come up. That’s where I’m coming from. It could be literally anything, wake up a little bit earlier. If you’ve got a bunch of kids at home, if you’ve got a job and you still have to go to telecommute, give yourself that and own that. If you can take the next step and write in a journal, write in a journal, “I love myself.” I guarantee you 95% this audience has never said, in words, in a mirror, or in a journal, I love myself. I care for myself. I have 50 million exercises and different things that people can do but that’s something simple. Make yourself a cup of tea and write in a journal that I love myself, I took time for myself. I’m telling you, the foundation that that can build, although it sounds very simple, is monumental.
True Success: Start with small with things that you absolutely love. You have the time; don’t spend it all whining about it.
It’s delightful to hear that somebody else is doing that stuff. I have never admitted this because I feel like it sounds a little bit narcissistic and it’s not, it’s exactly what you expressed. Every day, I do a lot of physical therapy because my shoulder is bad. After the physical therapy, the reward is I stand right in front of my full-length mirror because I have to do physical therapy and be able to watch myself. I’m standing there sweating, hurting, and feeling bad because it hurts to do this. It’s called pain therapy, not physical therapy because I stand in front of the mirror. After all of that, I look directly at my own eyes and say, “Moneeka, I love you, powerful woman.” Saying it now without looking in my eyes tears me up but when I’m looking at my own eyes, it is powerful.
For someone that tries that and it doesn’t register right away because you’ve done that to yourself. I’m saying that from someone that took almost six months for it to register. When I look in the mirror and say, “I love you,” it was nothing. All of a sudden, one day I teared up and I’m like, “I got it.”
I heard it from myself.
“I allowed it in.” The symbolism or the reflection of you being able to say that to yourself is the amount of armor that you have up. In the moment when you’re doing this work to remove that armor, to reveal the true you, that makes it easier on people. They don’t have to build a whole new them. They have to remove the stuff that doesn’t work anymore for them with your marriage, your job, and your relationships with your kids. When you finally say I love you that day, whether it’s six months, a year, or two weeks later and it registers, you know that you’ve got stuff clear that you were intending to clear. You’re free. You’re revitalized and you have a new life at that moment.
We need to wrap up this part of the show and I’m excited to go into EXTRA. There are a couple of things I want to ask you. First of all, what are you going to be talking about in EXTRA?
We’re going to go deeper into the stuff that I talked about. For people that are curious, we’re going to be going deeper into the meaning and the outcome that we tie to things that affect us from the outside in, and then from the inside out. It’s this vicious cycle.
We’re going to turn it from a vicious cycle into a magical cycle. We’re going to turn it to a blissful cycle. That sounds amazing. I’m excited about that. Ladies, you’ll definitely stay tuned for that but before we sign off, could you tell us again how people can get in touch with you?
I’m in a transition period. I’m purchasing a new business and a new podcast. You will be able to catch me on that very soon. Ian Lobas on Facebook, you’ll see it because there’s a little picture of my daughter. On Instagram, I am @YourDefiningMoments which will be changed. My email is [email protected].
Thank you so much.
It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Ladies, we are going to move into EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, please stay tuned. If you’re not, but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com and you can subscribe there and get all this EXTRA content. I was telling one of my guests that EXTRA is my true hard work. This is the gift that I want to give all of you because this is the place where my guests who are amazing on this normal show, they get to shine, go deep, and give you those special things that are going to change your life. It’s my true gift to you. If you haven’t checked it out, go check it out. It is worth it. I learned so much from my guests in every single show and I am completely blown away by what I personally take away in every single EXTRA episode. For those of you that are leaving us. Thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. Always remember, bliss is your birthright. Choose to live your bliss every single day. I’ll see you next time.
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About Ian R. Lobas
My name is Ian R. Lobas and I am a professional Realtor with Keller Williams Gateway in White Marsh, MD. I’ve had a vested interest in real estate from a young age, and I bring a wealth of experience in sales, marketing, and negotiation to my clients. I’ve been consistently ranked as a top sales agent due to the detailed focus I put into my core values. The values I rely heavily on are energy, effort, education and passion. These help me best serve and create long-lasting client relationships.
Prior to my career in real estate, I worked at an international shipping and custom brokerage business. In this role, I gained valuable experience in negotiation and transaction management, sales team management, cargo logistics & operations, marketing, advertising, and import/export complex international contracts. I’m committed to taking my past experience and using it for the benefits of my clients now and in the future. I would love the opportunity to help you buy or sell in Baltimore today.
As a Full-time, full-service REALTOR, I specialize in Residential Purchase and Sales, New Home Sales, Luxury Condos, Luxury Homes, Investment Properties, Waterfront, Renovation/Rehab, Property Staging/Decoration.
Energy and effort make the difference! For the most in-depth information and exceptional experience, call me today!
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
The Impact & Influence Our Moms Have On Us With Caterina Rando
Mother’s Day is as good a time as any other to look back on how our mothers impacted and influenced us as a person and how our relationships with them defined who we are right now. Join Moneeka Sawyer and her dear friend, Caterina Rando, as they trade touching stories of their dear mothers who propelled them to the brilliant and powerful women that they are now. Caterina is a business transformation coach who passionately serves women leaders on a mission, with a 25-years track record in educating and empowering audiences. She attributes much of her success, not only in coaching but also in real estate, to her mother’s influence. Learn why she and Moneeka both consider themselves to be a version 2.0 of their respective mothers and why that is such a good thing.
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Listen to the podcast here
The Impact & Influence Our Moms Have On Us With Caterina Rando
I am excited to welcome to the show a dear friend of mine, Caterina Rando. Caterina is a business transformation coach who passionately serves women leaders on a mission. Her over 25 years of educating and empowering audiences and groups makes her truly masterful at providing a ton of value. She shares how to be loud and proud about the value you bring in order to serve more people and make your businesses thrive with speaking, workshops, group programs, and retreats. Ladies, I want to put in a personal note that Caterina is one of my personal coaches. She and I met years ago. I finally ended up in one of her speaking retreats and programs. We got much closer and I have to say she’s had a huge impact on my life, my business. She’s a big reason why I’m speaking to you. I want all of us to be grateful that she’s here with us. Caterina, how are you?
Moneeka, I am wonderful. Thank you for that fabulous introduction. It is my honor and privilege to watch you do your thing with so much bliss.
When I was talking to Caterina and she was using this word bliss, every other coach would get glassy-eyed. They look at me like, “What the heck? I can’t relate to that word.” Caterina has a term called Blissing, which is when we hear something we love we go, “Bing, bing, bing.” Someone that uses the word blissing is someone I need in my life.
I sometimes talk about you to a client. I say, “I’ve got this client, Moneeka Sawyer. Have you met her?” You’re always in your bliss. Sometimes women in business, they’re focused on different things and they’re stressing about them and I say, “Bring in your bliss.” You are a role model for bliss, my friend, for sure.
Thank you, Caterina. I’m honored that you say that. I know they’re one of the many things that Caterina and I have in common is our relationship with our moms and the huge impact that our mothers have had on our lives. Since this is the Mother’s Day episode, I wanted to share with you in honor of all of those mothers out there that have impacted our lives in many ways, they take care of us, feed us and love us. Not only do they feed our bellies, they feed our souls and our minds and encourage and inspire us to be the best women that we can be. I want to honor our moms and I thought there was no better person for me to have this conversation with than with Caterina. Caterina, could you start by telling us a little bit about your story and your relationship with your mom?
I’m an Italian-American. My grandparents came most of them through Ellis Island and I was raised in an Italian-American household, West Coast Italian though, not East Coast Italian. There’s a difference. My grandfather was a shoemaker and my other grandfather owned a grocery store. My mother came from a home where education was emphasized. My mother was the first person in her community to go to college and she became a school teacher. I share that because some of the things that you would think about your favorite school teacher are present with my mom. She was the mom that would be excited whenever a child would come to the door, selling candy or selling something.
Not only would she instantly open her wallet, but she would also lean down, say hello and tell them how proud she was of them and what a great job she was doing. Her bliss was being a school teacher and working with children. Also, my household, my dad too, were generous and working-class people, living in a regular house, in a regular neighborhood and still, Moneeka, I was taught that there’s always money to help someone whatever it is and whatever the ask was, the answer was always yes. That is something that I continue in my life and was great modeling for an attitude of abundance and generosity.
I know you are all about positivity, integrity, generosity, and community. I can see that it came from your family. One of the things that strike me, another thing that we have in common is this immigrant mindset in a way that our parents came with deep cultural, traditional roots of how a family is supposed to look, what a mom, dad, family, and community look like. Some of those traditions we’ve had to break away from as younger women because we have to evolve and progress and not everything served us. Some of that was valuable in creating a foundation of love and stability so that we could then step to the next step in our power and strength. No matter what tradition says, both your mom and my mom stepped into their power regardless of what culture might have said and sometimes because of what culture might’ve said, wouldn’t you say?
Our mothers don’t just feed our bellies. They feed our souls and minds and inspire us to be the best women that we can be. Share on XOne thing I want to say is that in my family, and the immigrants, they didn’t call it entrepreneurialism, but that’s what immigrants did. They started businesses. Many of them started businesses because there was a lot of discrimination in the workforce. Not just against immigrants, but as we know, also against women. In my household growing up, my dad had this phrase for my mom. He called it a scheme, which was his term for whatever my mom’s brilliant idea was.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
That’s the thing, Moneeka, you’ve heard me talk about brilliant ideas syndrome. His perspective was making fun of it but from my perspective, it’s awesome and amazing because it was her brilliant ideas. She wrote a children’s book. She came up with these chocolate chips, Italiano with a touch of Galliano. She started, and she did it for many years, an Italian novelty business for all the Italian fairs around the country. She had hats and t-shirts that she would sell wholesale. She’s had many ideas over the years. The most prolific and profitable was real estate, which I know we’ll talk about.
The thing for me was that I always saw my mom having fun with her ideas. She never got an idea and left it at the idea stage. She would do it. She would write the book. She produced the cookies. She has the novelty business on the side. She didn’t stay in the idea stage. That’s what a lot of people do with their ideas and their dreams. They stay in the idea stage. I’m glad that my mother never did that because you know me, Moneeka, I’m all about action. That comes from being raised in a household where it was a fun thing to pursue your ideas.
It wasn’t a scary thing. It’s interesting because, in my household, we came as immigrants educated in India, where my parent’s degrees weren’t recognized here in the United States. It’s a little bit of a different immigrant experience, but what is funny and in common is that they were still entrepreneurs. My mom’s a doctor, my dad’s an engineer and they had these jobs. They felt limited. They needed to do the things that they needed to do for their families, but they felt limited and both of them, the second they could become entrepreneurs, they did that. To me, it was inspiring also because like you, I got to watch them take their idea and create something brand new out of it. My mom became a doctor at a time when girls didn’t go to medical school in India. She was told many times that she wasn’t going to be able to do it.
She wasn’t smart enough, women don’t do that, and you should get married, all of this stuff. She went to medical school against the odds and then came to the United States and her medical degree is not recognized. She goes to the whole thing again. She educates herself. She goes through the internship, but the second she was able to open her own clinic and treat people in the way that she wanted to, that wasn’t dictated by a hospital, that’s what she did and she did it well. She had all these ideas of the people she wanted to help, the conversations she wanted to have and the difference she was going to make and she did it. Like you, I’ve had that experience that great ideas are awesome, but nothing happens until you take action. I got to watch my parents do that.
That is modeling for us not to be hesitant. “What if it doesn’t work out?” I don’t even think about that because I know that I can figure it out, whatever it is and because sometimes it’s fun. You’ve been on retreats with me and when I started retreats, it was like, “Let’s do a retreat.” It wasn’t a strategy for something as it was a great idea to pursue. That’s the thing. It is fun to pursue your ideas and not be attached to a particular outcome. In the process, we learn a lot about ourselves and we grow tremendously. I’m grateful that was my modeling growing up.
Every once in a while, someone will say to me, “You are like your mother.” I’m like, “I know.” I picked up all that’s good and much that’s not good. I’m 2.0 of my mom. I love that because when we have a model that we can emulate, the excitement about creating a business and something new as women, we saw it on her mom’s they birthed us. We have the capacity to birth, not just people, but businesses and full experience.
Mother’s Impact: It’s great to be like your mother – a 2.0 version of her.
I do consider it a compliment when someone says I’m like my mother. The other thing is my mother can talk to anybody and she’s a voracious reader. She knows a little bit about a huge variety of topics. She reads things to read them, to learn about a new topic. I’ve always admired that about her, her ability to talk to anybody. It’s the ability to listen and express that you’re genuinely interested because the truth is, she is genuinely interested and that’s something else that I’ve learned from her. It’s great to be like our mothers and, as you say, be creating our path and be the 2.0 version.
I know that a lot of your path around real estate started because of your mom. Could you tell me a little bit more about that and what her experience was?
When my grandfather passed away when I was young and my grandfather left my mom the house that he lived in, which was two flats. He left her a triplex down the block. She has turned that into quite the fempire of real estate by continuing to upgrade and leverage this one to buy that one. If I could share her real estate philosophy, she’s got two things. I didn’t discuss this with her, so there might be more. She doesn’t know that I’m talking about her. The first thing is and for whatever reason, she likes to buy corners. The other thing is my mom. She’s 88. I don’t know if she ever had a license, but she never drove our whole life. As a school teacher, she walked to work about 30 blocks East of our house. She walked to work every day and she walked home. She always liked to be able to walk by her buildings with the exception of one.
She has all of her buildings in the neighborhood so that she can walk by them and do a personal inspection. Those are two things. She has commercial and residential property. I’m going to say one more thing that is part of her philosophy. She always has her properties under market for rent. Whatever the rent is, she goes lower to ensure that she has a high occupancy rate. I can tell you that over the many years, she’s had a high occupancy rate. She does give everybody a gift at the beginning of the year. I’m not sure if it’s Christmas. She’s a loving and customer care heart-centered person, and that is reflected in her landlordship as well.
Those were all philosophies of my own, by the way. I’m not within 30 blocks for every property and I certainly don’t go walk by them and visit them much, but I do like to keep them close in case there’s something that comes up I can drive. Close for me is 15, 20-minute drive. How many properties did she end up leveraging those three flats into?
I would say, maybe eight. Some of them are big buildings with lots of units. Some of them are the building of that are centers in San Francisco own that with my mom. There are several other buildings with multiple units. There’s one building with a bar and a restaurant in it and a couple of restaurants one with some units and a restaurant. There’s a variety of multiuse properties and residential unit buildings.
Does she still have them all?
Yes.
We may not get to pick them, but our mothers are some of the greatest mentors we will ever have in our lives. Share on XDoes she manage them herself?
For many years, my dad was the property manager. My sister’s boyfriend is the property manager. He’s also a successful plumber, but he does this on the side. It’s good because you do need support and a good team.
That was going to be my next question. Did she have any support in this or were she doing it all of her own? That’s great that your dad is supporting her in that way. Did she have any mentors that taught her? Did she learn it from books or on her own? What was her journey like?
I don’t think she ever took a class. I don’t think she ever had a mentor, which is interesting. She figured it out but the other thing is that she always picked people that she trusted and she would get to know them. She rewarded loyalty by having the same gentleman who was doing all her real estate deals for her and a company that helped her with all the financing. As you teach, as I teach, find your good partners and work with them over and over. Trust, integrity, and good communication are key ingredients that you want from any of your partners and that’s what I saw with my mom. That’s part of what I focus on in my business with my vendors and teach my clients.
It’s interesting because people frequently talk about real estate is being a numbers business. If the numbers work by the property, you will make money. One of the things that I say over and over again is that the numbers have to work. That is true, but that’s not where the business stops. The true magic happens in the relationships. The relationships with your vendors, business partners, or with your tenants. One of the reasons women are good at this is because we have an intuitive sense. Not all of us, I don’t want to be segregational in any way here and not to say that men don’t have this too, but this is one of our superpowers. As women, we love the relationship. We put a lot of value on those relationships. We put a lot of energy into them and in the real estate business and in your business that pays off.
Also, that intuitive part, we have this intuition. Your mom needed to have tenants that she trusted and that she liked and she took the time to get to know them. I do that same thing, which is why my tenants stay with me for 10, 12, 15 years. I don’t have turnovers. Ladies, this is what I’m trying to say. Caterina is talking about her mom and her mom has demonstrated she’s a perfect example of what a woman in real estate can look like. Many of you sometimes think, “This is hard. There’s too much to learn. There are many shiny objects, many opportunities.” Sometimes it can get confusing, and instead think of real estate as the most intuitive business in the world. Caterina’s mom inherited property. Did she know much about real estate when she got those?
Not to my knowledge.
She inherited some property. She’s like, “This is cool, and I’ve got some houses. Let me put people there.” She did it and she moved forward. She engaged the support of her husband and later her children. This is what we can do as women and it’s not that hard. Making money in real estate is not that hard. It can be surprisingly simple, not always easy. There are all these challenges. Anything in life worth having is going to have challenges. That’s where your bliss techniques come in. Notice how she flowed into it the way women flow through our lives if you open yourself to that. Would you agree with me on that?
Mother’s Impact: We create a lot of the encouragement that we need, but it’s even better when it comes from someone we respect and admire.
I would say that she flowed, but she worked it. What I mean by that is that often she would find tenants herself. Because she walked in the neighborhood, she would use the neighborhood and if she liked somebody, she would say, “Do you know somebody?” Even the commercial properties, when a restaurant was leaving, she would find the restaurant to go in to replace them or when she bought a building, if it needed tenants, she would work her network as you know how to do. I’m a big proponent of, she would work her network to make it happen and the tenants that met her tenant criteria. She would describe it as a lot of fun. She seemed to have a lot of fun doing her real estate. That’s how I got started.
I don’t think of this flow as not working. A flow is a way to work. If we can work it, we should work it in a way that feels blissful and fun. That’s what I meant by flow. Not that we don’t work it, but she loved the networking. That was the network, that was her skill. That’s what she did to make her business thrive. That’s more of what I meant there.
I told you, she’s 88. She takes a walk every day. If I need to know what’s going on in the neighborhood, I ask my mom anything new and exciting in the neighborhood. Because she walks, many of the people in the neighborhood would know her. She talks to the store owner’s property over there. She’s in the know because she walks the neighborhood. That has been part of the fun for her too.
What were you going to say next?
I was going to say that in watching my mom do her thing and loving it for many years, one day I was someplace with a friend and we played the CASHFLOW game. I came home to my mom and I said, “Mom, I want to be a real estate mogul like you.” This was many years ago. She came to me a month later and she said, “Caterina, if you can come up with $15,000, we can put a down payment on this building.” That was the building that we have our center in San Francisco. I had to borrow $10,000 of that $15,000. Whatever it takes to get started, I was happy to get started. I’ve done deals that have not worked out, but it’s all a part of the learning process and a few thousand dollar lessons here or there is okay because it’s important to be in the game of real estate if you want to get ahead in real estate. If somebody doesn’t have a mom like mine or yours, that’s what you’re here for is to be supporting them as their blissful mentor.
It’s important for people to pick mentors. It’s not about the success of the mentor. It’s about the values by which the mentor lives their life and runs their business. The reason why you’re a great real estate mentor, and I’ve been honored to come to your classes is because of the values by which you run your life and your business and its integrity. The whole thing about bliss, I want to be as blissful as you when I’m doing any deal. If I want more bliss in my life, then I want a mentor that has that bliss value down, which I feel you do. I wanted to say that because I’m a business mentor, I see a lot of people that tell me their sad stories about picking mentors that weren’t the right match for them. That’s the missing piece that they’re often missing looking at the values of the mentor. They’re looking at their success.
I’ve made that mistake myself, going for the business idea rather than the underlying values. As I’m getting older and I’ve made that mistake enough, I’m able to see and peg. I’m paying more attention to my gut. When my gut says, “No, I don’t like that person,” but you still give them the money because you think they’re going to make your business thrive. Now, I’m much more if I don’t feel it, if I don’t feel that our values are synchronous, I won’t do it no matter how good their pitch is.
Sometimes I find the better the pitch, the worst it is because if you got massive value, you don’t need as good of a pitch because everybody’s raving about you. Sometimes when the pitch is good, that’s all they got is the pitch.
It’s interesting, I’ve never heard you say that.
There is never enough love and acknowledgment to thank our mothers for the amazing things they have done for us. Share on XI don’t know if I’ve ever said it before but I’m thinking of some situations and because I know how to make an offer, but I don’t feel necessarily that I’m the master of a pitch. Like you were saying, it’s about because I have great relationships, a great word of mouth and great raves that the business constant continues to flow and grow regardless of not having a phenomenal pitch.
The other thing that I appreciate about you and this is important when you’re looking for a mentor. Our moms were given to us as mentors that we didn’t get to pick, but often we’re out there, I feel lucky that one that I got, but not everybody feels that lucky. That’s the truth or they feel lucky in many ways, but not necessarily in business. When you’re picking a mentor, the other thing to know is the longevity of that mentor. Maybe they haven’t been in your life for a long time, but they should have seen the cycles of the economy. They should be mature enough not to overpromise based on a lack of knowledge. I’ve been through three big dip cycles in real estate. You’ve been through many cycles as a speaker. That’s one other thing because it also adds to the integrity of that mentor because they can say, “I’ve been through this stuff. I can support you through it.” This is what’s possible for you or all of us.
It is the job I feel of mentors to hold a bigger vision for their clients. The other thing, which I know you’re good at, people doesn’t understand often the value of some encouragement. A little encouragement from someone you respect can be volumes and massive support for people. It’s not about the skills and the super tips. It is about our mentors, genuinely caring about us and throwing in some love like our moms did and that’s encouragement. My mom and my father are always encouraging me with anything I do feel like, “I can do whatever I want to do and if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay, because I’ll be fine.” A lot of that encouragement that we need, even as adults, is important from a mentor, but also to recognize that we can create it for ourselves, but it’s even better when it comes from someone we respect and admire.
That’s important in our business relationships with your vendors, with your tenants. I send my tenants notes to say, “Thank you for always paying on time. Thank you for being the person that I want in my home.” It’s good on many levels. I tell all of my vendors, “Thank you for doing such a good job.” It shows up everywhere and that is that love that we’ve seen from our moms. Could you give us maybe one, tip, strategy and a piece of advice you’d like to leave all the ladies with on this Mother’s Day episode?
One of the things is if your mom is still around, make sure that you’re expressing your gratitude to her, not only on Mother’s Day but on a regular basis. I never have a conversation with my mother or father that doesn’t end with I love you. I always look for things to appreciate and to articulate them. I thank them many times for their love and support over my 55 years. Even though I’ve thanked them for that many times, I continue to do it because none of us can have too much love and acknowledgment in our life. My parents were older. As people get older, it’s even more important that they are reminded of how amazing they are and of the amazing things that they have done. That’s what I would say. There’s never enough love, acknowledgment hugs, etc.
This conversation has been good, Caterina. Thank you for joining me.
Thank you for the invitation. I can’t wait for my mom to read. She doesn’t know that I’m talking about her so I can’t wait.
You have to tell me what she says. Ladies, thank you for joining Caterina and I on this special Mother’s Day episode. It’s nice to have you here. You know how much I appreciate you and 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. I’ll see you next time. Bye.
Important Links
About Caterina Rando
Caterina Rando is on a mission to teach, mentor, and support women to be themselves, do their thing, serve their people and massively monetize their mastery. She shows women entrepreneurs how to be loud and proud about the value they bring in order to make their businesses thrive. Her clients grow, shine, expand, open themselves up to new possibilities, and take their businesses further than ever before. Caterina is all about, positivity, integrity, generosity, community, and providing massive value while uplifting others.
She is a sought-after-speaker, event producer, and author. Her latest book is the ABCs of Public Speaking. Her book, Learn to Think Differently, from Watkins Publishing is published in over thirteen countries and several languages.
Caterina is the founder of The Thriving Women in Business Giving Community. This group of big-hearted women, raise money for women and girls education and entrepreneurship training. She wants women to know that they do not have to wait until they are wealthy or retired before they can embrace philanthropy. This is the clear message in the Women’s Giving Circle Guide, a book she co-authored with C.J. Hayden.
Caterina is also the founder of the Thriving Women in Business Center, located in San Francisco. This is an attractive and warm place for women to come and do their workshops. Caterina’s plan is to open more centers throughout northern California.
Caterina is recognized for her special way of infusing business with making a difference. She has received the Extraordinary Woman Award from Developing Alliances. The American Businesswomen Association bestowed on her the Woman of Distinction Award and she has also received the Limitless Woman Award from the Limitless Woman Conference.
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
Impact & Influence Our Moms Have on Us with Caterina Rando
Caterina Rando, is a business transformation coach who passionately serves women leaders on a mission. Her over twenty-five years of educating and empowering audiences and groups, makes her truly masterful at providing a ton of value. She shares how to be loud and proud about the value you bring in order to serve more people and make your businesses thrive with speaking, workshops, group programs and retreats.
Caterina is all about, positivity, integrity, generosity, community and providing massive value while uplifting others. She is a sought-after-speaker, event producer and a prolific author her books include: Learn to Think Differently, from Watkins Publishing, released in over thirteen countries and several languages, A Women’s Guide To Starting a Giving Circle and her latest book, the ABCs of Public Speaking which quickly hit #1 in four Amazon best-seller categories.
Caterina is also, the founder of The The Thriving Women in Business Center in San Francisco, a place for women to gather and host workshops. Plus she also started the Thriving Women in Business Giving Community which raises money for women and girls education and entrepreneurship training
Today is our Mother’s day show. Yesterday was Mothers day and today I want to honor how much our moms contribute to our lives in so many ways. In this episode Caterina and I talked about the impact and influence our amazing moms have had on us.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How our mothers influenced us from a young age
- How their courage led us to transformation
- How there are lessons in everything
To see this program in video on Roku go to RealEstateInvesting4Women.com
To watch the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.