Trauma to Triumph with #1 Best Selling Author, Heather Self

Welcome to Ladies Kicking Assets, our vodcast, where we are empowering women with the educational knowledge that they need to live the life that they choose. It's about choice and action. And today we want to welcome you all. We have a wonderful guest. I'm going to have my partner, Courtney Moeller, intro our guest, but I have a quick disclaimer. I'm Robyn Binkley, by the way, and we are not financial advisors. We do have a lot of experts and a lot of folks from different asset classes coming in to share with you how their businesses have grown. Words of wisdom for you on how you can grow your business and take action. So, Courtney, I want you to take it away and intro our amazing guest today that we have.

Well, so I am super, super excited to welcome Heather Self as our guest today. And I was so excited to get on here and see you in black and white and your amazing red hat. You're so stinking cute.

Adore you. Thank you for that. Yeah. And you know what?

I'm just going to let you, you know, kind of take that and why don't you give us a little background on who Heather is and what you have, what you're accomplishing and where you're headed, and we'll really kind of dive into that. There's. You're so multifaceted. I'm really excited to kind of dig into this because you, to me, represent something that, you know, women, I think we struggle with things, and some of us have been through some hard times, and it's really easy to get caught up into that. But you, you have been through tough times, and you've taken that and. And you have thrived. And you're so success. Your stories just. I have chills. Your story is just incredible, and you're such an incredible person. So I'm just. I'm so excited to have you here with us.

Wow. Thank you. That was a heck of an introduction. Can you just come do that for me every day? That was amazing.

Yes, I can. Yes, I can and I will.

Oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much. And thank you both for having me on. This is such an honor to be with you guys. You're both such so amazing and so accomplished, and I just love to watch empowered women being powerful together. So it's an honor to be here. So thank you for the invite. You are welcome. So I guess we'll start with the story. Do we want to kind of go there?

Yes, we can.

You know what?

I actually, I actually. Are you talking about your book?

Yes.

About this book. So Heather has got an incredible, incredible story in this book. She is a number one best selling author in this book. Don't quit. Your story is so inspiring and I think there's so many people out there that can resonate with some of the things that you've gone through. I wish that wasn't the case, but it is. And you know, I will let you take that away. But there's so many great nuggets that you have in here that I've highlighted that are just.

You know what, I'm.

Going to let you, I'm going to let you go with it and we'll go as we go. So yeah, let's talk about your story and where some of the things that you've gone through.

Well, there's a lot to unpack there. Right? I mean, humans are very complex people and we live so many different parts of our life and we watch it play out. And I think the real magic happens when we figure out we've been in a situation now how can we not only improve where we're at, but to add significance to that and take what we've learned through the lessons we've gone through and teach that to other people and empower other women to get out of those situations. And the situations I'm referring to are everything from being on welfare, domestic violence. I had a health condition called Guillain Barre syndrome where I was paralyzed for four months. It's just a lot to unpack in a short amount of time. But the bigger lesson in all of it is to be able to not. You don't have to live there. You know, those are experiences. Trauma and tragedy are things that build us up and create us to soar or they can knock you down. And it really is your individual choice and how you make that happen.

Yep. That is actually one of the things that I highlighted that you said. You said you have the power to choose your outcome and what you do with it. And it is not just what we choose to learn from those experiences that matter. It is what we choose to teach others in order to create significance. And I think, I love that because I think people can get caught in and kind of stuck in those experiences and what they went through instead of taking that and growing and going on. And sometimes that's really hard to do.

Yeah, I think the big key for me is going through some of that at some point. I intellectualize the thought of, okay, not what's happening to me, why is this happening? Like, why are all these insane situations happening? But what is it trying to teach me? What lessons am I learning from this? And if you just switch that around, you take the power away from the situation, and then you're already so far ahead of the game because you're looking for the lesson already. You're not living in the pain.

Well. And Robin has listened to me talk about the gap and the gain for I don't know how long now. And I've been reading Preternity because it's so good. I keep re listening to it because it's such a fantastic reminder of, you know, when you're living in the gain. No matter what the situation is, whether it's a great situation, a bad situation, you take that and you go, okay, what is this teaching me? You pull the good things from that and go with it. And that's how I think it's just shifting your mindset.

It absolutely is. And being willing to come forth and say, hey, I am a flawed human being. This is what I've been through. This is what I've learned. Be vulnerable about it. Like, there's no reason. I think we have so much shame about admitting, yes, we've been through a problem like that, or a friend with a drug addiction or whatever that is. You don't have to be ashamed about those situations. That's your journey. That's what gets you from point A to point B. And quite honestly, if it's used correctly, that's your fuel to level up. That's what we're all here for. That is your plot leveling up.

That is your platform. You know, God doesn't waste a hurt. He uses that in your life for you to use that to impact others. That can be one person or that can be a multitude. And so you are doing that very thing by having been in this book and used your story in a number of different ways to show folks that you can change, you can make change.

You can take that growth. Those experiences, as hard as they may.

Be, you can't do that without a team. You got to have your mentors, you got to have your friends. You have to have people in your life willing to say, hey, I'm not seeing the situation the same way you are. How about we take off your metaphorical glasses, we clean them, and you can put it back on. And let's see if that offers you a different perspective, or are you seeing something through the lens of pain? And if you can just step away from that and put the glasses back on and go, oh, this is offering me a whole new way to look at this and then you can focus on the lesson.

So who are the mentors in your life currently, Heather? I have made so many incredible impact.

Yeah, I have so many. So one, as crazy as it sounds, my husband is my biggest mentor because he literally, he is my compass, he's my rock. He's all of those things because you're not going to find a man with more. Oh, what would the word be like? You never have to wonder if he's going to do the right thing. The integrity is always there. And so I think I use that as a big guide for myself and a question like, am I doing everything that I need to be doing with the utmost integrity? Would Greg approve of this? What would he think about that? So he really is a guide to me in so many ways. Then I have some other real estate mentors. Russell Gray, Robert Helms are the real estate guys. They're huge mentors for me. Kyle Wilson, the amazing Kyle Wilson, who, you know, was Jim Brown's 18 year business partner and he's a phenomenal judge of character. He's a strategic marketer. He is just amazing, amazing. And when I met him, funny story, I was so naive to the whole marketing, branding, putting yourself out there. Like I've run companies for years, but I've never been a brand. Right.

And it's weird, right?

Yeah, it's, it's so bizarre to think about that. But when I did the book Don't Quit, I think it came out in 2020 when I did that. My intention had nothing to do with, with marketing or empowering on this level where I'm able to speak to such amazing people and be involved in all these incredible groups. It seriously, I was to the point in my life into my 40s, we don't need to go how far in. But that's okay.

I'm in my 50s. I own it. I own my 50s.

Yeah, I know, girl, I'm in it. So it was the point of me though, like I really wanted to connect on a more vulnerable, authentic level. I didn't want people to look at me and go, oh, she's multimillionaire, she's done this with real estate, she's done that. I didn't want it to be about that. All of those things are fine and well. But the fact that I am who I am, I've come from where I've come from, I realized that there's a certain power that has to come with you sharing that story. So if there is a single mom that's on Welfare right now that doesn't know how, if she's going to choose between groceries and food, which a lot of people are in that situation right now, or how they're going to pay their gas bills.

And you have that.

You've been in that situation, been there, done that. I've checked the box. God willing, I will never be back there. But it is now, like, I know it's a problem, I have the ability to solve it. It's now become my duty to solve it for as many people as I can.

Okay. And I love that so much. So, you know, taking what you've learned and pouring that into other people. But I think a lot of people get stuck in. They think, oh, you know, I'm on welfare. I don't have the money to do this. I don't have the means to do that. It's really not accurate. You know, you can totally take that. And that's what's so great about, you know, where we live and the opportunities are out there that we, we can change our circumstances. We have the power to change our circumstances. And so I would all appear. It is, it really is. And I tell you what, I do these daily affirmations, you know, that I have incorporated into my daily routine. It really does make a huge difference. So I would love to talk about how, you know, you went through some of these horrible things. You have, you have had to be in circumstances you didn't want to be in. What was that shift that you said? You know, what happened? You know, what was that mindset or what did it take for you to go, ok, this is where I am at. This is where I want to be. This is what I want to do. I'm going to make this happen because I want other people that are in that situation to be able to go, you know what? This has happened to me. That does not define me. I can, I can make a change and I can make a difference and I can go on a different road. Like this does not have to be my path and who I am.

Yeah, I think for me, one of the biggest, or at least the jumpstart to this journey, it wasn't one thing. It was so many cumulative things that have come together to keep me focused on this, but. Or focused on just progressing and being a better person and continuing to make my situation and others that much better. But I came to the realization one day, and I'll just never forget this. I was having a conversation with myself, which, you know, we all do, and I thought, you know what? This is the time. And the only difference in that moment versus the 20 seconds before I had that thought is I realized that the pain of staying the same became greater than my fear of change.

That is serious. Wow.

So at that point, I said, screw every preconceived notion anybody's ever had of me. Whatever filters I've put on myself, whatever box I've put myself in, that's all gone. It's garbage that is not serving me. It doesn't do anybody any good. And Russell Gray, again, I mentioned him, one of my mentors, he told me years ago and I thought this, this was just so impactful for me and I think I shared it in the story as well. But he said, be who you're becoming. It sounds like such a simple thing, but if you think about it, it really gives you permission to be who you want to be. It's not fake it till you make it. It's just start showing up as the person you want to be. And eventually you will catch up.

Well, it's like you manifest, you manifest that when you've put yourself in that certain box and you keep that mindset, you're never going to get out of it, you're never going to grow, you're never going to succeed. You, you do. You have to figure out that roadmap, make that decision and put that in your mind. And it really just. You do, you manifest that and you, you change who you're, your mindset, you change who you're being or, you know, who you're around and the information that you're taking from people and it just shifts everything.

Yes, yes, it's a life changer and it's literally that simple. I mean, it's simple but not easy, as they say.

It certainly has been for you. And you've been able to open a business line in the assisted living department and have been incredibly successful and have been recognized for this beautiful new Hope senior living development that you have. And so congratulations on the recent acknowledgments and awards that you've won in that space.

And.

Tell us about the awards you got.

Yes, it's such an exciting time for us. So we technically have been in operation less than a year. We're now fully occupied. We have a wait list forming, which is so cool. But the award we just got was for the best assisted living at 2022 in our county. And we, we, as we've been doing for three years, as we're building this company, we have been taking on the big corporations, the red tape the bureaucracy. We have been changing state regulations, zoning codes, all of this. And it was important to us to take the time up front to do that so we can continue to grow and we won't have the same roadblock. But winning that award, though, is so huge because we're a 14 bed home and we went up against 158 bed big box facilities. And it's a community voting basis. Their CRM is a lot bigger than mine is in that space to ask people to vote or to get behind and support what you're doing. So for us coming in, it was a very David versus Goliath kind of situation. And it was such a big honor. Like, we were just over the moon about it.

I can't even. Yeah. Congratulations. I can't think of two people that are more deserving of that. And so just to kind of backtrack a little bit, because we didn't really talk about what this is and what y' all are doing. So tell us a little bit about that project and what even led you into that space to begin with.

Yeah. Wow. What a roller coaster ride that's been. Right? Nothing worth doing is easy, right? It was. It was a moment of leveling up. It was. We had accomplished everything we needed to in the space that we were in, in the single family real estate we.

All used to just buy. Were you buying and were y' all flipping homes or what were you doing in single family?

Oh, girl, we. Everything from fix and flip vacation rentals.

Right.

Everything you can imagine, we've done. So I feel like we just kind of ran our course with that and we. We flipped 600 houses in five years. Wow. And it was just fun. But the fun part, to me wasn't even as much about the real estate. It was systematizing that business to the point where I could flip a house with a text message. Right? Like, how cool is that?

You know, that's a great space to be in. I mean, there are investors that, you know, strive to do just that one.

Oh, we. We did that for 12 years. Yeah, we have been. We have. We're completely unemployable. Like, nobody would ever hire us again. So we gotta keep going and leveling up. We've done our thing for so long now, but basically we got to this point, like, Greg's mom, she needed care. Her husband of 53 years had passed, and we figured out pretty quickly that she needed a lot more assistance than what we could give her. So we went on this mission to find the best assisted living. And it Just wasn't there. I mean, it wasn't. So we're like, okay, wow, this is a really big deficiency in the marketplace. There's no options. You either live at home with a caregiver, which people cannot afford. They're 20, 30, $40 an hour to do that 24, 7. I mean, you're talking like, yeah, it's cost prohibitive.

It's cost we care person for my aunt. And we. Not only was it expensive, but we had problems with theft and all kinds of other issues, too. So there was just a lot. A lot going on there. So it's. It's more than just.

And then if they're in their home, too, I mean, they're not. Their show not safe. They have to step over things. So you increase your fall risk. And so that's not an option for a lot of people. They can't just stay where they've always been because they need accommodations. Right. So we were like, okay, we're at this point, like, it's really time to push our motto of success to significance. It's time to pump it up. And we poured everything we had into this time.

Energy.

We sacrificed family time. We sacrificed everything to get this happening, because it had to. We didn't have a choice. There was not an option. And it was our duty at that point to create one. So that's exactly what we did.

So you decided y' all purchased a single family home and converted it into a residential assisted living facility.

And.

And not just a residential assisted living facility. I mean, you guys have a garden. Y' all have. I mean, there's so many. Amazing.

Gorgeous.

It is gorgeous.

Thank you. We put a lot of time and attention into that, and we were building it during the. The COVID era. Right. So your contractors are shut down, and nothing was happening there for a while, but really what it abled us to do, it was a blessing. We were really able to take the time and plot out every single square inch of that home so it could be the most functional. It could be. We have 14 bathrooms in that home. We have 14 private bedrooms. We have a cherry wood library. We have everything. Like, I built it similar to a place I would want to live, like, if that's what my option is. Right. So every single decision was extremely intentional. And I got to do a lot of the architecture, which was fun. I love to design in that way, and I also like to design furniture and spaces and things like that. So I didn't hire a professional designer to do the home. I did all that myself. So that was a really fun project that I learned a lot during that and I had to shop. Everything was online. Everything was online. Do you know how hard it is to match couches?

I need to see things. Yeah, I need to be able to see things and put them together. And so yeah, that's tough.

I found the trick though. Here's what you do. You get several monitors and you pull that up on every single one.

The patterns work.

So anyone ever has to do that. That is the trick.

Well, hopefully we won't be put in that situation again where we can't, can't order some samples and things like that. So since you are, I mean you're being recognized with such great success in this space. Do you see doing another project or adding on to make this project larger with more rooms for occupancy or where are you going with this?

We've got to do more. The need is so great. I couldn't in good conscious go, okay, I did it, I'm done. Like, no, this is just the beginning. There is so much need and so much opportunity across the United States. We've got to get these seniors out of these three, four story buildings with campuses of 150 strangers and they have to walk a football field to get from their room to the dining hall just to eat. When you're 85, walking a football field distance just to eat is a huge problem.

Yes, yes. And I really do know what you're talking about because I ran nursing homes for 24 years in my former life as well, assisted living. So I do know the big box theory of them. And so I really do love what you've done with the, this project. It's not only is it beautiful, but it's very home like, feels good. I looked at the pictures of the before and it was a beautiful home before you even remodeled it and turned it into what it is now and then the picture since and I mean it is really a great place. We have my husband's mother in law at one of these larger chain style properties and there is a real need for something a little more home, like a little more specialized.

There is too. But I, I don't want to take away from the care staff and the people there because let me tell you, they're trying to do the best they can with what they've been given, with what they have. They have corporate making decisions about boots on the ground issues that they have no business making. They need to go ask the care staff, what is your functionality problem? Where are you seeing what do we need to do better? What do we need to do differently? So we're just eliminating the corporate. If my people need something, they can let me know and I will make it happen. Because I am corporate. I don't have to send an email and wait for eight weeks for somebody to say, no, it costs too much money or we can't do that. So it's really important to me to be able to give the tools to my staff to do the job that they need to do effectively, efficiently, and with the most love, because they all love what they do. Who am I to take that joy away from them by not doing it the right way?

So you've got very loyal staff. I love that.

Well, and you. Okay, so the last time that we were in person together was at Kyle Wilson's amazing mastermind group and you hosted kind of a little roundtable discussion on some of the ways that you were kind of tapping into advertising and stuff. And I thought it was so brilliant. And so let's talk about that for just a minute. You were able to take that and really kind of bring your community together all, you know, just by putting some stuff on some boards on face. Was it Facebook? It was Facebook, yeah. Let's talk. Because I love how you were able to just bring the entire community together. I think it's such an amazing, you know, everybody's got grandparents, everybody wants to help each other, and what you did was so brilliant.

Thank you for that. We had a lot of success with it. We still to this day have a huge amount of success with it. We love this idea. I was thinking one day, like, you know, how do I let more people know we're here because we're small, we don't have billions of dollars to put into our marketing and all these things. So I was like, I've never had to spend a lot of money on anything I wanted to accomplish. You just get the right brains together and you can solve any problem, you know, without a lot of cost. So I got to thinking, you know, let me go on our Facebook group on, you know, your hip community pages, whatever they are. And I don't want to advertise. I don't want to say, here's my website, here's my phone number, that type of thing. I wanted their feedback. So we started with. For our residents, we take them out every single Thursday and we do a taste of Hendersonville is the name of the town we're in. And we take them to locally owned small businesses, preferably non chain businesses, and we bring all of our residents there and they have lunch every single Thursday. So I just got on the community page and was just asking for suggestions. Hey, where should we bring them? Maybe there's businesses out there that I don't know of yet. Right. That I could bring my people to and they would enjoy that. And so we had, I mean, it was probably over 200 comments or something and a relatively small group. I mean, that was a pretty good banter back and forth there. But I had people, restaurant owners going bring them to me like, I would love to host. And then I had the community jump on board. Oh my gosh, please tell me when you guys are going to be here. We want to come. Because I said come, pull up a seat, take some pictures with us, have some fun, enjoy a meal with us. Let's break bread together. And the community responded in a very big way. So now we have a whole CRM, like we have to say by Monday where we're going to be on Thursday. People from all over the community will come. So we're increasing revenue for these local businesses. We're getting more brand recognition and awareness for everything we're trying to do that supports our mission of the incentives institutionalizing senior care. And the residents are rock star status in our community. They can't go anywhere where they're like, oh, you live at New Hope. This is so cool. Like they're little celebrities. I mean, it's amazing to watch. And the power of the community, that's all it takes, is give somebody something to believe in and they will show up. And they will show up every time.

I love that. And that's exactly what that is, is the power of community. And you found a way to do that to where it wasn't about you. And hey, look at me, I've created this business. It was, how can you incorporate the community in that and how can you bring business to these other businesses? So you are enriching and fulfilling so many other people's lives at the same time. Because really, at the end of the day, that's what we want to do, right? Is enrich and fulfill as many people's lives as we possibly, possibly can. So I just thought that that was so brilliant and so smart, it gives me chills. I just, I love, love that story so much.

You are living on mission, that is for sure.

Yes, I am. Somebody actually told me that yesterday and I thought, you know, I've never really thought about it that way, but I, I think that's exactly right. I'm just a very mission based person.

Yeah.

I think there's just so much to accomplish and you know, staying focused on and not letting other people meddle. You know, your brain power and what you can do and don't let people put you in a box or say it can't be done or in fact actually tell me it can't be done because that's going to motivate me a thousand times. And we were told that, we were told we were crazy doing this assisted living like it is a hard business. The barrier entry is very high. The rules and regulations and there are a lot easier ways to make money.

Yeah. Compliance of it is difficult.

Right. It can't be about money. That cannot be your motivation.

I just, I love, I love what you're doing because it impacts so many others lives and you know, that's why y' all were, you were successful and you were, you were able to break down those barriers and make everything happen is because you're, you're impacting so many others lives. And at the end of the day that's, that's what we want, you know, is to, to help others. We want to leave everybody that we come in contact better than when we found them, you know, so, so. Okay, so are y'. All. You said you're, you're, you're expanding, you're got plans to, to get bigger and to grow into other communities, I hope.

Yes. The sky is the limit on what we can do and as long as people need the help we need to provide it. So we're actually looking for land right now and I'm working on rough sketches of what the architecture like, what the layout would look like and deciding between. Are we doing a campus model? Okay. Yeah. You know, type situation. And they'll all be single family homes. I won't build a big facility. That's not our brand. That's not. We did what we do. That's against our mission actually. So all of them will be 16 bed individual homes laid out in a way that there's community spaces, there's places for families to gather because they, at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. So many seniors during the COVID era were isolated.

Yes.

They were left in four walls. The caregivers were directed to put food on their floor at the door and then walk off. Not everybody can bend over and pick something off the floor. As a senior, I have trouble doing that, you know.

Yeah, it's.

It's horrible.

It's horrible.

Yeah. So isolation kills too, is basically what it Boils down to. And we lost a ton of seniors during that time. And we just have to revamp what that looks like. So if the government gets wackadoodle again, can I say that? Yes.

And any other word you choose.

Well, don't give me that permission, but.

You can do it.

But seriously, it's, it's just recreating a family. So in our home, if something happens and they're quarantined, isolated, we don't ever have to worry about anybody being alone because they have created this family. We have 14 people that pray together every single night before they break bread around this huge table.

Yeah.

And it's amazing, the first time I walked in and I seen that, I literally had to walk out of the room because I was ugly crying because that is the reason we did everything that we did was for exactly that reason.

That's one of those things. And not to go down a totally different rabbit hole, but you know, one of these things with some of this, you know, assisted living and these long term care facilities is people are isolated and when you create that community and you create, you know, even though that, you know, it's, they create these new family, you know, units, you know, it's all created. And so even on the times, you know, maybe the family can't come visit that day or you know, whatever, they, they have created these relationships and family unit within the walls of the home that they're living in with the people that they're with. And that, that helps them to thrive. That helps people thrive. People need to be around, God wanted us to be around other people. We need that.

We're social creatures, we're social beings. It's meant to happen that way. And, and it's such a beautiful thing. We recently just had three CNAs we actually brought in from our high school. So they got their CNA certificate when they graduate and more than likely they're going into nursing school. But they start with something. So I'm like, give me those young girls because they don't have the bad habits and I can set the bar for them. I can say this is what it's supposed to be before they go work somewhere where they're taking care of 40 people not effectively, but trying their best.

Checking boxes at that point in time. You know, they've got, you know, their list of things they've got to accomplish and they're just trying to get all of it done in the time that they were given. So.

But I think too you're also able to show young women or men who are getting into nursing that working in assisted living or long term care, you've got to have really smart, intelligent caregivers to make impact. Because what you're seeing is a trend of those individuals staying more in the hospital setting and working in other medical lines of business. And those that haven't done so well kind of move or stay more in the long term care arena. So I love that you're mentoring CNAs who are going to be going to nursing center school and showing them that coming back to work and assisted living or long term care is powerful. And we need individuals like that.

The need is just continuing. Right. I mean, our senior population isn't going anywhere. No. I mean here, very soon there will be more seniors in the United states than the 18 and under crowd. Yeah. Like the silver tsunami is coming. Like, we have to be prepared and we have that. Yeah. We have to have options for them. Yeah. We have to. These people have lived full lives. They've raised family, they've contributed to their communities, to their families, to their churches, to every part of existence. They have been a huge part of that. Can't then wait till somebody reaches a certain age and go, okay, you no longer have value. Right. They have all of the value. It is just a treasure trove of gold nuggets and information and kindness and. Oh, they just impress me every day. Like they motivate me. It's amazing.

So your husband has worked with you in this line of business. And I know you and I have talked. I know you've got adult kids. Do any of your children work with you in this project?

Yeah, they do. We, we have four kids because, you know, I'm a slow learner. It took me a minute to figure out what's going on, but.

Well, we all have chaotic homes with, with, with lots of kids. So I think you're speaking to.

You get it? Yeah.

Tribal women who like, like chaos.

Yes. Organized chaos coordinators. Organized chaos.

Organized chaos.

Yeah. We're the chaos coordinators. For sure.

I have a shirt that says that.

Oh, I love that. That's perfect. That's perfect. I love it. So true. So true. But yeah, so we have four kids. And my daughter, she, my oldest, she is an esthetician. She owns her own business. She has since she's 23. She's thriving, doing amazing things in our community to lift up women. And her big message is to make everybody feel beautiful in the skin they're in.

Yeah.

So it's. She's such a cool human being. I'm so so proud of her. So she comes over and does things with the residents and, and so she volunteers sometimes. And my other daughter is a musician. She incredibly talented. She sings, plays guitar, piano. Like you can hand her an instrument. Five minutes later she's going to come back and go, oh, look at these three songs I learned.

And I'm like, oh, wow.

Barely speak.

Prodigy.

Yeah. I don't know where they get their brains from. Yeah. And then my two boys, so Matthew, my oldest boy, he comes over and does stretching exercise classes. He does. Have you ever seen the yoga ball? Drum classes to music. And it helps exercise the rhythmic portion of the brain, which is the most active part that stays long after a dementia diagnosis. So we always remember the words to songs, but you can't read a book and just remember it. Right, Right. So we have a big rhythmatic portion of our brain. So he comes and works on things like that, does exercises with them and, and that stuff. And then my youngest, he's actually a caregiver there. Okay. And he has found he, he believes his calling from God. Like he really enjoys the transitioning. The hospice residents, he connected with one and that was a big shift for him because he's only 18. Yeah. But he has figured it out. Like he, he just shows up and he loves them and they absolutely adore him. So he's just left such a big impact on these people and they on him. So I'm really excited to see what route he ends up going.

You're so right. It's such a. We. We talk about the impact we can have on them, but the impact is a two way street. I mean, it really is. And as is, I'm sure the impact that you've had on your kids lives through the things that y' all have gone through and everything else. I'm sure it's. Everything impacts us, you know, it just does. It makes you stronger and it makes you grow. And, you know, hopefully people take the things and take the positive from it and move forward. So I love that. I love hearing about all your kids, that they're all involved in your business.

I know.

Fantastic.

Well, they're cool. They inspire me every day. Like, I'm such a lucky mom. I really am. You are.

And they're lucky to have you, you know, with your story and just, you know, being a change agent, it's really powerful. So Heather, how can our, how can our guests get in touch with you and Greg, what, what website or how can they reach out to you?

Sure, I've got a little website with A landing page. It's nothing fancy, but it's just heatherself.com they can go on there. And I have a free. It started as 20 lessons I learned from Tragedy, but it's now morphed and I just keep adding to it. So it's a weekly email and it's just little thought nuggets that I have and I continue to add to it. I've got everything from marketing to mindset to quotes to things that I like.

How blank.

Yeah, some of them are shorter than others. But it's just a weekly email. It's not like a big data dump type situation. Sometimes all it takes is a little tweak, you know, and that's what I'm trying to do is offer those little tweaks with that. And they can also go on there and get a free copy of the Don't Put Book. I also have that on there. So if they want a digital copy of that, they can go on the website heatherself.com and get that. I love that.

It's such a great book. Your story is incredible. And there's other really incredible stories in that book as well. So I'm just here looking at, you know, Kyle and, you know, the forward was written by Mark Victor Hansen, which was Chicken Soup for the Soul. That's incredible. Just some really incredible other authors, authors in this book.

So very inspiring stories and the way they're written, too. You can go on and read a chapter a day. It's not like something you have to really dig into or have a lot of time for. The way that he's produced these books is just brilliant. And the fact that you can literally 10 minutes read a chapter and get some gold nuggets, it's incredible.

Yeah. Well, Heather, thank you so much for your time today. Your story is so incredible on so many different levels. Even if you took out of the equation what you're doing with assisted living, which is powerful, believe me, your story and everything you've journeyed through and how you're using that as a platform and using your voice is beautiful. So I just want to tell you thank you, and you've certainly impacted me today, so I appreciate your words. You can certainly reach out to Courtney and I at ladieskickenassets. Com and feel free to send us an email or shoot us a note. We're happy to channel you back to Heather and answer any questions that you may have. So I appreciate you, Heather. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm very grateful to you both.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.