LIVE TODAY on Wednesday, October 4th at 12:00 pm (CST)! Listen to another episode of the Exit Rich podcast as our special guest, Janice Jimenez gives golden nuggets for achieving success and living your best life. Janice is an International Bestselling Author for the collaboration book Transforming Pain Into Purpose. Janice shares how her naivety cost her as she began her journey in real estate, and how it pushed her to learn the ropes. From the mistakes made starting her real estate journey to her calculated risks and involvement in the Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce, Janice takes us through how she transforms her pain into purpose. So, let’s explore this episode and be inspired by Janice’s journey to living her best life.

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Live Your Best Life: Gold Nuggets For Achieving Success In Real Estate With Janice Jimenez

I love to thank all of our audience for reading another episode. It’s going to be an exciting episode as all of them have been. Whoever asks questions, whoever makes comments, as always, I’ll give away three chapters of my book Exit Rich. Make sure you read, ask those questions, and participate. We love audience participation. We’re going to welcome Janice Jimenez. Janice founded the Regal Real Estate brand and the Regal Group of Companies, which has grown into driving businesses.

She also established a White DOVE Foundation to support victims of domestic violence and oppression. She’s an author, speaker, and business and life coach to inspire others to pursue their dreams. Janice is known as The Real Estate Gal and has a popular YouTube channel. She’s been featured on local TV in Los Angeles and has received numerous awards for her achievements including Businesswoman of the Year, Producer of the Year, Woman of Worth, and California Woman of the Year. Janice, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Michelle. I’m so excited. It’s been a stressful yet exciting time for us. We’re getting ready for our R3-23, in which you will be one of our keynote speakers.

We want to talk about the event. First, before we do, let’s get to know Janice. Please tell us what you were like as a little girl. What’s your story?

I am the ultimate overachiever.

You’re a nurse. You’re in insurance, real estate, and finance.

I write songs and books. I’m also in the business world. I’ve done a lot of volunteer work. I’m in community leadership programs. I’m on boards of different organizations. I’m ADHD here.

Let’s talk about what you were like as a little girl. What’s your story?

I came from Bacolod City, Philippines. I was born and raised there. I came here when I was seventeen, fresh out of high school, and didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that America was the land of milk and honey. I didn’t know what that meant because I’d never seen honey in my life before I got here. You hear stories about streets paved with gold, money in the streets, and all kinds of stuff, and then you come here and you have a harsh reality that you got to vent for yourself, do everything yourself, and find your way because nobody is going to hand it to you in a silver platter.

Money doesn’t go on trees in the United States. You got to grow your own trees.

All in all, it’s been a challenging lifetime, but it’s also a lot of learning. You pick everything up as you go along and consider them as blessings because, in my mind, God is preparing us for something much greater than what we have and what we’re seeing now. It’s always welcoming for me although, at the time being, when you are facing challenges, it’s hard for you to see through the fog and darkness. I’ve always walked with faith. That’s one thing that kept me going all these years.

For our audience, what’s your story?

You all heard about me being an immigrant. I came over here and didn’t know what to do. I went with the road of least resistance, which everyone knows that nurses are usually Filipinas, so I went that route.

What’s your story when you were in the Philippines?

My parents worked abroad. I lived with a driver and a babysitter essentially in the Philippines. I basically raised myself with their help and a community of friends and relatives that are living around me. I see my parents twice a year when they come on vacation for two weeks at a time every six months. That’s my story. Those moments where I need parenting, a hug, and all that attention, I put it into meaningful things such as doing outreaches and helping other families. I even did my own business when I was a little girl.

I started when I was in sixth grade. I’m selling popcorn and peanuts while showing a movie in my garage, so it was always been an entrepreneur mindset. We started doing business of transportation there. We have jeepneys. Those are the little cars that could seat twelve people at a time. We established a line of those back home for the home business. My mom also had a business of bringing in imported products such as chocolates, wines, and all that.

We’re going to fast forward a little bit because we have an hour. You come to the United States to get into nursing because you thought it was the quickest path. Go ahead.

It was not enough. I said, “This is not going to be my lifetime story. What am I going to do? Work and then get a paycheck.” How am I going to change the trajectory of my life and my family as well? I don’t want to leave this world without having to give them something or have a legacy. I started searching for businesses that could fit my lifestyle, talents, and skills. It took a long time. I did everything from MLM or Multilevel Marketing. I did sales. I sold phone cards. I went into the communications and recording studio. We had cell phone shops. I had a merchandise store. All of that I tried and not until real estate found me.

It found you. You didn’t find real estate. Tell me that story real quick.

It was a moment wherein we were ready to get a bigger home because I had a child. It was time to move up a little bit. What happened was I found somebody who I thought I could trust who’s a real estate broker, and then I said, “You can sell my home while I’m waiting for my home to be built because I bought a brand new home.” She said, “I can do that. By the way, you have to leave your house so I can sell your house. If you want to, you can rent my apartment. It’s a few blocks down the street while you’re waiting for your home to be built.” Mind you, there will be about 5 to 6 months for my home to be built and I did not know that I could stay in my home while she was selling it. There were a lot of other ways to do it.

Of course, you can stay at home while it is being built.

I did not know that. I was so naive at that time. I was paying two mortgages, my home and her apartments, and it was about four levels up with no elevator. I had a newborn baby. I had to carry up and down the stairs and come to find out that her brother was living in my house while she was selling it.

You decided to say, “I can do this much better than she did.”

Not only that. I could always have reported her easily to the Department of Real Estate because that was not right.

She has a brother living there. You’re renting her place while she’s selling it.

When you’re naïve, it costs you, but then I said, “What can I do so that this doesn’t happen to all the people?” That’s when I realized I was going to go study real estate while I was still being a nurse at that time, and then it snowballed from there. My friends, family, co-nurses, and co-workers were able to trust me to do that. I said, “This comes from sincerity because I don’t want you to have a very bad experience.” I found out I was good at it. I started getting awards, trips, and all that stuff from my office. Two years later, I realized that I didn’t need a broker. I can do things myself and I can do this a lot better than what I’m doing, then I became a broker at that time on top of I’m going to a divorce and all that things going on in my life. There was a big U-turn during that time.

Tell us a little bit about Regal. I know it’s financial services, but tell us about Regal. Is Regal commercial or residential? Is it both or as a real estate development? Tell us a little bit about it.

Regal Real Estate and Financial Services is a full house service within the real estate industry. What happens is I want to be able to be different and found out from every other broker company out there. I don’t want to take care of you as a buyer-seller, and then after a transaction, “We’re done. See you later.” I don’t want to be like that. I want to be able to take care of them from start to finish and generations thereafter.

I’m also licensed in insurance and life, asset management, and wealth management. What happens is you come to our company in our office and then we make sure that you’re taken care of even after the sale or purchase of your home. We want to make sure you’re covered and insured. We want to make sure that you’re starting your wealth-building process at that time.

You sell insurance and you’re also a financial advisor.

Yes.

That piece I did not know. You save the proceeds from the sell and help them build wealth.

Yes, because I feel that it’s something that’s missing. A lot of people buy and lose their homes because they’re not looking into 3, 5, or 10 years down the line. The client asks for our services and says, “Can we do our estate planning from here moving forward?” You can start with one home and then you can build from there. That’s how I started. Also, we do construction. We have construction services. Now we’ve moved into multifamily as well.

We started syndicating multifamilies and we work with builders. There are a lot of different facets of real estate that we work. I’m also a banker, meaning we have an in-house lending service. Me being able to look after all the facets of the real estate transaction, I’m able to control things and make sure that it’s, as much as possible, seamless to the buyer and the seller and everybody involved as possible.

Were you specializing in residential?

I did residential in the past years. Now we’re doing commercial.

How many agents do you have?

We are a boutique shop. We have about 18 real estate agents and 4 loan officers. We service California and Nevada. We have two offices.

You’re actively involved in the community. Also, you do a lot of charitable work. In fact, you and I met at a charitable event. I’m in Pittsburgh. I think we met before that. We just reunited. How has your community involvement contributed to your success in real estate entrepreneurship?

I started being involved in the Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce several years ago. That was when I enjoyed doing community service. Back home in the Philippines, as I said, I was already doing that and it rekindled my love for community service. I joined the Filipino-American Chamber of Commerce of the South Bay Los Angeles area, which is around where I live. We reignited the community into doing a lot of activities that involve families and communities, bringing them together, and most especially, helping them with their entrepreneurs and small businesses. We offer a lot of help when it comes to resources and funding, especially during our COVID time to the small businesses and entrepreneurs in our area.

Is this called a business association in a real estate community?

No. It’s all kinds of businesses that are members of the Philippine American Chambers of Commerce. A few years ago, we made that even bigger. Phil-Am Chambers of Commerce in the South Bay had formed a coalition of Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce, and that stretches out to the entire America. We’re 36 Chambers strong now. We founded that.

You founded that.

We co-founded it. There are twelve of us who co-founded that. We pull out resources together. I can’t take all the credit where most of us have done more than the others, but it has been collaborative work. Again, no one is an island. You need a community to be able to do bigger things.

You were over eighteen years in the real estate industry.

Twenty in 2024.

You must have seen all the market trends. You saw the 2008, 2009, what happened during COVID, and what’s happening now with the higher interest rate. What are some of the most significant changes and challenges you’ve observed and how do you handle your business strategies accordingly? You have to adapt.

You have to make yourself resilient one way or another. If you want to be in business for a long time, no matter what kind of business you’re in, you have to be adaptable and resilient in times and be ready. You can’t say, “I’ll cross the beach when I get there.” That does not apply when it comes to business. I have to be honest. I have failed a lot. I’ve made mistakes along the way. I did not have a mentor earlier on in my career. All of that is trial and error. I was like, “I’m going to try this one and save that work. Let’s try this one and see if that works.” On top of that, you have to make sure that you’re taking care of your clientele.

That’s first and foremost for me because they’re the ones who got me going through the rest of the time during the challenges, the heydays, and the maydays. I’ve always had a stream of referrals from my clients and I love them dearly. The list keeps growing. No matter how much marketing you do, nothing tops referrals from your happy clientele. If you come from a place of service, money will follow you and you become resilient. Learn from the mistakes that you made. Don’t repeat that because then that’s going to be insanity. You need to learn from them and move on.

You packed a lot of go-to nuggets in there. Let’s unpack a couple of those real quick. What was your biggest lesson on failures?

The lesson on failures is to be quick in making decisions and be accountable for them. When you decide and do that, do it and be accountable. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, pick up the biggest lesson you get from there, move on, and don’t do that again. That’s it.

Fall forward. Don’t fall backward.

There are a lot of questions on the field there.

There was something else you said that I thought was pretty important and now flew out of my head.

It’s mentorship.

Talk about mentorship.

I only started learning about mentorship later on in my class five years of my career, and that increased the trajectory of my business because I now know how to focus. You know who you model yourself to and then you get yourself focused. It’s like the saying you throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. Don’t do that in a business if you want to have resiliency and longevity and if you want to exit rich.

You’re reading my book.

I really enjoy that. I’m telling you, my eyebrows were all over the place when I was reading. I was like, “No matter how I think I’m knowledgeable in this field, I still don’t know much.” That’s also one thing that I would like for everybody to know. If you think you know everything, you don’t.

You have to align yourself with the mentor but not just any mentor. I’ve met so many mentors to speak from the stage. There are a lot of great speakers out there who do what they said they were going to do, but there are a lot of foxes in sheep’s clothing, lions and tigers, or whatever you want to call them that completely will rip you off. Make sure you find the right mentors. When in doubt, check them out. Do your due diligence. That’s triple D there. One of the things you said that I like is when you said don’t chase the money. Do what’s right for the client and deliver great value and service to the client.

There are so many people who chase the money, then they wonder why the money is not there. Focus on doing a great job in providing unique valuable service that people will tell other people that you have provided. There are a couple of questions here. Let’s get to a few of them. They ask this. “Real estate is a dynamic field with various niches. You yourself mention your involvement with commercial and residential. How did you decide which areas of real estate to focus on, and do you recommend specialization for new entrepreneurs?” They’re thinking about getting into real estate.

That’s a lot of questions there. They’ve chunked it out there. One at a time. Involvement in commercial residential, as I said earlier, the first fifteen years is all residential for me. I know that in the back of my head, I can do that one sleeping. That’s because of the experiences. That’s because I seem to get all the hardest transactions at that time because everybody else that’s easy will go to the commercial. You call their bank, the institutions, the rocket mortgage, and all of that stuff. They will call the 800 number.

Once they find out that these people cannot do it and that they need extra love and attention to make a transaction happen, they find me. That’s what got the ball rolling because they know that once I handle their transaction, they’re not just going to be a number. I myself would be on top of that and make sure that if there are any problems, we can foresee them before we get there. The only thing I ask for is to please tell me everything. Don’t give me little pieces and then find out that you have a secret that you would hold that can ruin the entire transaction.

I sell companies. I’ve always said, “Buyers are liars so don’t tell the truth.” I always tell my sellers, “Tell me to good, the bad, and the ugly because you’re never returning. I’m your get-out-of-jail-free card.” The same thing with buyers. Especially sellers, they hide a lot of skeletons and don’t want to disclose it. The buyers do, too, of course, but that’s the number one challenge for real estate agents, brokers, developers, investors, and M&A advisors. Tell us the truth.

People think that once they call these big companies, they can get away with that. No, it will come up. The best thing is that be honest with everything right up front. Before we do any transaction, we prequalify you. When we say prequalify you, we get to every little thing that could potentially harm the transaction if we can fix that.

I’ll tell you, “You’re not ready right now. Maybe in six months. Let’s do this first. Let’s fix your credit first. Let’s build your down payment first. Let’s look at what needs to happen and what needs to be in your bank account. Where are you supposed to deposit things? Don’t buy this stuff.” These things are very important. You have to be knowledgeable about the stuff that you want to be in. That answers the specialization thing. You have to know how to do this before you venture into something else.

I agree 1,000%. If somebody tries to get into a commercial and residential at the same time, it’s a disaster waiting to happen because they are two different animals. The way you do with residential clients and residential real estate is completely opposite of commercial and commercial clients. We did it the right way, Janice, because you focused on residential. You get your feet on the ground. Now you have learned. As you said, you do not know anything. Not quite a bit. Now you ventured into commercial. I always tell people these to real estate agents and developers. This goes for all entrepreneurs. You can never provide your business if you only have one profit.

That’s one way that you get paid because if there’s going to be a huge shutdown in real estate like there was that bubble in 2008 and 2009, that might be shutting down residential and commercial. Now she’s got an insurance company and a financial advisory company. She’s growing her profit centers for her revenue streams, but she’s doing it smart because she’s doing it congruently. A lot of people say, “I went to real estate. Let me go open up a restaurant.” What is strategic about that? She’s doing it the right way. I say to get a picture into the real estate, pick your poison in the beginning.

Stick to that poison for a while before you have even drawn. It’s like me. I’ve always wanted to get into real estate investment, flipping, and all that stuff. I’m like, “I got time now and I need an expert to do that for me. I’m going to look for somebody like Janice and real estate investors that know what they’re doing.” I’m going to ask why entrepreneurship often involves taking calculated risks. Can you share a specific instance where you took a significant risk in your real estate business and how it turned out?

Live Your Best Life: Every phase in your life, you will need a different type of real estate over your head.

I got plenty. We’re not going to go into the fail part. I guess you can.

For me, failure is not a failure unless you decide to quit and it’s permanent. Failure is not permanent. It’s a lesson forward. Go ahead if you want to take that question.

I do. This was in the last couple of years where there’s COVID and all that stuff. In the first part of that, everybody wanted to buy, and then everybody didn’t want to buy. As people started not buying because of the rising interest rate and the fear of the pandemic and things like that, that’s when I got out and bought stuff. In fact, if I have to be completely honest, this was against the advice of my husband. He’s very calculative and listens to the noise of the internet. I look at him straight in the eye and I told him, “Who do you listen to? I’m the Real Estate Gal. I’m right here in front of you. Why are you listening to the internet?” I bought properties.

Now that there’s a slowdown in the sales of real estate nationwide, I am getting residuals and passive income from the rentals of the properties that I’ve bought over that time when everybody was fearful of buying. I’m still buying at this moment in time. In fact, in my mind, it is a risk because I’ve never had a partner before, but I took on a bigger risk of taking on a partner who I trusted and worked on for several years. That’s another facet of the real estate industry that we’ve started. It’s the real acquisitions. That’s the syndications and the multifamily investing that we started together. He’s seen my potential and I’ve seen his potential so we put our strengths together. That’s one of the risks that I took, but I don’t think that it’s a risk.

It’s a calculated risk because I know that we both have our own strengths to put together in this business. We’ve already started the ball rolling. Part of that is purchasing properties. We’ve got a couple of things in escrow. We already bought a 382-unit in Texas. Now we also have this R3-23 event that we’re doing together to spruce up the entire community of real estate. It’s not just us. We both right to be in the service industry where we want to give this opportunity to homeowners, investors, newbies, real estate agents, and everybody who’s thinking of dwelling in real estate for their wealth plan to come out there, explore what they can do for themselves, and how we can help.

We’re going to talk more about the event. Let’s unpack a couple of those quickly. Number one was, “I didn’t get scared. I didn’t panic. I started to buy when everybody stopped buying even though my husband told me that noise. I didn’t listen to him and I continue to buy.” That’s another thing. There are so many opportunities out there when the interest rate rises. You can’t get financing. There’s a bubble, this, and that in the economy. With all the issues that we’ve been facing over the last decades, there are always opportunities to turn that into gold. It is a season of opportunity get a great purchase and then grow wealth through that.

There are more millionaires and billionaires born out of the Great Depression than ever before and the same thing in the 2008 and 2009 debacle. Even in COVID, people see opportunities. When others get panicked, you and others are panicked, you take action and risk but take calculator risks. That was huge. You said something about partnering with somebody. Here’s what I have to say when you partner. Do your due diligence, the triple D, and make sure you set your corporate paperwork. Make sure you have that operating agreement and paper it very well. Emily asked this. What role has networking played in your success as a real estate entrepreneur and do you have any tips for building and maintaining a strong professional network?

You touch a significant string there because I mentioned earlier that about a few years ago, I joined the Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce. I was not a part of any big organizations in the past except this one. It became my baby. I helped make this organization bigger and give it the best capacity. In return, the community was able to find me. They were able to learn about what I do as a service. Giving service begets getting that trust from the community because they know they can find me and I’m a good resource. From then on, I was known as the Self-based Go-To Girl because people came to me with questions like, “Who do I go to for this? Who do I do that? What do I do here?” I didn’t know all the answers, but I knew where to get those resources from.

I’m like, “You go see this person. I’m going to connect you to this person.” That was how networking helped me because people now come to me for that and they remember that. When the time that they need my services, they remember me because I was able to give them service at some point in time. When you do networking, it’s not like you’re giving people your business card and rubbing it in their faces. It’s, “How can I help you? How can I serve you?”

You lead with that.

Yes. Now they remember you and you’re giving value to them. It’s not taking. It’s the giving that gets you to what you want to be when you do networking. Take off that “it’s me” thing when you do networking. It’s about how can I serve you when you do networking. That’s been the greatest impact that networking and community services have had in my life. Thank goodness for the Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce. I love you for that. Thank God for the coalition of the Filipino-American Chambers of Commerce.

We have quite a few audiences from the Philippines. Hopefully, they’re reading now. You said another golden nugget and you don’t even know it. You said you don’t know everything but you’ll find out. How many acts tell you they know everything? Run forest run. I like that too because that’s what I do when I’m networking. I don’t know all the answers. I don’t know everything. I don’t know how you do this and get that. What I do know is I have a huge network that I can go to and that answers are in your network. It’s always in your network because of your net worth. They’ve asked how important is marketing research and analysis in the real estate industry and what strategies you use to inform about market trends and opportunities.

There are always going to be resources everywhere. Find the one that’s reputable and then be on top of things. I’m always going to be at conferences for real estate, lending, and market trends. I’m going to be in there. I’m going to be talking to the top people who know what they’re doing. I’m listening to podcasts of people who are doing this as their daily work, not just be they’re podcasting because of somebody else’s piece of information. If you are actively involved in the market in the industry, this information will come to you because you’re out there.

I don’t need to research what the market rate is now for the interest rate, home loans, FHA, and all that because every day, I get that information fed to me by my partner lending companies. However, there are also ways to get you informed wherein you subscribe to different publications that are reputable publications. I read a lot. I’m a nerd, Michelle. I have to be reading something. Thank God, it’s not Facebook all the time.

You’re not going to become well-educated reading Facebook. Half of it is a lot.

As I said, I’m a nerd. I’m hungry for information. Those mentors in the field that you’re in is very vital. You have constant communication with them and constant conversations with the people that you work with and are doing well in your industry. There are only 24 hours in the day. I can’t lie. I wish I could do more but that’s one thing that every human being has in common.

You’ve done plenty of real estate, broker, commercial, residential, and finance. You’re a nurse, have events, and hosting events. Also, an author and speaker. I’ll ask this. In terms of entrepreneurship, what do you believe or the key factors that contribute to long-term success in the real estate business?

Is this where I dropped my 5Gs?

Not those 5G’s. It’s a P&G party.

It’s not the 5G of the cell service. This is nineteen years of me being in this business and entrepreneurship, even being in the workforce because I am a licensed RN, Registered Nurse.

You have a lot of licenses.

As I said, I’m hungry for information and I’m a nerd. I’m so sorry, but I’m myself.

You have fun nerd.

I’d like to think I’m a sexy nerd. Wait until I get my glasses on then I’m your sexy librarian. Anyway, I could be fun. You know that. When we were together, we had so much fun, Michelle. Here goes the 5G. Number one is the Growth Mindset. You have to come from a place where you are not afraid to learn, grow, change things, read, and mend yourself. You can’t go into a business and say, “This is me. I’m set in my ways and this is it.” You will fail. Number two is Grit. You got to have GRIT.

Live Your Best Life: You should have GRIT.

That’s my word, grit.

G is for Gut. You got to have the guts to do things. You cannot be afraid. R is for Resiliency. You got to be resilient. You’re going to be bent over backward.

How does R part of G?

No. The second G has the GRIT and I’m going to spell out the GRIT.

We got growth. We got gut. We got grit.

G for the GRIT is Guts. R for the GRIT is Resiliency. I for the GRIT is Intensity. You got to be focused and intense. The T is Tenacity.

Can you put it in a comment because I don’t see them?

G is for Guts. R is for Resiliency. I is for Intensity. T is for Tenacity.

I got grit. I got all that.

If you got GRIT, you’re on the right track.

You know me. You know I got grit.

You’re my sister in one way or another. Now we got to the third G, which is Gratitude. You always have to be grateful. Start a good day with thanks because it will set the tone for the rest of the day. No matter where you stand, you change your mindset to say, “I am thankful for what I have and what I’m going to have today because this is a beautiful day. I woke up today. I am thankful.”

We’re going to go back to number one, which is Growth Mindset. Number two was Grit. Number three is Gratitude.

Not only to be thankful to God but thankful to the people who have given you the opportunity to get where you are today. If you can thank them even your family and friends being there, you have to be thankful for that because that’s a blessing. Again, it takes up a village. It’s not just you. The fourth G is Giving. You got to be able to give what you receive. You can’t receive it with closed hands. You have to pay it forward. The last but the most important G in my opinion is God.

I love it. You have all this in a book.

Yes, I do. It’s not out yet. It’s called Faith It and You’ll Make It in one sentence. One of these questions here says, “What is my most important advice?” Faith it, not fake it. Do not fake it. People will smell a fake a mile away, but if you faith it, you will make it. It’s not a but, if, or when. You will make it but have faith in God and yourself.

I love those 5Gs. From Emily, what do you see as the future of the real estate industry, and how do entrepreneurs prepare for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead?

Real estate, ladies and gentlemen, is always going to be here. People will always need a roof over their heads. By the way, we don’t have enough room, not enough real estate space and land to house everybody because people keep making babies.

There are a lot of babies born in the pandemic.

The pandemic has brought on a new wave of babies.

You’re then going to have people who are empty nesters that want to downsize.

I know that. Every face in your life, you’re going to need a different type of real estate over your head. It’s not a secret anymore. If you go to Facebook, TikTok, and social media, everybody is into real estate. Everybody is flipping, buying multifamilies, and trying to get on board with that. What I always say to people is do not listen to the outside noise. It needs to be coming from you. When you’re ready, your stars will align right. For example, there’s a pandemic. They say that there’s an economic downturn. They say that it’s going to fail. All of this negativity will always be around you. That’s going to poison you and you’re never going to start if you listen. For example, you’re a newbie. You’re starting.

If you have a job that’s more than two years, an income that could possibly be enough for you to buy a house, good credit, a down payment, and good health because if you’re sick, I don’t recommend you do that. If you have the help to do it, that means that your stars align. You can do it now. The problem is you think you can do it tomorrow or the next year. If you get sick, lose your job, fail one payment, and drop that ever-precious credit score, you’re not going to be able to do it.

When you’re ready right now, take the plunge and the opportunity because tomorrow will not be the perfect time for you. Don’t listen to your neighbors say, “Don’t buy right now. I’m going to wait until this.” I had clients who had been waiting for the interest rate to drop or the housing prices to drop. Where are they now? They’re in the same spot they are and it’s now getting harder for them to even start doing what they wanted to do in the first place because they missed that boat. At that time when they were ready, they were not ready to take the plunge.

One of the best things that I can say is to get yourself a good agent and mortgage broker. Somebody who can look into your personal circumstances and situations if you’re stars aligned. When I say stars, all these things that make you qualify to do something right now. If you do that, take the plunge because, tomorrow or the next day you can get COVID, and you can’t buy a house. If you get sick, you lose your job, or you miss one payment on your credit card and your scores drop, you can’t buy a house. If you want to start, start now when you can.

Live Your Best Life: Get a good agent or broker who can look into your circumstances and situations.

Again, you impact some nuggets that you probably don’t know. One was not to listen to the outside opinions but also don’t listen to the thoughts in your head. A lot of times, we do listen to the outside opinions but what kills us more is all the thoughts in our head. That’s what hurt you from being the best that you can be for making great choices and decisions. That’s what hurt you from having a quality. What you need to do is get mentors who are in the industry that you’re trying to dive into and listen to their experience, not opinions. Also, beware of the buts, “I still have the time, but if I can pay this debt off or if I can get my husband on board.” Everybody’s got big buts. We got to get the buts out of the way as well.

As I said, number one is the growth mindset.

You do have to get out the negative voices in your head, not listen to everybody’s opinions, and get rid of your big but. I have one more question and then I want to get into your books and the event. Hayden asked this. Technology has transformed the real estate industry in recent years. What are some of the most significant technological advancements that have impacted your entrepreneurship in real estate?

If I may say it lightly, it hasn’t impacted my business that much because me being a service-involved person, I still need to be the one who’s talking to my client. What happens is the technology that helps me is we can do things faster with the age of us being able to do a lot of things online and the database and software that we have. The CRM, the Client Relationship Management System, is helpful for me. Having to be replaced by technology in taking care of my clients is a no-no for me.

For all of my clients, I still know each of their names, their families, and what’s going on with them if I can help it. You need to still be yourself. I still hate it when I call something or a company and I don’t get a person. Don’t be afraid of not jumping on the technology bandwagon or the AI bandwagon because, at the end of the day, what are we doing here? We’re helping people get a roof over their heads. This is one of the major primary needs of people. No technology can replace that.

I talked to someone and they said, “AI going to replace big time real estate business owner who has eight locations with $3.5 billion of revenue.” They keep saying AI is going to replace agents, and I’m like, “What do you think?” It’s like, “No way in the world.” I see the same thing with M&A advisors. It can enhance what we do to be more efficient and even more profitable.

The processes, yes, but not the service and the actual processes.

Look at all the companies that have tried. All those different companies that have tried have been unsuccessful. The last question from the audience is this. How do you adapt your business attitude during challenging times like recessions or market downturns?

We touched on that earlier. We have to be able to be ready for that. How many different avenues of income? Not just one. We will end up with that in detail.

We have a few more minutes here, and I know you’re heading to an event to speak.

I will be with the assembly member Mike Gibson of the 64th District.

Let’s talk a little bit about your books. Anything you want to talk about specifically?

My book, Transforming Pain Into Purpose, a collab book with the other amazing authors is still out on Amazon. It’s available for either purchase hard copy or download. These are inspiring stories of women who’ve encountered a lot of difficult traumatic experiences in their life and how they went through that. We didn’t touch on that in this interview, but that would be another positive me that a lot of people don’t know about. The only tidbit that I say is that whatever you’re going through now, if you are, you’re going to get through it and transform that energy into purpose.

Transforming Pain Into Purpose: Triumphant Tales of EmpowHERment

Don’t let that bother you, kill you, or destroy you. Embody and battle that power and energy into something that’s going to turn into purpose, and that’s what I did during those dark times in my life. That helped pull me out of that and brought me to a more beautiful place. All these things that you’re undergoing in your life are not about destroying you. As I said earlier, in all these experiences, you are being transformed and you’re being trained to do much bigger things than what you dream of and what you ever being able to see at that moment in time.

The biggest thing is mindset and then ask yourself, “Why is this happening for you and not to you?” That’s what Tony Robbins continues to say. Everybody gets stuck in the victim mentality, “That’s what happened to me.” If it’s limited for you, what are you doing?

I’m going to be putting together the 5G book. That’s sometime after this event. Hopefully, I get that together. Now, what’s keeping me busy is the R3-23 event. It’s the Rev Up Real Estate Rally, ladies and gentlemen. It’s 2023. It’s a biannual, meaning it happens twice a year, in October in Los Angeles and every April in Las Vegas. Miss Michelle Seiler Tucker is going to be a keynote speaker on both of them, which I’m so very excited to share with everybody. That’s October 13, 2023. I will see you, Michelle.

I’m so excited speaking to 800,000 people in LA and probably more in Vegas. Thank you for the opportunity. I’m so grateful for you.

We’ve put together great educational panels and speakers plus these expos. There are exhibitors from different facets of the real estate and the small business facets. We have ourselves because business happens, believe it or not, not in conference rooms. It happens over lunch, food, dancing, or when you’re having a good time because you’re getting to know who you are dealing with. You’re getting to know the person and who they are in actuality because how you do your regular things is how you do your life. If you take care of little details on your normal living and outside of your business, that’s what you do too on your business. You take care of the details and the little things.

People can still attend the events on October 13 and 14, 2023. I’m speaking on Friday the 13th.

That’s a good thing. That’s free. Can we emphasize free for everybody? Except for the salsa night. That’s private and you could upgrade your free tickets to join us at the salsa night.

How do they find out about the event?

Please go to Rev Up Real Estate Rally website. It’s www.RevUpRealEstateRally.com or the quickest way to do it is to text. Use your phone to text RevUp to 26786.

Live Your Best Life: You need to take care of the details to take care of the little things.

She’s got plenty of availability because I know you’re having a big place. Any last golden nuggets for entrepreneurs?

Just do it. I wasn’t paid to do that, but what happens is that people are always afraid to take that very first step. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step, so do it.

I agree because you can be in analysis paralysis. People analyze everything to the nth degree and then they’re paralyzed. They never take any action then they wonder why they’ve never grown themselves or a person in themselves as a company. Never go to the company beyond what you can go to the owner.

That’s very true.

You’ve been a wealth of information. Thank you so much. I know you get going. You better hurry up. You’re probably late. Thank you to all of our audience for reading another episode of the show. It was great content and golden nuggets, even if they know it. Great stuff here. Make sure to read this again and again. More importantly, share it with your network, your fellow real estate entrepreneurs, or any entrepreneur because this is great content for any business. Make sure you subscribe to Exit Rich and we’ll see you next time for another episode. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Michelle.

Important Links

• Exit Rich
• White DOVE Foundation
• Regal Real Estate and Financial Services
• R3-23 Rev Up Real Estate Rally
• Transforming Pain Into Purpose

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