The Whole Shebang
41. How to Rebuild After Burnout; Transform Your Health, Business, and Finances with Ryan Hvizda
Ryan was, like so many of us, someone who would drive herself into the ground in the name of what she thought was her true self. She shares her powerful journey of peeling back layers, uncovering constriction, fear and tension, and finding a more true kind of resilience.
It was a silent meditation retreat in 2019 that marked the turning point for Ryan, helping her rebuild her life by incorporating play, intuition, and creativity. Not to mention that she faced her fear of the ocean and is now a bad-ass surfer living in Barbados half of the year!
Ryan's transformed her life, from major health complications, a burden of financial debt, and a business she reconstructed, I was inspired and I believe you will be too. She shares her story with such transparency, grace and heart.
Enjoy! xx - Jen
3:10 Introduction
7:14 Discovering the Power of Relaxation and Play
12:18 Earth Grief
17:40 What We Really Fear
27:30 Rebuilding Business
30:49 Leadership Style: Vulnerability, Vision, and Empowerment
36:22 Overcoming Financial Challenges and Building Wealth
40:14 Prioritizing Self-Care and Sustainable Burnout
47:03 Embracing Play and Adventure
51:09 Living a Life of Miracles
SUBSCRIBE and WATCH on YouTube
Follow Us!
Jennifer's Instagram
The Whole Shebang Instagram
Ryan was, like so many of us, someone who would drive herself into the ground in the name of what she thought was her true self. She shares her powerful journey of peeling back layers, uncovering constriction, fear and tension, and finding a more true kind of resilience.
It was a silent meditation retreat in 2019 that marked the turning point for Ryan, helping her rebuild her life by incorporating play, intuition, and creativity. Not to mention that she faced her fear of the ocean and is now a bad-ass surfer living in Barbados half of the year!
Ryan's transformed her life, from major health complications, a burden of financial debt, and a business she reconstructed, I was inspired and I believe you will be too. She shares her story with such transparency, grace and heart.
Enjoy! xx - Jen
3:10 Introduction
7:14 Discovering the Power of Relaxation and Play
12:18 Earth Grief
17:40 What We Really Fear
27:30 Rebuilding Business
30:49 Leadership Style: Vulnerability, Vision, and Empowerment
36:22 Overcoming Financial Challenges and Building Wealth
40:14 Prioritizing Self-Care and Sustainable Burnout
47:03 Embracing Play and Adventure
51:09 Living a Life of Miracles
SUBSCRIBE and WATCH on YouTube
Follow Us!
Jennifer's Instagram
The Whole Shebang Instagram
resiliency is like am I living a life that if I have a setback it doesn't just knock me out Like I can? I'll heal and I'll move forward and I'll get past where I've ever been before?
Speaker 2:How do you think you adopted that mindset or that way of being? Have you always been that way?
Speaker 1:I think for so long I was just, I was a driven person, just driving forcefully through, and then I'd have this burnout windows where I just crashed and I was proud of that, like, oh, I'm S, I can just go so hard. And so then, so no, I don't think I was always this way. I think then I realized, like running and burning so hard and then burning out isn't going to lead me to net, not ever want to move forward. So what can I do that's sustainable and resilient? And if I do have a setback, I'm not out and not wanting to move forward. So no, I have not always been this way, because I've just been extremely driven until I crash and burn.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the whole shebang. I'm Jen Briggs, your host. Let me tell you what you're in for here. Many of us have been running at breakneck speed, functioning mostly in our heads, and we've suffered from disconnection, burnout and lost passions. I believe it's because we functioned in part and not in whole. So we're exploring a new path, embracing intuition, creativity, playfulness and connection in all of life. It's vibrant, powerful and magnetic. So come on with me and buckle up buttercups we're diving in. Our guest today, ryan Vista, is one that I feel like. Oh, this is like a manifestation moment in real life for me.
Speaker 2:I when the podcast was just even a seed of a thought before it was a real thought and I was studying the masculine, feminine dynamics and trying to figure out how I could bring in more of that feminine, creative, playful, vulnerable, connected way of being into my work, into my leadership. I saw Ryan on stage in front of 15,000 entrepreneurial business owners, real estate investors, and heard her tell her story of how she basically hit a wall in her health and her finances and in her business and how she deconstructed all of that and rebuilt it all with a sense of all of those things connectedness, play, peeling back the layers, doing the inner work, and I looked at her up on that stage and thought that that's it. She's doing it. She's doing all the things I'm talking about, and I wrote her name down, a list of people that I wanted to connect with and would love to have a conversation with, and that must've been I don't know three years ago. And here we are. The episode is today, so let me tell you just a little bit about her and what you're going to learn and hear today. I think you'll be so encouraged.
Speaker 2:Her aim and her mission and her team now is to build lasting relationships with their clients, to help them to build wealth through their real estate and have a team that has a healthy culture, that is focused on connection and play, but that also has a lot of grit to get the hard work done in their business. She shares about how play is one of the main ways that she's healed in her life, about how fear is really just trying to control the uncontrollable, and how she faced her greatest fear at the time, which was the ocean, and is now a badass surfer, might I add. She talks about how she faced a lot of debt that her and her husband had not that many years ago and totally turned their financial situation around. And now how she is leading in a very different way in her business, that has been wildly successful. There's so much here that has been wildly successful.
Speaker 2:There's so much here, you guys. She is a wise woman with an open heart and shares her story so beautifully. I cannot wait for you to listen. I'm sure that you're going to enjoy it as much as I did. Welcome to the whole shebang, ryan.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm remembering back and I know when we talked last, remembering back to the first time I saw you. You were on a stage, you were sharing your story and I have a note in my notes app. That's like the people that I would love to chat with on the podcast. This is before I had launched the podcast, too, and it was still like a dream and your name was at the top of the list.
Speaker 1:At the top of the list. Amazing.
Speaker 2:That's an honor challenges or walls or whatever however you want to describe it and deconstructed it and brought play and life and all kinds of things back into what you were doing. And I was like, yes, like that's, that's what I'm trying to do, that's what I want to help people do. So that's why you were at the top of the list and here we are. Well, I'm excited to dive into that with you today. When we talked, you said that you've been sort of in this peel back, the layers mode for the last few years. Can we go back and start with like where that journey began and kind of a little bit about your story? Sure, I would say it really really started.
Speaker 1:The first layer started to be taken off in 2019. And I was essentially a workaholic, working a lot in my real estate business. I had pretty much running on ego and drive and I had an org chart where I was the center of it and everybody reported to me, which meant that I was micromanaging and controlling everything and I was just burnt out. So I had this moment where I said to my husband I need to go be in a place without speaking to anybody for a considerable amount of time. So I found a silent meditation retreat and I went for a week and I came out of that with this new sense of like, this idea of who I could be when I wasn't, uh, just so stressed and that if I was going to continue in this business, I needed to do it right, which meant create something that was I wasn't the keystone, Like if I was gone, it would still run and it would run better without me.
Speaker 1:So since then, that's really this question that I'm. There's a couple of questions that, in terms of building my business, that I've been trying to answer is like how do I find the who's that will help me get to the next level? So that, um, it's not about me. And then can I build something that's not about me, and then can I also empower others to, you know, be a part of something, that we can grow something together. So that on the business wise, and then I just started really understanding that this idea like tension is who you think you are, but relaxation is actually who you really are. And how can I keep getting closer and closer to that, like rested, relaxed, playful Ryan and not the stressed out like very intense, sometimes angry and rude Ryan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, for eventually I'll have these up on YouTube and people can see what we're doing with this whole time. I'm just like, yes, yes, that that I wrote it down. Tension is who you think you are, we, and then the second half, relaxation, is who you really are. Oh my gosh. Okay, so there's this whole period of time between that silent retreat until you've gotten here to this sort of place of discovery. Can we go through some of those layers that you peeled back? What were the challenges you faced? What, what did you have to sort of start unraveling?
Speaker 1:So I knew that I started to realize like I'm must be hiding from something, like there's always been something in my life that I've been able to put in place to avoid myself. And I did an Enneagram and I came in as like a an eight. I don't, I'm not fluent in that Enneagram, but it basically said I was fueled by anger and also, at the same time, so I went to the silent meditation retreat and right after that I started Sam Harris's has a waking up app and he has like a 28 day intro to meditation. So I'd done the Enneagram and then said you're fueled by anger. And I started to be like, oh, that's interesting, like reflecting on how I was operating from, you know, a child to then how it was always. So I was angry.
Speaker 1:And then I did this meditation with Sam Harris where he was like now, think about something, get very angry and feel where it is in your, in your body. And I had this moment during that meditation where I was like I feel that in my body all the time. And so I was like I need to figure, like I sure anger leads to a lot of progressive change, and like think things happen because of anger. And yet I was like I don't think I want to always be in anger, so I clearly have some work to do. And since then, like, anger is a secondary emotion that comes from fear or sadness or being hurt, and then we put up anger as a shield.
Speaker 2:So where did you feel the anger in your body or like what does that feel? Like? How did you?
Speaker 1:identify it Chest. And in my gut, like I just felt, I could feel it, the constriction in my inner core.
Speaker 2:And does that relate closely to this idea that tension is who you think you are and realization is who you really are?
Speaker 1:Yes, and so then it was like I need to figure out how not to be like this all the time and to open up and play. Play is really one of the one ways you can. There's a lot of different ways to heal from trauma, but play is one of them, and like laughter and joy and being in flow and and just responding versus reacting to whatever's happening.
Speaker 2:How did you find at the time, was play like a like foreign to you? Was it something super foreign? Okay, so how did you?
Speaker 1:find it. I started by so surfing. So I, at this time too, I had, I had developed this illogical fear of the ocean, and so my husband and I had gone on our first vacation in five years I think it was the winter of 2017, 2015. And we went to Barbados and went in that blue water, and the blue water was see-through. I could, you know, I could see through it, but I, I still had this fear of the ocean. But I never had the fear growing up. It had, I had developed it. And so we had this conscious contact with this island and this water and over time, he just he was a big surfer. He discovered there were surf on this Island. So we, um, that winter of 2020, we went down to Barbados for six weeks and ended up staying for three months and he was surfing a bunch and I, like, I wouldn't, I would just go into my head, I wouldn't go surfing. Um, and I had.
Speaker 1:We had some friends that, like, basically begged me to go out on a paddle board with my head in the water to look at the coral Cause. I was just terrified to go in. But then I was reading books about trauma and, um, I was reading a book about the ocean and there was this and I was also listening to byron katie um about, like the question is like, is it true? Like there's this line of questioning. The camera was like is what you're thinking true? And then I had I had heard this line of questioning whenever you're like holding on to a thought that you're creating a story around. So I had this like is this true? And then I had read this thing about the coral and human DNA share like over 60 percent of the same. Yeah, we shared like over 60 percent of the same matter.
Speaker 1:And so then I was in the ocean freaking out about, you know, being over the coral and this weird fear. And then I was just like, true, like is this really something to be afraid of? And then I was like, no, it's not. And then I was like what happens if, like maybe you were feeling fear but you were actually feeling grief or you were feeling something else, you know, and maybe the ocean actually needs you to participate versus being afraid? And so I just went through this whole thing, and so then I was like okay, like I don't need to be afraid of the ocean in the way that I'm afraid of the ocean Like this is. This is a trauma thing.
Speaker 1:And so I took my first surf lesson and I was angry as a surfer in the beginning, like one I wasn't fit in the way that you need to.
Speaker 1:And then I was like the way I responded towards the challenges of it was just like very angry and I was like here we are at that anger but I was like actually this is a teacher and I need to be a beginner and I think through this I'm going to like let go of a lot of the things that are getting in the way of this relaxation.
Speaker 1:And so I really became a student of surfing, which then led to just play and being with my friends that were surfing and the joy you get when you actually can catch the wave and then, as it progresses, you like ride the wave and then that flow and you like I just progressed in this last year to not only are you like getting on the wave, but then you're like interacting with the wave and just that feeling and so the play of that, and then realizing I want to be around people that are seeking out that as well as well and because of that community, not just in surfing, but people that are really just looking for that joy, that flow, state like they are, they're in state of relaxation.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, ryan, I don't know. I just like there's so much of what you said that is just like resonating with me in my body and it is wild, it is so amazing. So I want to come back to a couple of things that you said, and I'm just curious if you've uncovered more with this. This is just a genuine curiosity with me. So you had this fear with the water. You have some knowing that you're made up of the same stuff that the coral is made up with. You just talked about interacting with the water. You have some knowing that you're made up of the same stuff that the coral is made up with. You just talked about interacting with the wave, like, is there this sense of oneness? And then the second thread is that you, you started asking the question what if this wasn't fear? What if it was grief? And I'm curious about that. Did you discover it to be grief, and grief of what and like what? Was there Multiple?
Speaker 1:kind of levels of grief, like I had learned about earth grief and I definitely have a level of earth grief, like when I go into a landscape and I see and this is one of the reasons why I got into real estate, because I realized it was the built environment and that was a place where you could make change, lasting change, in a positive way.
Speaker 1:But when I go into a landscape, I see the layers of the human engagement and a lot of times it's extractive and it's leaving it worse off than it was without the human relationship. And so I like I walk on a beach and I see it filled with plastic and I just I get depressed and I go through the West and I see swaths of, you know, hundreds of thousands of acres of dying trees or you know, I, I I carry a lot of um stress around that, but then also grief around relationships with my parents and, um, how, how that's all come to be in its current manifestation and um, and so that's a little like a little bit more involved. But you know, I haven't spoken to my dad in over five years. So, like the grief, of the loss of that relationship.
Speaker 1:And then just like there's a lot of grief there and I so I've been I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:I think I was just angry for so long and then I realized that there was grief and there was sadness and there was healing to do there's healing, to do so in your life now, when you see fear, or if you were talking to somebody that had fear, what would you say to?
Speaker 1:them regarding fear. Oh, I mean, it depends on my comfort level with them and how well, um or how well, you could say anything. Let's just say you're talking.
Speaker 2:Let's say you're talking to everybody who has some kind of fear. What do you, what do you know to be true about fear?
Speaker 1:Well, first I would really just want to dig deep and kind of understand it a little bit more. So go, you know, three, four deep on understanding that fear. But there's this question is that like is it the truth or your truth, and is this a story that you're telling about something that you can't control, or is it actually real and it's, you know, something you can do about? Because I think a lot of times fear comes from trying to control the uncontrollable and we're only just projecting one possible outcome in a world where any moment, we have infinite amount of outcomes. So I think this is the, this was the conversation I would get into with that person and also layer in some questions and trying to understand them a bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said this, I think, last time we chatted around fear, and it seems to me to be. What you've done is that you've also used fear as like um, I don't want to call it a compass or like, uh, oh, if there's fear here, then there's, there's more there, which you? Is that right?
Speaker 1:For sure, like I'm. Like when I'm feeling like I'm focusing on what I can't control or I'm creating a story about something that then is making me anxious, then I am. I'm digging in there, like right now I'm in the middle of a 12 week um session on hypno breath work, because I was still feeling like well, I'm always I was. I'm like I've done all this work and yet I still am reacting in situations with such in a way that I'm like I would love not to react that way. I would love to rather be able to pause, sit with it and respond Like I really just my goal in life is to be responsive and not reactive.
Speaker 1:And like through that I'm realizing like I didn't realize it, but in my subconscious I desire to always feel safe and so much of my reactive behavior comes out of not feeling safe and assuming that I'm unsafe. And I didn't even realize that that was happening until we started to uncover it through these sessions. And now I'm like, wow, like when I'm getting in this place of Titan, like being tight and angry or stressed, and like lashing out like my poor husband, like I will get defensive with him. It's usually because I was feeling like, oh, I had a. I'm mistaking whatever's happening, as if I'm not safe.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing all of this. This is like a gold mine for people to see themselves in your story. I keep saying that, but it's like, oh, we identify with these little pieces and go, oh, like, as you were saying, that I've been recognizing lately I don't know if I would use the word safe, but that I'm feeling protective of nature, of my voice, of the autonomy with my body. And I think that for me and I don't know that you're here at all, but I think for me I'm uncovering what feels like generations of feeling unsafe and and so the the, the reaction for me sometimes comes from a like oh, don't know, oh don't you dare take away my ability to speak my truth or you know where. Now, now that I'm finding more and more of that, especially through this podcast, a little bit of that protectiveness is kind of eking up more and causing me to be more reaction reactive because and I think beneath the protectiveness is probably that I don't totally feel safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, which is wild. I didn't even I would have probably said that I'm being protective or I'm being kind of righteous, like I'm, there's the anger, like I'm going to fight for it. And then I'm like what happens if we don't fight? And we, yeah, and I think you had mentioned the last time we chatted, like I last year, I'd gone to multiple different. I'm always looking at a different healing modality because I love what happens out of whatever the session is, whether acupuncture or there's so many things. But I had three different. Like I went for a massage in Portugal, I went to this um osteopath and then I can't remember, oh, an acupuncturist, and all three of them made a comment about how I had a closed throat chakra and I was like what does this even mean? And now I'm realizing I think it's around the safety idea Like I don't feel safe to express in certain places or I just need to trust my voice and and be okay with the outcome of what happens when I speak my truth.
Speaker 1:How does it feel to be speaking your truth today, then Um, I was definitely a little nervous before we got on, but then I was like you know what you're, you've been on a journey and you've done a lot of really great work and I hope that somebody's listening. They're like I realized it's little layers, you know, and like maybe there's a layer they heard that resonates with them and they're going to go figure that out for themselves.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful. Yeah, that was one of your posts, so I had you on the top of my list and I didn't forget about you, but like you weren't at the top of my mind, and then you popped to the to into my Instagram feed one one day, and I've really been working on following the flow and following the intuition. I'm like this woman has no idea who I am, but the post that I saw was about you using your voice. It was one that you had shared about, like that it was time, and so I was like well, um, some of the challenges that you faced along this journey of yours.
Speaker 1:I think one of the challenge definitely health. So I didn't. I read that book. The body keeps the score and I I've had a lot of health challenges for a long time, but then that's when I was part of that healing journey of like my body is holding on to things and so much of digestion and, um, I had Lyme disease, really bad. I'm very sensitive to mold and now, like when you start to go into understanding trauma, like a lot of people that have like get really affected by Lyme or mold or have a lot of digestive issues or just neuro, neuro divergent or issues, there's like all trauma, like a lot of trauma and a lacking of deep nutrition, um, to then heal from it.
Speaker 2:So I think that that's been one challenge, um how did you heal from that, or how are you healing from?
Speaker 1:that I feel like I'm still always on a path. I'm way better now, um, but like in 2014, when I was really sick with Lyme, I my memory was pretty much shot, like I was having really hard time speaking. My my word recall was just kind of gone. Like I just talking was challenging. Uh, I had this crazy um like eczema rash all over my hands. I couldn't use my hands and I was just like a zombie um for years, and so that was super challenging.
Speaker 1:And then I've since then learned I'm very sensitive to mold and the mold can. If I go into a space that has mold, I'll get eczema and fatigue and just feel sick and then we'll need to like flush. I just I I'm on like a very I go to acupuncture, I go to chiropractic, I eat a very clean diet. I've given up. I used to. Before I was using work, I was definitely using alcohol, I was using marijuana to like self-medicate, but now I'm like I just have to heal and move towards more relaxation and just take care of myself at a really high level. So that's been a challenge.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's your health is your first wealth, and so then now that I feel quite fit and I do a lot of great work for myself, I think the challenge of leadership and leading others, and so up until that 2020 time, you know the silent meditation retreat sure, I was like building this like business, but it was still all around me and I had a churning and burning through people and, um I ha, I got a coach that just said what do you need to do to grow as a leader? And a leader, Like your business, only grows to the extent that you do. And I just really plugged into that and being like well, if I'm not healthy, if I don't feel good in my body, if I'm not, um, putting my like play and rest as a priority and the family and friends as a priority, then who's going to want to follow me? Nobody wants to follow somebody that's just churned, like, working 80 hours a week and is stressed out and angry. And so I really just like worked on growing as a human and then as a leader.
Speaker 1:And it's been cool because I have had people in my life on in my business from before 2020 and then right around 2020 and have been with me for the last four years and they're just like you're a different person. You're a different person from when I first started here to where you are now. Like it's been really cool to see you grow and change and so um, but that's also come with its challenges, gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's dive into this a little bit. So I'm curious. So you go on this silent meditation retreat. You're all of a sudden, not all of a sudden. So I'm curious. So you go on this silent meditation retreat, you're all of a sudden, not all of a sudden, or however, if it was step-by-step on this process of I see, you started by saying I saw who I could be, so you know that. And you've got a business, as it is, that's built around you. What are the first steps that you take? Do you go in and tell them I'm becoming someone different?
Speaker 1:Do you do you fire everybody, like pretty much it was like we're changing the way it's running here, Um, and one of them was like we I, we had made a hire that it was a very she was a lovely human, she was a, yes, person, but she wasn't the right fit for the job. And also we had like, gave her everything. And so then I was like, in order to really truly build a business, I need to actually have an operations team. It can't be one person that is an order taker and we're just telling all this. But and I say us cause, like agents, you know, have a bunch of agents just telling this person what to do and they're taking everything you say, saying yes and putting it in a drawer. Like that's not a business. So I was like I need to learn how to hire. And then I hire and earn the right to have not just one person but multiple people, because at this point, the amount of work that needs to be done cannot be done by one person, and I need, like, a talented systems person, and then I need different specializations. So I spent 2020, um, I changed my coach and I have my coach hold me accountable to the hiring process and then, when I made my talent hire, who is now my director of operations. I hired her of somebody to train her and then her own coach, because I had the self-awareness at this point that I cannot train an operations person, even though I think I can, because I did that for the last however many years and it kept failing. So go get the people that are doing it at a high level and then hold this person at like, hold them to those standards and get them trained by somebody that's already done this role at that level. And so that was great and and.
Speaker 1:But then what happened was a bunch of agents. I was an. I was a, an agent that was building a team by just saying, hey, come join my team, I have leads, which is like the worst way to build a team. And so when we got, when we said goodbye to our one ops person and we had no ops of all the agents left, and so I was okay with that.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm not adding agents. I mean, one agent stayed, but I was like I'm not adding any agents until we actually have an ops team, because the ops team would then actually do what a team is supposed to do, which is leverage an agent so that they stay in their world, and then the ops are done by the ops people. So that took me like all of 2020 to build that out out. And then, um, spring of 2021 is when I started adding, slowly adding agents. But we follow a pretty intense hiring process for them too. We don't just add agents anymore. I used to be like, oh, you're a warm body, you want to come be on the team, but now it's like you have to earn the right not to be on the team because we put a lot of resources and time into this. So, um, but I I felt like I had to earn the right to be able to to do that, to bring more people into the war into our world.
Speaker 2:Gosh, I love all of this so much. Okay, how would you describe your leadership style now, or what? How? How would other people that are on your team describe how you lead?
Speaker 1:I think, that they would say that I'm vulnerable and I will admit when I'm wrong. I have a big vision. I'm like always doing what I can to keep us ahead of the path, like head of whatever's happening in the industry, and that I allow people to do, you know, whatever role it is that they're doing, um, and so that they're, they're able to be a leader and cultivate leadership within themselves and others, like that's what I really hope they would say, um, and then also that I can be a little reactive, with extreme emotional vigor which can be a little overwhelming.
Speaker 2:I love the honest diagnosis here. I think it probably takes some that you're leading it. For those who don't know, you have a very successful business. You've got a lot of revenue coming in. You've got a lot of sales. So, by the outside standards of how we measure success, it was that, it is that and you've turned it on its head or inside out.
Speaker 1:However, you want to look at it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to um, I'm not even going to call it devil's advocate, whatever you want to call it but I think that there are still a lot of people in leadership that feel really nervous about taking vulnerability to their leadership and would say that it exposes weakness. I think that's changing. You know, you've got Simon Sinek and you've got Brene Brown. You've got these people out there that are talking about it. There are still a lot of leaders that are keeping their personal life completely separate, that are hesitant to admit when they're wrong because they think it makes them less capable. Did you use to operate that way, or what would you say to people with that kind of way of thinking now?
Speaker 1:I definitely would keep personal separate, but and yet I would be operating from personal turmoil, so I would be like you know I would. But now that I can be transparent and be like hey, we just had our team advance on Monday, and there are multiple times when I was like casting a you know saying something, and also my brain just froze and I was like I don't remember what I was going to say. You know saying something, and also my brain just froze and I was like I don't remember what I was going to say. You know and and and. Then I was like I'm just been moving, my brain is scrambled.
Speaker 1:Plus, we're in this adoption process which has all these like pretty intense emotions, but they like I think, like I find that they respect me more because I'm real and, um, we do like a culture survey and I continually get the um, the feedback that I'm authentic and people want to follow somebody that's authentic and then that allows them to be authentic as well and and and ask for help. I think when you, as a leader, aren't vulnerable and you don't admit when you're wrong, then you're kind of creating a culture where people are afraid to ask for help, and then you have mistakes. And then you have people, just you.
Speaker 1:You lose people because they're afraid and so I'd rather have a culture where people are not afraid and that they're willing to look um, look bad in order to actually like grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's that Patrick Lencioni's five dysfunctions of the team. Have you read that? Um, and just the base level being trust and creating an environment where people can feel safe. Again, coming back to that idea of can I feel safe to use my voice to speak if I feel like this is a weird idea or I don't understand something, or or to share like they've got their own personal stuff happening and they might have a week where they're not super sharp and to be able to be human that week and go, I might need to take a few days. I'm moving or I'm going to be just not as sharp today, so don't put me in front of a crowd or whatever it might be. Yeah, that's really great, Um, when you hire and you're bringing people on your team now you said you've got a rigorous process. What are you looking for in people that you want to work with?
Speaker 1:Definitely looking for grit, because real estate is a tough business and you have to be willing to, um, take a lot of no's and deal with a lot of really interesting situations and not take things personally. Um, and then humble and like the, willing to be, like you're coachable and you are growth minded. One of our questions for our screening, when we do a screening call, is like what's the last book you've read, or podcast and podcasts you've listened to, and I've had people be like, oh, I don't read, and I'm like, okay, great. And so like they don't move on because we're, we read, we read on our team, we do a book club, everybody reads. And basically, by telling me you don't read or you don't listen to podcasts, you're not actively engaged in growing or learning, because both of those tools are two tools to continually grow and learn. And then, sorry, what was?
Speaker 2:what do we do? What are you looking?
Speaker 1:for when you're hiring Coachable people, growth-minded people, humble people and then people that truly see that when working on a team and working with a team, they'll achieve more, and so they want to be part of a team and they want to collaborate and they want to be in that type of system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, congratulations on. That is a lot of work. It's a lot of inner work, it's a lot of external work to tear down your business and rebuild it, so that's really admirable. Um, one thing that I want to. So we talked about some of the challenges you faced, and one of them being your health. When we chatted last time, you also shared a little bit about your financial journey, and I think that could be. It was really illuminating for me personally. I know that I am on a journey I probably, hopefully, will ever be on a journey but would you be willing to talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally forgot that as a challenge. Yeah, it was a huge one. So around the same time as the Lyme disease we were in so much debt we had made a really poor first home purchase. My husband had gotten into real estate first and he went from a commission job to that commission job. I was teaching and farming and I had to. I got Lyme disease and I had to like just couldn't work. So first being new in real estate for him and then me not working, we were just we're not making and we were happy we had the farm.
Speaker 1:But I mean what? Farming is not a lucrative endeavor unless you're doing some I don't know a very large farm, um, so so we just had this like actually a basket in the corner of the house where all the bills were going, and we got into $75,000 of credit card debt. Our net worth was like negative 250. Um, and so we ended up getting out of our house situation at the time and he had gotten me into real estate and I went kicking, screaming into real estate. I thought it was something other than it was and then, when I realized it was like a platform for all my visions of how the world could be a better place. I got hooked and so we were grinding it out in real estate to get out of this big debt and, through that, learned about the snowball effect, like paying off the highest interest or the smallest debt. First, a family member had given us a $10,000 loan at a 10% interest rate and, like you know, in 2014, that was a high interest rate, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now 10% seems pretty normal, I guess, because seven and a half is like a normal rate. But so we were just really stretched and then we were able to sell our house at a profit and we had a bunch of closings in one month that we were able to wipe out the credit card debt. But then we had this IRS debt for up until 2017. And so we had to really scale our life down to pay for these past decisions, and I we both looked at this situation. We had to really scale our life down to pay for these past decisions and we both looked at this situation. We had gotten ourselves in as like it's unfortunate that we had this health issues and we made these career changes and we were being advised maybe you know, foreclose and bankrupt, to just wipe it because we're going to start to make all this money in real estate. And we said, no, we can't do that. My dad had been bankrupt and foreclosed multiple times. Mike's dad had similar kind of fortune. Like this is not our story and for me, from like a authentic place, like I can't advise people in their greatest asset transfer If I just wipe out all this debt.
Speaker 1:Whether or not we were victims or whatever, we still made choices that got us here, so we have to do whatever we need to do to get out of that situation. So we just got small. We ended up buying a two family which up until two weeks ago we lived in one car and just lived a small, small life footprint. As we built our businesses and then our extra income, which I think a lot of people might have upped their lifestyle. We just started buying investment properties so that we could offset our mortgage by our tenants income, and so that's another reason why we've been able to live in Barbados in the winters, because we leveraged our real estate to null out our living expenses. Um, so yeah, and we've just made wealth and educating ourselves on finance and money and, um, we made that a priority of education because we both did not know what we were doing and we never wanted to get. We never wanted to get again into a place where our dollar we're earning today is for the past versus like for the future.
Speaker 2:There's so much like I have a piece of paper in front of me, I'm taking all these notes that I just am like, okay, a, she's a woman that takes extreme responsibility in her life, she's not a victim Like just to have these aren't small things, to have that mindset, to decide that I am in control and and I think there is a place, like you're, you're right, like some people in that situation were being ill advised. You know there are all kinds of stories, but for you to no matter what, choose that I'm not a victim in this. I'm going to take control of what I can take control of. And, by the way, this wasn't that long ago like 2017, you said is when you bought your duplexplex.
Speaker 1:Well, we bought our two family in May 2016. And then, in the fall of 2017, we were able to pay off the IRS debt. Like we were able to buy the two family and then saved all this money and just paid it off. And now we pay quarterly. And my books actually my bookkeeper thinks like we're models. You know models how to do things.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I made it like the core of like, if I'm building a business, I have to run it like a business and yeah, so a lot of work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to like break that down for listeners. So you buy this two unit home. You have the other side pay for your mortgage, so you have renters paying for your mortgage. Effectively, you're using the extra money. You're paying down debt, you're saving up money. You're buying real estate properties that are a positive cashflow, so you have renters in them and that extra money is either paying down debt until that's paid off and then buying, or at that point just buying more, at that point, just buying more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're just buying more and we didn't even like.
Speaker 2:People don't really know you are living in Barbados half of the year. Like you, have built this wildly magical life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I I'm really grateful I think so much has come from. I know you. I think we were connected through Keller Williams. Like a lot of the leadership and the models that I'm following have come from the people within the company that have paved the pathway, like similar stories, and I mean I always just hear Gary started KWRI in an office with folding tables and my office looked like that up until, uh, I don't know like a year ago. Yeah, because I just was like I don't, who cares about the office. We're out in the field, nobody like it's, nobody's coming into our little office. I mean the market center has, I think, these are such important things.
Speaker 2:These are such important things for people to understand Like we can keep up with the Joneses and all of these different ways and all it's doing is tether it's. It's a ball and chain. It is absolutely just a weight to us until we're able to, like you said, pay for things that we've already. We've already got an abundance of flow in money financially and now we can start. I'm in the middle of that in my life right now. I'm selling my house, I am scaling my life back again so that I can get ahead and that it's not um a sexy move, you know, and it to some people. They're like, you're doing your, what you're selling, you're getting an old car. Why, you know? Like because I'm deciding and I don't mean this to put myself on a pedestal. It's not an easy decision, but I'm deciding what my priorities are right now.
Speaker 1:You know and what is that?
Speaker 2:But, like you, I didn't grow up financially literate and one of the challenges that I've faced is to be to say what you just said, which is like I don't know what I'm doing. And until I got into the real estate world, I wasn't really around people that were making that kind of money or that were financially literate. So I just have had to be a learner and just start figuring it out, Cause no one's responsible for that.
Speaker 1:But no, no and like. And then I also like I mean I don't know about you, but like I had a lot of misconceptions about money being a thing that was good or bad. And I thought money was so bad I wanted nothing to do with money and therefore I was able to put all the things that had to do with money in a basket in the corner of the house and ignore it. Like that was just not a healthy response to some programming around money. And so then when I like learned this idea like money isn't good or bad, it actually just reflects your character.
Speaker 1:So you are a great person and you get money, you do great things. When you're a bad person with bad character and you do bad, like you get money and you do bad things, it's not the money, it's just like amplifying who you are. And I was like well, I want to be somebody that's great and is able to like have money and give money to do good Like so what can I do to keep earning money so I can help, versus earning money to pay debt?
Speaker 2:That's so big Money is a magnifier, I mean at the end of the day and that's really beautiful, one of the magnifier, I mean at the end of the day, and that's really beautiful. One of the things I just recently was reading about or hearing somewhere, I don't know where, but, um, this idea that money doesn't, it's it because it's not good or bad. There's another aspect of money that I've felt, sort of subconsciously probably, that money has power. But to to know that money inherently doesn't have power over and I don't need to have power over it. And coming back to kind of this idea of being open, like, okay, what if I don't have constriction and tension around money, just the way, I don't need to have constriction and tension around love or anger or anything, what if I really have an openness towards money Because it is just, it flows like energy?
Speaker 1:versus this idea that, yeah, isn't that wild, I know, and it's like infinite. So it's like you're never going to have enough Like, so why are you going after? So like, like it's not, yeah, and like. It's also this idea that it's a renewable resource, like, but time is not, and so and your relationships are not. So what like making sure that the value you're putting on money isn't greater than the value of yourself and the people you love?
Speaker 2:and the people you love. So time is not infinite. Um, and we're coming back to this idea of play and relationship. Obviously, surfing has been a part of that. I think we had started, we, we went on a fun, so many fun tangents. But I do want to come back to that because it's been integral in your relaxation and I think there are so many people where play is really foreign and they're like I don't even know what I would do. I think the first how do you start that journey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would go for a walk because the stress cycle, like all emotions, are chemical. You know chemical reactions that run on 90-second circuits in your body and when you have stress it will keep running until you release it and repetitive activity like laughter or cycling or walking or running, hiking, whatever, like repetitive motion, releases it. So go on a walk until you feel your state change. To walk until you feel your state change, cause I, I know I will say since Friday I've not gone in an hour walk every day, just because I'm moving and like pack, like my prep, my time has been a little bit jumbled, but, like on those walks, I will feel my energy change and then I'll be like I feel human again and then that happens with whatever play you want to do.
Speaker 1:But I do think you can start to feel it. You can feel the physical changes in that repetitive low pressure activity and then it will be like where else can I add this in? That's maybe engaging with somebody else or whatever. Again, I don't even play in game and having laughter like that is also play. Been playing game and having laughter like that is also play. Um, just, but I think and it sounds so simple.
Speaker 2:But go on a walk until you feel your state change. I love the simplicity of that. We can overcomplicate it and I I think it sounds to me like a couple of things like hey, it's so intriguing to me that your fear was where you have found your greatest play. I just think that's so intriguing me, that your fear was where you have found your greatest play. I just think that's so intriguing. And I think the other thing is that, like you go on the walk and it may be the walk that ignites a thought, or that you notice something.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'm walking around the lake and what if I got a paddleboard? Or again, just this idea that we don't we're so accustomed to thinking with the end in mind, just this idea that we don't we're so accustomed to thinking with the end in mind. And and I don't want to speak for all of humanity and saying that, but I think it's really common we think with the end in mind, we're looking for the goal, we're thinking very linearly instead of being like, let me just have this be an adventure and let this evolve and see kind of what shows up for me, and do one thing at a time, and that's how surfing I mean surfing is a big part of your life and it didn't. It wasn't like I'm going to be a surfer. It started with, like you were just following.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like these people are, like all these people that I think are kind of cool, are all surfing and if I want to hang out with them, I got to go figure out how to surf and then, and then I was like angry and frustrated for so long but I was like they're all having fun, Like there's going to be a point where this is fun for me.
Speaker 2:I will get there, Um, but I I have to feel the challenges of it first and I think yeah, okay, one one last thing I'd like to touch on or maybe not touch on to hear you speak about you. You've built this beautiful life. We've talked about your challenges. It's not easy to work through them, and you used the word resilience last time we talked, and I'd just love to hear you speak about what resilience means to you. Yeah, if you could speak to that a little bit.
Speaker 1:There's like a resilience is like when you have a setback, you you still can bounce back up and maybe even bounce further than where you fell. But I think if you're not resilient, you fall and you break and you give up. And so for me is resiliency is like am I living a life that, if I have a setback, it doesn't? It doesn't just knock me out. Like I can, I'll heal and I'll move forward and I'll get past where I've ever been before.
Speaker 2:How do you think you adopted that mindset or that way of being? Have you always been that way?
Speaker 1:Me, I don't know if I think so, yeah, in various ways, um, I think for so long I was just like um, I was a driven person just driving forcefully through, and then I'd have this burnout windows where I just crashed and and I thought that was really like, uh, I was proud of that, like, oh, I'm S, I can just go so hard, and so then, so no, I don't think I was always this way, I think then I realized like running and burning so hard and then burning out isn't going to lead me to net, not ever want to move forward. So what can I do? That I'm like an E, like a burn that's sustainable and resilient, and if I do have a setback, I'm not out and not wanting to move forward. So no, I have not always been this way, because I've just been extremely driven until I crash and burn.
Speaker 2:And so, bringing in all the components we've talked about, the inner healing, the fitness, the play that has, what's allowed you is that, like a summary of that's what's allowed you to have a slow, sustainable burn.
Speaker 1:Yes and and prioritizing self-care, like I put it on my calendar. I don't let anything get in the way, and that's what actually I would say. Another thing that people on my team will say is that Ryan is always putting emphasis that I take my personal life and my family and my whatever it is that brings me joy I may get a priority, because I think in our business it's so easy to say yes to everybody else and then all of a sudden you're burnt out. So I just think it's really important that we put ourselves first, put your oxygen mask on, and there's this idea in permaculture like zone zero.
Speaker 1:You're designed for zone zero, which is what you're going to, and that's you. And then zone one is like what you're touching all the time, but like if you're not, if you're not whole, if you're not healthy, like doesn't nothing else matters.
Speaker 2:That's so good. Okay, I want to end with a few rapid fire questions, and I did this on my last episode. I just love these questions. I I'm going to give the disclaimer I got them from an Oprah podcast. They're not my. This is not my idea, okay, so you could just finish these sentences, I believe, um.
Speaker 1:I believe that's a girl, I believe. I believe I live in a state of miracles.
Speaker 2:I can't move on from that one right. You have to tell me what that means to you. I can't do the next rapid fire. You have to tell me what that means.
Speaker 1:So I like I'm in this instead of like life happens for me, not to me, and like I want, I believe that, like I, when I move forward, like the possible can happen, and instead of that fear, like and this is all like aspirational as well, because I definitely have these moments of like wanting to take control and stress out and constrict, but I just really want to I believe that, like when we step into it like wonderful things are going to happen Okay, good, I needed that like when we step into it like wonderful things are going to happen.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, I needed that, Thank you. I would like to thank.
Speaker 1:Cheerleader support system and I don't think I'd be able to do all the healing that I've done without his like belief in me. The world needs more love and compassion, yeah, and kindness.
Speaker 2:I feel that. Thank you for being an example of that. Thank you for using your voice and being open today and sharing your heart. It is such a gift.
Speaker 1:Thanks for giving me a space to do so and feel safe to do so.
Speaker 2:All right Cheers. Thank you, hey you, yes you. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope this episode is supporting you on your path to becoming the strongest, shiniest version of you. My goal and hope is to continue helping people through this podcast. So if you've enjoyed this episode or taken anything that's helped you out, the best thank you would be to join me in moving this forward by doing two simple things. If you haven't already, following the podcast is very helpful. Also, apparently, the algorithms really like reviews. If you can take a minute to leave a review, artificial intelligence would love it and I would be so grateful. Feel free, of course, to share an episode with someone you think may need to hear what you heard today. Thanks again, everyone. I genuinely appreciate you and I'm so thankful to be building a community like this together here. I genuinely appreciate you and I'm so thankful to be building a community like this together here. I'll catch you later. In the meantime, have a banging day.