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REW 15 | Covid Loans

Covid Loans for RE Investing or Business Working Capital at 0% APR!

REW 15 | Covid Loans

 

Moneeka Sawyer takes the time to raise awareness about the availability of a loan that’s made to help you get through the COVID pandemic. Know the basic requirements to get a loan of $25,000 up to $150,00 which you can use as a business or investment capital. Listen in and don’t miss this limited opportunity to get a jump start on real estate investing.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Covid Loans for RE Investing or Business Working Capital at 0% APR!

I want to chat with you a little bit about funding. The question that I get the most from you ladies is, “I don’t have the money,” or “I don’t know where to get funding.” In the past, on this show, we’ve talked a little bit about private funding and how to get private money. We’ve talked to mortgage brokers. We’ve talked a lot about this, but now I want to talk about what we have access to during COVID. Because businesses are closing down, there are a lot of lenders out there trying to create opportunities so that these businesses can come back up and can continue to survive.

What they’ve made available to people is what’s called a bridge loan. The bridge loan is a personal loan and they’re offering these loans between $25,000 and $150,000. They’re good and they’re based strictly on your credit. If you have a 640 FICO score or better, you would be able to get these loans. These loans are directly related to our current times. Lending guidelines are a little bit more lenient. You get 0% for up to 21 months. This is designed to get you over that hump. If you’re a business owner, that’s great. How does this relate to real estate investors?

REW 15 | Covid Loans

Covid Loans: You can use a bridge loan either to buy a property at full price or to use as a downpayment towards a property and then get another mortgage.

 

We’re seeing some interesting things in the market. People have to move, people lose their jobs, and they’re not able to continue to pay their mortgages. They just want to sell or they want to get out. You can use these bridge loans to buy one of those properties and you can pay full price. You don’t have to go out and negotiate a lower price or anything like that. You can use a bridge loan either to buy the property or to use as a down payment towards a property and then get another mortgage.

I wanted to share this with you because it’s a new opportunity that’s come up simply because of COVID. It’s 0% for 21 months, it’s a killer deal. I don’t know how long it’s going to be available. I wanted to make sure you guys knew about it and that you can apply. All you need is a 640-credit score. They will have a few other questions, but it’s not hard to qualify. I’ve seen a lot of people go through and get those loans to help them to either invest or to help them through this hump. I wanted to offer you that opportunity. If you want to find out more, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/funding. I hope this helps. Email me if you have more questions. You know where to reach me and I’m here to help. I want to support you guys as much as I can. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.

 

Important Links

 

Find out about special programs available right now that are designed to help businesses survive through the covid crisis.  Businesses can use the funds as working capital to give them needed cash flow during these tough times.  Real Estate Investors can use the money as a down payment or to purchase property.The exciting things about these loans:0%APR for the first 21 months.

Minimum FICO is only 640.

Loan amounts between $25,000 to $150,000

We’re not sure how long these programs will last, so check it out as soon as you can.

For more information go to Blissfulinvestor.com/Funding

 

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REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

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

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

 

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

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Listen to the podcast here

 

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

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

What’s up, Moneeka? How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

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

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

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

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

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

You are the person that kicks yourself in the butt, that pushes you off the ledge to figure out if you can do it. Click To Tweet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The barrier to entry is not as high as you make it out to be. Click To Tweet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

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

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

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

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

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

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

You deserve to be in the space.

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

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

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

You have a value add in every room that you walk into. Click To Tweet

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

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

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

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

Here we go.

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

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

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

REW 8 | Imposter Syndrome

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

 

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

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

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

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

Thanks for having me.

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

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

 

Important Links

 

About James Robilotta

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

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

 

 

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Staying Focused & Positive in the Stressful Real Estate World with Helen Krause

REW 1 | Stay Focused And Positive

 

Real estate can easily become a stressful place to be since things can change very quickly. How can you stay focused and positive despite all the challenges, relieve yourself of stress and truly enjoy a successful life? Learn a great deal about this as Moneeka Sawyer talks to real estate investor Helen Krause. Aside from real estate investing, Helen has also been in the title business for over thirteen years as Marketing Director at New World Title & Escrow. Also on this episode, learn about Helen’s recent projects, her strategy in structuring hard money deals, the intricacies of the title business and her must-get weekly motivational quotes freebie.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Staying Focused & Positive In The Stressful Real Estate World With Helen Krause

I am excited to welcome to our show our guest Helen Krause. Helen earned her undergraduate and Master’s degrees from James Madison University. After graduation, she worked for a local home builder. She has been in the title business for over thirteen years focused primarily on the sales and marketing side. She has her Title Insurance license and has conducted hundreds of settlements. Her background is in marketing and her passion is to help others achieve their goals. She likes to partner with her clients to provide value to their businesses. She loves speaking to agents who are starting and growing their careers and teaches educational and motivational classes and events. Helen, how are you? Welcome to the show.

Thank you much, Moneeka. I’m excited and happy to be here.

I’m excited to have you too. Thank you for coming on. Let’s start by you telling us a little bit about your history and your story.

I have an interesting background in school. I studied biotechnology and then some marketing where I got my MBA. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do and I ended up working for a local home builder. I did some sales and marketing for them and sold some homes and that is how I got into real estate. From there, I switched over to title and settlement services. It ended up being a great shift for me. Instead of working directly with clients all the time, I got to start building business partners. Other real estate professionals, mortgage loan officers, investors, other builders. I enjoyed that because I got to see my clients more often than just selling them a house here or there. I’m grateful that I’ve gotten into this business. I do mostly the sales and marketing business development. I also conduct the closings as well as some of our clients want me because I’m the face of the company or to help out because fortunately, we’re busy, which is great.

Are you also an investor yourself?

I am.

Many people get into investing accidentally and then they’re like, “This is amazing.”

I bought my first house. I was young. Since I worked for a builder, I was like, “I’m selling homes. I have to put my money where my mouth is.” I think I was 23 when I bought my first house and it was great. It was in an area that I enjoyed but then I got engaged and my husband said, “I don’t want to live there. I’d rather live somewhere else.” We bought our first house together and fortunately, we were able to retain the house that I had owned myself. That’s how it all began. We rented that property out. I still do. We’re landlords. We own that property and have dealt with tenants.

When we moved up into our next house, we kept the second house. I do have two rental properties and that’s how I fell into it, which I think is great for anyone that’s able to do that. I’m fortunate that we do have those two rental properties. There have been some hiccups here and there with tenants, but in general, we’ve been fortunate. It’s been great. We’re making money from that and it’s wonderful. I do some investment and some hard money lending opportunities too. That’s a little bit different.

I want to backtrack on this a little bit. How long did it take you to move from house to house? How long did it take you to get to house number three?

I was in my first house for three years or and then the second house for five years. There are reasons why you have to move like everyone out there. We needed a bigger house for a bigger family.

How did you get the down payment for each of the new houses that you bought?

I am a saver. I’m cautious about finances and money. I keep close track of all of that. Sometimes my husband says that I’m driving him crazy because I’ll look at all of our accounts and be like, “What is this?” I’ve caught mistakes before, like a company charges you twice or something like that. I am a little bit crazy about that in a good way. We try to save money. Fortunately, we were able to save up a decent down payment for all the homes and we’re able to move up in that way comfortably.

That’s great advice. I usually use equity and my primary residence to buy the next one. I was curious about what your strategy was.

I did not use equity. I saved up and was fortunate enough to be able to put money down for the next one.

For your properties, you’re cashflowing. Is that true?

The first one’s breaking even. I will say about that in the height of the market in 2005. I’m in the Washington, DC, Metro area on the Virginia side. That, unfortunately, was not probably the best time to purchase a home, which is part of the reason why I didn’t sell it and held onto it. Now it’s come back but I break even on that one. I probably could raise the rent but I’ve had a great tenant in there and I’m not going to ruin that. We keep him at the same payment. Essentially the second house we do, we make a good amount of money on that house, which made it a lot easier to move into the third house. At that time, I was also about to have my second child, getting a new daycare. I was nervous about all the expenses. We were making about $1,000 off of that second house a month. That helped offset some of the other costs.

On the first one though, it’s appreciated. Even though you’re cutting even, but it’s appreciated so that one’s doing fine.

It’s appreciating and then we can take depreciation on our taxes. There are benefits to some tax write-off and things like that.

Easy, simple, blissful, intuitive strategy. It doesn’t take a lot.

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Some people are savvy investors. I hope that I can be out there to say, “You can do it too.” I didn’t go out there and try to figure some complicated strategy out. It ended up working. I wouldn’t consider myself a super-savvy investor, but I am doing it. Those of you out there that aren’t sure, you can do it too. You have to be smart about it and do your research.

I love that you’re saying, “I’m not a super savvy investor,” but at least you’re investing. Many people are like, “I need to learn all this stuff.” No, you just have to buy a house. Do your research on your areas. If you’re going to live there, you’re going to want to live there. It’s the easiest thing to do and we overthink this stuff. We think before I can get started, I have to have this cool strategy for making a bunch of money. The thing is, if you never get started, the money will never happen. Buy something. Do that thing. Like you, I bought it at the top of the market. I bought it in 2008. I bought even higher than you did. I also bought at the top of the market in 2001, but I cut even on those properties on rents for a long time but they both appreciated beautifully. They’re an important part of my portfolio financially, as far as my net worth. As long as you give yourself the time, you don’t have to do fancy-dancy stuff. You can build your wealth through real estate doing simple things like buying a house to live in to start.

That’s one of my biggest pet peeves. I do think you want to be educated and do some research, but you’ve got to take action. Action is the most important thing. I completely believe what you’re saying and I think that’s good advice for everybody.

I was a mortgage broker for a long time. I know what it was like. I was hoping that I was nice to deal with. I will say that my title officer was like, “You are my favorite client,” which is awesome but I know how much stress you guys are under. How do you stay focused and positive through all of that? This is a show about bliss, so that’s relevant.

It can be stressful. Anyone in real estate says it’s stressful because things change every minute. It is a difficult industry at times, but it’s also fun because you’re helping people buy homes. I feel like there are not many things that are better than that. I try to always think about the big picture. We’re making people happy and almost always people are super happy. Some situations are not, but in general, this is a good thing and we’re helping people. I do try to stay focused. There are people all around who are negative. They’re not doing well in their business. They hear something in the news that is putting them down.

I don’t allow that to enter my mind. Maybe I listen so I know what’s happening, but I focus and I keep working. I keep working hard, I put my head down, and do what’s working. Maybe I’ll still market share from these people that are being negative. Continue to do what you know works and don’t get distracted by the negativity. Some other things like being organized so that you’re on top of your business and you’re not letting things slip through the cracks, and having a good team. I’m lucky because I work with amazing people. All of our processors, our attorneys, every one of my company, I feel like I trust them and I feel comfortable with them.

I’m able to delegate a lot of things. I jump in and help as much as I can if they’re overwhelmed. Having a good team is valuable and important. Also, being proactive. There are going to be problems, things are going to go wrong. I try to get ahead of it. If there is a problem for us with title work, we see a lot of title problems. The earlier I can find out a problem, the better. I don’t like being the one to give bad news, but if I give bad news and we still have a month to resolve it, we are likely going to be able to resolve it and we’re going to settle on time. I think being proactive, being ahead of it, having difficult conversations so that we can all problem solve and make the best move for everyone.

Sometimes people do need to walk away from homes. Hopefully, they’re making a good decision. I think being proactive and delivering that news is important in a good way. I try to be a problem solver and help people move forward. Also, on negative days, if something’s going wrong, I do have a folder in my email. I have a testimonial folder. When I get a good testimonial from a client, I’ll put it in there or other positive things. If I’m like, “Today was frustrating.” I can go in and look at that. I’m like, “These people loved us and we did a great job.” I think it’s important to do that and remember because we all have those bad days and you’re like, “This closing didn’t go perfectly right.” Nothing is ever completely perfect. I think that’s important to shift your mindset, get back into a positive mindset, and move forward.

There are two things that I want to highlight there. First of all, you call it proactive. Many people will procrastinate on that. When things are rough, they’ll procrastinate on making a phone call or they run their business where they’ve got a schedule, but the schedule is about doing the next thing that has to be done. They’re not proactively looking three weeks ahead of time. I know this is what I loved about my title officer is I could call her with a problem and she already knew that I was going to call with that. I was proactive. She was even more proactive than me. The reason I worked with her is that other officers heard the news from me, I got to hear the news from her. She made my life easier.

When we would have difficult conversations, yes, my clients were upset but as you say, they were more likely to be able to close on that house because it was being handled. They saw me as a pro as a mortgage broker, they saw my title company and my title officer as a pro. There was no question about whether we knew what we were doing. They didn’t do their hand waving thing that often happens with mortgage brokers, which is, “One more piece of paper. Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me this two weeks ago?” All of those questions didn’t come up. They would get frustrated, but it was never like, “Do you need this?” They know that I’m a pro enough that if I’m asking for it, I need it. So much of that had to do with my title officer.

You are important for our businesses on the front end because we’re bringing the clients in. You bring in the clients too but it’s a different way that we work with our clients. I often wondered why don’t other people do it and the truth is, it is its own level of stress, but it’s a level of stress that it’s much more manageable than if you have to deal with it on the back end like closer to the closing or whatever. I love this propensity may be to procrastinate can cause more stress, to have the harder conversations.

I talk about in this show all the time that this is a people business and those hard conversations are part of that. Developing skills and doing that and understanding that they’re necessary and it doesn’t make you bad or anybody else bad. It’s important and if you come at it from this problem-solving approach, which is what you talk about, it’s a completely different thing than if you’re frustrated or negative. I used to hear title companies and mortgage brokers all the time talking about, “I can’t believe that bank changed the programs again.” They would commiserate with their clients, “You’re right. This is horrible. I hate this company too.” You’re like, “Really?”

I’m like, “If you want to vent for a second, no problem but then we’ve got to figure out how we’re going to solve this.”

You’re not going to close. You don’t get your dream unless we close. I completely commiserate and make this an hour-long vent between the two of us, it’s probably not going to be helpful.

I find people seem to, for the most part, appreciate it. We’re not trying to find problems, but our job is to find problems. If there’s a title issue, we’re supposed to find it. It’s how you handle it and how you deliver it. When you are working on these difficult situations, that’s when you shine. If you’re a good title person or real estate investor, any of us, if we’re solving problems and we’re doing a great job when it’s difficult, that’s when you prove your worth.

You show who you are when you’re dealing with challenges. That is the truth. Thank you for that. That was inspirational. In addition to owning a title company, what else do you do? What other ventures are you involved in?

As far as going into the real estate investing world, we talked a little about the rental properties. I briefly mentioned the hard money lending. I’m lucky because being in the title business, I work with investors. I work with lenders who know of creative opportunities and things like that. My financial planner has also been helpful because they know that we’re looking for creative ways to invest. The hard money lending, I’ve also done given some money for some restaurants, which I know can be a little risky. We are part owner of a Potbelly, a franchise in Richmond. That’s exciting and fun as well. It’s not completely real estate related, but investment-related. We have a few different things going on. Also, we lent money out for other real estate projects.

We have a lot of contacts in Richmond. Randomly a few different things going on in that area as well. It’s been good real estate investing. The hard money lending is I feel fortunate. A loan officer I worked with introduced me to a gentleman who flips homes and he is always looking for funds. It’s been a great situation. We were the first non-family members that contributed to his projects and things like that. It’s been a great return on investment. It can be risky, but it’s been a great partnership. It’s been great for us.

Do you mind if I ask how you structure those hard money deals? I had hard money lenders on the show, but I know that we’ve had private money. They are asking other people for private money. I’d love to find out your structuring.

It’s similar. Most of them are six months’ notes because they’re purchasing the property, renovating it, and then selling it. Typically, it’s a six-month note. The people who are facilitating it, they receive the points. The borrower is paying maybe a few points upfront because it’s riskier and then we receive the interest. We get 10% interest on the money that we are contributing. That’s how it’s structured and then after the six months it’s paid off and we determine if we’re going to put it into another project or take the money back and that sort of thing.

REW 1 | Stay Focused And Positive

Stay Focused And Positive: Real estate can be stressful because things change every minute.

 

Who is it that gets the points?

The person that we’re contributing to the hard money loans, the gentleman who’s structuring and facilitating the process. He gets the points and then his investors receive the interest on their portion of the funds.

What is the interest range that you guys charge?

I believe that he charges the clients 10% and we get 10% of our portion. I could be wrong, but I’m sure that’s how it’s been structured unless it’s changed since we began. He’s charging 2 or 3 points. He receives that portion.

Do you ever have a note where they ask to extend?

We haven’t. They’ve been able to do the projects in the amount of time. Sometimes it’s shorter than they thought so they’ll pay it off early, but I think they usually are conservative with the timeframe. It’s up to six months and then they finish it earlier.

When they finish early, do they pay you for the entire six-month term or they just pay for the time that they used?

They pay for the time they use. It’s close to the timeframe. We’ve been in this rhythm with them for a few years, it’s been going well, but you’re right. If it pays off early, then we would be done, but usually there’s a new project coming, so we roll the money into the next one.

Do you ever look at the projects or you give the money to the facilitator or whatever you call it?

No, I have never seen one of the projects at all. That’s why the first time we’re a little bit nervous and then now we’ve built a good relationship. We trust them and we feel lucky. I have been approached by other hard money lenders or private money companies and lenders but I haven’t switched. Someone’s like, “I’ll give 11%.” I’m like, “No. I’m going to stick with what I know.” One more percent is not going to sway me necessarily. Unless he gets too many partners and we want to have more avenues to share that. I feel comfortable and good with what we have going on.

The facilitator that you’re dealing with, does he have a minimum or a maximum investment amount? What’s the range?

He does. Initially, it was like $25,000 minimum and now, for anybody new coming in, it’s $50,000. Usually, people are giving $50,000 to $100,000 and I believe partly because I share his name a lot. He usually has plenty of investors now. Now, when I’ve given him a few contacts, he’s like, “I don’t have enough projects for everybody.” It seems to be working out.

How did you find him?

Through a loan officer, I work with. I’m lucky to know loan officers and some are conservative by the book. They do conventional or typical loans. This particular loan officer, he’s into investing as well and does all sorts of different types of mortgage loans and contacts. We were maybe talking about the Potbelly or something else and he’s like, “You guys are into doing some different types of investments. Let me introduce you to this gentleman, Robert.” That’s how it all came about.

Did you do due diligence on Robert? How did you do that?

Of course, recommendations, I always feel a little more comfortable. I’m not an attorney, but I have the attorney, the other owner of our title company. He helped us create the notes that we have. Before that, they were only working with family members. We were the first non-family member and I was like, “We’ve got to make sure that we are doing it in a wise way.” We had an attorney prepare and review the note and move forward. I probably could have done more due diligence, but I felt comfortable with the few things that we did and we went for it. As you said, take action and see where it goes.

Thank you for sharing that. What specifically are your investment goals? Why are you doing all of this cool stuff?

One is because if we want to be smart with the money, as I mentioned, I’m a saver and you don’t want your money sitting under your bed or in the banks that aren’t making much money. I used to be conservative and risk-averse and I still am. We can’t be making no interest on our money. That’s how we started looking at different investment opportunities. I was at an investment seminar and this resonated with me is eventually to make enough passive income that it pays them the major bills that we have. The mortgage, childcare, that sort of thing. If we could have enough passive income to pay that then our salaries and all the hard work we’re doing at other things would be extra. I’m not there, or not close, but that is my goal and hopefully, we will get there.

Do you have a timeframe?

I don’t and I should. You’ve got to do those SMART goals and I don’t have a timeframe. If we could be there in ten years, I would be happy with that.

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The other thing is that you’ve invested in high appreciation markets. Do you have a vision on what you want to do with appreciation, for instance, on that first house?

Not really. It will be interesting to see. Being a real estate title company, my hope would be that when we sell that home, do a 1031 exchange potentially. We handle a lot of settlements on 1031 exchanges. I think long-term in an ideal world, which I could probably make happen. If I could sell both those investment properties and roll those gains into a new investment property, I think that would be an ideal situation. Maybe a beach house down in North Carolina or something that eventually we could retire to or something. Thinking about what’s the smart way to do that. I talked about researching a little bit before, but I need to work with good partners to make sure that I’m doing the right things for tax purposes, that the business attorney we’ve talked to, and all of that. I think that would be ideal if we could do a 1031 exchange.

Regarding your timeframe thing, I want to make a comment personally, when I started investing too, I had no real timeframe goal. I thought I wanted to retire by the time I was 40. I’ll say to my audience that if you retire at the age of 40, you get bored because then what are you doing with your mind and your time? I ended up starting to coach because I was retired and bored out of my mind. I think what’s also true is that I couldn’t have retired with the lifestyle that I wanted. We continued our path in real estate and I started to work again. I didn’t have to, but I started to work again because I was bored.

The point that I’m trying to make is that even if we miss our timeframe goal does not mean that you’re a failure. I know that you don’t think this, Helen, and this is more for my audience, but I think that what happens is people are like, “I should set this SMART goal.” The SMART goals are all about making the goal specific. When we’re talking about retirement, part of that specificity is a timeframe. For you and me, it wasn’t but for a lot of people it is. I want to help people to understand. Hal Elrod was on my show and he said the same thing that even if you don’t hit it in your timeframe, it doesn’t mean that it’s over and it doesn’t mean that you’re a failure. It means that you’ve got to give it more time.

You may need to pivot to do something a little bit differently Tweak it a little bit, focus a little bit more. For me, I wasn’t even focusing. I was doing whatever I wanted in the world. For me, it took a long time, but there are a lot of people that could do exactly what I did and retire earlier if that’s what they wanted, if they focus. I wanted to speak to that a little bit about you not having a timeframe and I never did either. I had wishy-washy whatever one but had I reached that, where would I be? I don’t know that I would be as excited about life if I didn’t have a mission beyond retiring.

It’s like what you did. You pivoted into a new role of coaching. I guess you would find something because you’re a motivated person who wants to have a bigger purpose. That’s how I feel too. I feel fortunate in what I’m doing now. I wouldn’t want to give that up. Even if I wasn’t, maybe I’d work a little bit less and travel a little bit more, but I’d still want to do it because I enjoy it and it’s something that gives me energy and purpose.

It’s a good reason to wake up in the morning. Some cool things to do and some cool people to meet. You don’t get lonely. The other thing I wanted to ask you, this is going to put you on the spot a little bit, but this is a personal question. I’ve heard about the reverse 1031. Do you guys do those over there in Virginia too?

We do. As far as the title portion goes, we’re at the mercy of the qualified intermediary. They are a little more expensive, but they are something that you can do and we have done them before. I personally haven’t had a whole lot of interaction. We do 1031 CE, Continuing Education classes. We have some partners in that business. I know they talk a lot about them. I’m not an expert on that though.

Why don’t you explain how that works?

On a 1031 exchange, you would be selling your property within a certain timeframe. You have to identify the replacement property, I think is the term, and then within another set timeframe, you have to settle on that. When you’re doing a reverse 1031 exchange, you’re purchasing the replacement property before you sell the initial property. That’s how it works. It’s a little bit different. I know that they do charge a lot of extra fees because it’s a little more complicated. I believe that’s how it works. You probably know better than I do.

Let’s say, for instance, I purchase a piece of property and then I want to sell another piece of property, is there a timeframe restriction?

I believe that is correct.

Who do you go through to do the reverse? I know that you can’t just go through the title company. There are some other people that are involved in that.

For both either way of 1031 exchange, the client cannot touch the money on a regular. I guess in reverse, it’s a little bit different but the money is going through what’s called a QI or a Qualified Intermediary. When we’re doing a 1031 exchange, someone’s selling their home, the proceeds do not go to the seller, they go to the qualified intermediary. When they purchase the home, the qualified intermediary sends the funds back to us to do the closing.

For us as a title company, it’s not that different, except there’s one other party that’s involved with some of the funds. There’re maybe a few extra forms to fill out. When it’s the reverse, I believe that then they’re borrowing the funds from the qualified intermediary, because they haven’t yet sold their property. They’re then giving them the funds after they close on these properties that they’re selling. There is always someone that’s involved in holding the fund’s purposes.

Does the title company recommend the intermediary or do we as an investor need to find it ourselves?

We can recommend one. There’s one primary one in our area, but there’s a handful out there. Anytime you make a recommendation, you want to be a little cautious because heaven forbid, they don’t have a good experience. I have recommended people before, but sometimes the investors will already have a relationship or they’ll find one on their own. The title committee does not have to approve them necessarily.

If we’re not going to go with someone that the title company recommended, how would we find that person? What would we look for?

You would probably find a recommendation from someone, but you could go on Google and nowadays, everyone’s finding things online. You’d want to find a 1031 exchange company or a qualified intermediary. That’s what you’d be looking for. They can do them throughout the nation. It doesn’t necessarily have to be local, but sometimes I do think it’s nice if it’s local especially if both of your properties are in one area. There are a lot out there. Even some of our title insurance underwriting companies do 1031 exchanges. They could even help you out. A recommendation I think is always best from the title company or if you’re working with a realtor who does a lot of investments, probably they have had other clients do it. I think asking the resources, your mortgage company, your real estate agent, or your title company is probably the best way to find someone.

It’s interesting because here in Silicon Valley, it’s hard to buy something. You get outbid constantly. For me, it makes intuitive sense to purchase first and then sell because you’re doing the hard part first, and then selling is relatively easy. The market’s strained a little bit right now. Things are changing but when it’s a seller’s market, that’s what it looks like. I’m surprised at how few people know about this. My realtor didn’t know about it. I have not yet found a title company that’s used to doing them. None of my loan officers know about it. I read about it somewhere. I thought, “This makes sense in these hot markets to do it this way.” I also know that the fees are fairly significant. Like I was quoted at about a $6,000 Delta on the title fees. That’s probably about what it’s going to cost to do a reverse. Are you finding the fees to be similar to that?

REW 1 | Stay Focused And Positive

Stay Focused And Positive: Your job as a real estate investor is to solve problems. When you’re working on difficult situations, that’s when you shine.

 

As a title company, we do not charge different fees for a 1031 exchange, but the qualified intermediary does. In California, maybe different. Every state is a little bit different in how they handle things. Maybe the title company is more of a qualified intermediary. I don’t know. Here on the East Coast DC area, we work with a qualified intermediary and they have the fees. The reverse 1031 is quite a lot. There’s a big difference in cost. That is the main reason why people don’t do it. We are an expensive area as well. I can see what you’re saying as far as that desire to do that. It doesn’t have to be in the same area. We’ll see people sell here and buy in a different state. That may make sense for certain people when it’s not quite as crazy of a market.

The other thing is that, do you need an intermediary for regular 1031 exchange or does that get handled through the title company?

You need one also for a regular 1031 exchange. You cannot touch the money as the person that’s selling and buying. That’s one of the roles of the qualified intermediary.

We’re going to have to pay an intermediary, whether we do a straight 1031, or we do a reverse and the change in price is going to be what their charges are based on what we’re doing.

I can’t quote their fees, but I do know it is riskier and therefore, more expensive for them to do the reverse.

If we don’t do the reverse, what happens? Do they release the money and then we pay capital gains on that? Do you have any thoughts?

In the normal 1031 exchange, you would be selling your property, the money goes to 1031 exchange. Say it’s $300,000 that you’re using towards the next property, you can use all of that. You shouldn’t have to pay the capital gains. I’m not an accountant. Say you only use $200,000 on the new property, the Delta is $100,000, you pay capital gains on that portion, I believe.

That’s all stuff to talk to our CPAs about. I understand. There are many questions about 1031s and when I’ve got a CPA on the line, most of them don’t seem to understand all. The CPAs are good at their jobs and detailed. A 1031 conversation can take hours. To do the high level seems a little bit harder sometimes and it’s nice to have a conversation with the title company because you guys know the high level. You don’t know all the details. You can be a little bit more approachable for us as audiences.

You would want to talk to an accountant to go into more detail. I don’t know all the nitty-gritty, but the general information.

Audiences, this is a high level. We’re not telling you the rules. Your CPA will tell you exactly what kinds of properties you can buy, how you need to use that equity. They’ll tell you your timeframes. They’ll tell you all of those pieces. Talk to a CPA. This conversation is to give us a high level because I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the 1031.

The qualified intermediary should be able to give you timeframes and a lot of information too. They’re a great resource as well.

What are your passion and your big why?

I’m sure like many of you out there, my big passion is my family. I’m married. I have two young kids. They’re two little girls who are five and three. They’re in growth mode and an important phase. My passion and my why is trying to figure out supporting them and being a good role model for them. Trying to figure out how to raise them in this crazy world that we live in to be good people. I want them to be good, kind people. I’m trying to make sure that I’m always that way as well. The other thing would be then giving back. Even before I had kids, work-wise, I did a lot with Habitat and some local home-based organizations trying to give back. That makes sense for real estate.

In my area, I was active with this organization called AFAC, which is helping people in Arlington County with food and that sort of thing. I’m looking for ways I can give back with the kids so that they can see we’re fortunate. Let’s make sure that we’re helping others and give perspective. That’s one of the things I’m looking for. If anyone has good ideas, I’m also open to hearing some great suggestions of things you can do with children to help them be exposed to everything and that they understand and give back and are grateful and thankful for what they have. That’s my big why.

You and I are aligned in that way because since I was a young girl, I’ve been donating to a school in India for the education of girls. That’s a big deal for me. I was horrified when I lived in India to see the way that women were treated. For me, it was like, this cannot keep going. It starts with education. I became involved in that. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to give more money, but then also, because I’m not working as hard, I’m able to give more of my time. It started small and this is something for us to remember is that as we’re giving back in the world, we can give in many different ways. We can give time. We can give a little bit of money. We can give a lot of money. We can start an organization.

There’s a whole gamut of what we can do to give back. We can also help somebody with a cart that’s blind. We can also smile at somebody. We can also work in a soup kitchen. There are lots of different ways to give back. One of the tenets of bliss in my book, Choose Bliss is that it gives life more meaning. It fills you up. There’s this thing called the givers high. In a way, it’s selfish to do this but what a great way to be selfish is to help people in the world. It does give life more meaning. Those days that I feel like, “I worked hard.”

There are a couple of big reasons why I keep going. First of all, I know I’m helping my audiences. I hear about it all the time and that’s fulfilling to me. That’s my way of giving back. When I’m doing my properties, all of my real estates are in redevelopment areas. I’m always trying to improve a neighborhood and a community. That’s fulfilling. My school in India, I’m involved with that. We filmed a documentary there. That piece of giving back to communities and teaching our children to do the same thing, it’s such an important piece of bliss and an important piece of finding meaning in life. Thank you for bringing that up. That’s important. What would your advice be for people to have a more successful life?

Some of this we’ve touched on already, but I think we all need to be thankful for the things that we have and live your life in a full way, instead of always thinking like a scarcity mentality kind of thing. Be thankful for the things you have and try not to dwell on the things you don’t. We all wish we had more of this or that. Everyone has things that they need to be thankful for. Investment wise, save when you can, and then be smart with it. Save the money and then be smart with what you do with it. The quote that I live by is from Zig Ziglar and it’s, “You can have everything in life, as long as you help enough other people get what they want in life.” Trying to give back to others, make connections, how we can all live and enjoy our lives together. I feel great when I’m able to help someone else out. It’s a win-win situation because they’re thrilled and you’re thrilled because you were able to do something great for someone else.

Thank you for that. The other quote that I love by Zig is he says, “Sometimes they’ll ask somebody how are you doing?” They’ll say something like, “I’m doing fine under the circumstances.” He’ll say, “What the heck are you doing under there anyway?”

He’s got a lot of great quotes.

Be thankful for the things you have and try not to dwell on the things you don't. Click To Tweet

Could you tell us how people can get in touch with you?

I would love to hear from you guys. If there are questions you have or suggestions, the best way would be to email me. My email is [email protected].

I know that you’ve got a free gift for my audiences. Tell them about that.

We talked a little about quotes and staying motivated. My big thing in quotes. When I meet with a client, I try to bring a little quote book with me. I got the suggestion, which is to create my own. I might put together a quote book, but in the meantime, I send out a motivational quote every Friday. If you are interested, I would love to add you to that list. It’s a little Friday morning motivation to get you through the end of the week. If you are local, a list of a few events that we have coming up, you’re welcome to attend those as well. A little extra motivation on your Friday morning. If you’d like to be added to that list, I’d be delighted to add you.

That’s at [email protected].

Send me an email there and I’ll add you to the list.

This is something I want to highlight. We are fed negativity all the time. We have TV, we have the news, we have advertising that tells us we’re not good enough and we need these products to be good enough. We’re getting a lot of negativity fed to us all the time. We’re doing that by choice. We watch the television, we watch the news. We read the news where we are allowing ourselves to be in that position. It’s important that we also prioritize taking the time to give ourselves positive stuff, to reinforce that positive side, to balance the other side that we can’t avoid. A lot of people think, “Whatever I don’t need positive quotes.” You do because you have to feed yourself the same way as we feed ourselves knowledge.

As we feed ourselves the news of the world so that we can be part of the world community and the world village. We also need to feed ourselves the positive things that will keep us uplifted. A bliss practice is that if you’re not feeding yourself that then you’re not getting it because that doesn’t come to us naturally. That’s something we have to seek out. Unfortunately, I would love it if more news stories were happy, but there aren’t enough to compensate for what’s coming out on the more negative side. I love that you’re offering that. Ladies, I would encourage you to get on that list so that you can get good quotes and cute videos and all that stuff that you can get to uplift you to balance out all the other stuff that we are fed in the world.

If anyone out there has a great quote that they love, send it to me. I would love it. I’m picky. I only put quotes in there that do motivate me. Sometimes I’m like, “What am I going to do this week?” If you have a good one, send it my way. I would love to hear it.

Thank you for that. Helen, are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Let’s do it.

The first one is, give us a super tip on how to get started in real estate investing.

It’s not that difficult. You’ve got to take action. Find something you’re comfortable with. There’re many different ways to invest. It doesn’t have to be something huge, start small. I would try to find a mentor or someone that’s done it before. They could ask some questions to someone you trust and then start small and then grow it from there.

What would you say is one strategy on being successful in real estate investing?

I know you said don’t research too much, but I do think researching is important. I think finding a good CPA, we’ve talked a lot about how important accountants can be. Finding a business attorney potentially because maybe you’re going to put that investment property into an LLC and you want to know the pros and cons of that. Also, for liability purposes, you may want to talk to an insurance person. Collaborating with a few people who are going to protect yourself, is also important and will help make you more successful.

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

The mentality of being grateful and thankful. I don’t know if anyone’s read The Secret that book back in the day. Every night before going to bed, I say a little prayer or think about my day and the things I’m grateful for and I think always looking back. Celebrating those little successes you have. Also, one other thing outside of that is finding an accountability partner. Stay on track with them and make sure you’re both achieving and moving forward in the right direction. Be patient, it doesn’t always happen overnight. Sometimes I think I’m like, “I started doing this. I should see results right away.” Some things take a little bit of time. Take action, but be patient and be grateful for those things that you have.

REW 1 | Stay Focused And Positive

Stay Focused And Positive: Getting started in real estate is not that difficult. Find something that you’re comfortable with. Start small and work with a mentor who’s done it before.

 

Thank you for all the amazing information. This has been a great conversation, Helen.

Thank you, Moneeka. I’m excited. I am honored and feel grateful that I’ve been on the show with you.

Ladies, thank you for joining Helen and I on this show. We’ve been delighted to share our information with you. I look forward to seeing you at the next show. 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.

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Thank you again for joining me on the Real Estate Investing for Women Show. If you love this show, please subscribe, rate and review it on iTunes. As women, we need to support and empower each other to build wealth and live joyful lives. Your support of this show by subscribing, rating, and reviewing it will help other women as you learn about building blissful wealth through investing. Remember to download your free report so you can get started on your investing journey at BlissfulInvestor.com. See you next time. Here’s something you individually can do to create a peace that’s as simple as pressing play. Get the download from PeaceAndHarmonyDownload.com and be a peace hero. Create your own pocket of peace around you so there are fewer family squabbles and more harmony in your life.

 

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About Helen Krause

Helen Krause earned her undergraduate and masters degree from James Madison University. After graduation, she worked for a local homebuilder. She has been in title business for over thirteen years, focused primarily on the sales and marketing side. She also has her title insurance license and has conducted hundreds of settlements. Her background is in marketing and her passion is to help others achieve their goals. She likes to partner with her clients to provide value for their business. She loves speaking to agents who are starting and growing their careers and teaches educational and motivational classes and events.

 

 

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Your Money Mindset: The Secret of Success with Dr. Joe Vitale

 

Dr. Joe Vitale is a prolific author of many bestselling books including “The Attractor Factor,” “Zero Limits,” and his latest, “The Miracle: Six Steps to Enlightenment,” and “Anything Is Possible: 7 Stops to Doing the Impossible.” One of the world’s top motivational speakers, he is a popular star of the movie “The Secret,” and an internationally famous expert on the law of attraction and clearing beliefs. Dr. Joe created the Miracles Coaching® program to help people achieve their dreams. Once homeless, he is today a model of prosperity, who believes in miracles and has spent the last four decades learning to master the skills of channeling the pure creative energy of life without resistance.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How your mindset is the biggest tool for success
  • Where “The Secret” came from
  • How he was able to attract success through visualization
  • Why he believes in miracles and you should too

Head over to www.attractmoneynow.com for a FREE copy of Dr. Joe Vitale’s new book!

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