From A Military Officer To Pioneering Energy-Saving Projects Worth Over $100M : Beka Shea

My friend called me this week and he said, are you as happy as it seems like from your LinkedIn posts and stuff? I said, that's a great question. I said, I absolutely am. You know why? Because people are paying me to be my most authentic self.

Oh, that is so powerful.

Right?

Wow.

Hey, everybody. Flipping Dan here. I want to welcome you to another exciting episode of the Freedom show and today's guest is Becca Shea.

We are super excited to have Becca on. We actually met Becca at one of our masterminds and we're in a lot and she is just an extraordinary person. She has a great freedom story. I love what she's doing today and she's going to share that with you. We hope you enjoy the show.

Have fun. You're tuned into the Freedom Show. We are in the studio having a conversation. We're really excited to share with you. Today's guest is Becca Shea. And the crowd goes crazy. Rebecca. Becca Shea is a versatile leader with over 20 years of experience spanning the United States, Navy, mechanical engineering and real estate investment. Through it all, her focus has been centered around building and leading exceptional teams. With a master's degree in mechanical engineering, she brings an analytical perspective to diverse roles, from serving as an officer in the military, to pioneering energy saving projects worth over $100 million, to building two successful businesses. In her current role as an executive advisor at Culture Index, she specializes in organizational development and leadership coaching. Her belief is that with the right knowledge and training, you can design an elite team to hit targets faster and have more fun doing it. Adept at project management, Rebecca has successfully scaled businesses, increased ROI and led cross functional teams. She is a founding board member of the Seven Figure Foundation.

Wow, what a bio.

Makes me sound so great. Which, you know, a little humbled by my own bio.

Usually I'm like, oh, I can, I can just read through these bios, but man, this is two weeks in a row that there's like some 25 cent words in here.

Well, welcome to the show, Becca. We're so excited to have you. So, Becca, this show is called the Freedom show because we want to explore as many freedom stories as possible. We want to hear more about what freedom means to you, how you achieved it, and the lessons learned along the way. So please, if you don't mind, we'd love to hear your freedom story.

Awesome. That's a fun story to tell. So I think that each of us need to get really real about what motivates us and makes us tick. And it's different for, for people, for everybody, and for Me, I've always been a high performer. I come in, I get a little bit obsessed with whatever it is that I'm doing, and I love that. I love doing great work with a great team. But at the end of the day, the thing that is always most important to me is my family. And I've realized it's shown up time and time again, like, I was a military officer, and a lot of opportunity, a lot of potential to stay and do some cool stuff there. But I. I had just married my husband, and I wanted to have babies and I wanted to have a family. And at that time, the maternity leave policy was that 30 days later, you could go back to sea if you were on a sea tour. I was like, that's just not. That's not where I want to end up. So even though I loved everything about being in the military, it didn't align with my goals, right? And then the same thing. I left the military, and I put my mechanical engineering degree to work, and.

I.

Was rising up the corporate ladder with a company. We ended up getting acquired by Carrier North America. And they're huge. They're global company, Carrier is. And I was at dinner one night with all the CEOs. So each CEO of the 14 business units got to pick one person to be in this leadership cohort. And I was at dinner with them one night. We had this great, huge, amazing dinner. And they're like, you can ask us anything, right? I was 28 or 29 at the time, and they said, ask us anything. And so they're going around, everybody's asking all these questions, and I'm just sitting back listening. And they said, you're really quiet. Which, you guys know me. That's abnormal. But I feel a little outclassed in this room. And so I was just keeping my peace. And finally I said, what questions do you have? And I said, I have a question that's kind of off topic, and I hope you'll forgive me for asking it. But I'm curious how many of you are still married to the same person that you were married to when you started this journey? And one. One guy out of the 14 CEOs said, I'm still married to my. My wife, you know, 30 some years. I was like, that's great. But it was becoming really abundantly clear to me there that that journey was going to require that I travel a ton and that I'm away from home and that I have to sacrifice some. So, again, I was pregnant with my third daughter at the time. I had Her. I handed my resignation, and I was like, what can I do that allows me to be a parent first and a spouse first, but still allows me to take on big projects and get very excited about it? And so then I started flipping houses, and I loved it. Right. I mean, there's. There's so much joy taking this really ugly, nasty thing that everybody has overlooked and turning it into something beautiful that everyone wants.

Yeah, I agree.

It's like. I don't know.

It's just.

It unlocks something inside of you. And so I started doing that, and I grew that company and I scaled it. And then I made the wrong decision in business. I started doing wholesaling as well as rehabbing. And, you know, to be completely transparent, I wasn't super great with money. It was not my background. My background's engineering, not money. And I ran into this financial brick wall, and I brought in a cfo, and he helped me clean it up again. Right people, right seats, Right. I was not the right person in that CFO seat. He helped me clean it up. We had this pivot point where he was like, you should just focus on one business. We've got them both operating again. But you should. You should pick one to focus on and rebuild really strongly. And at the time I chose wholesaling, which is so interesting because you talk about your freedom journey. I thought I made this wrong choice. I thought I started chasing the money. I was like, what can. What. What seems like it has the most potential to get me out of this pickle really fast and to pay back my debts and, you know, get everything back on track. And I was like, well, wholesaling is it? But I internally was not aligned with wholesaling. I just. I didn't love it. So then I didn't show up as the best leader for that business because it didn't fit who I was at my core. And I started looking for some other opportunities. I ended up getting asked to come be a part of the seven figure flipping community to help grow that mastermind. And my job description was to love on people and hold them accountable.

I love that. It's perfect for you. Yes, I know.

And I was like, absolutely. That's my job description. I'm in. And three years, we grow that. And then what happens? I'm traveling all the time again. I mean, just at least once, usually twice a month. I was like, the whole reason I got into this journey, I defined freedom. It was 20 hours a week making $250,000 a year and being able to be the primary parent. So then I stepped back from that and luckily all of these things have financially moved me in the right direction so that I was able to step away from a full time role and my passive income and my investments were able to continue to pay for me to go on like a one of those five week, amazing trip last summer we went to Grand Canyon and sorry, to Grand Tetons in Yellowstone and Glacier. Five weeks with my kids in a camper. It was amazing.

Wow.

I love that.

I remember seeing the pictures on Facebook.

So that was my freedom journey. I felt like that was my capstone project of everything I'd been through. It was slowly bringing me to that point. And then I spent six months not working, went absolutely stir crazy and was like, okay, what can I do now that that takes all the things that I've learned that still meets my criteria of 20 hours a week with the potential of $250,000 a year. And I ended up at Culture Index where I'm, I'm advising other leaders about growing their business and putting the right people in the right seats to hit the goals and how they can be the right leader. And I'll just, I'll wrap this story up with one little thing. My friend called me this week and he said, are you as happy as it seems like from your LinkedIn posts and stuff? I said, that's a great question. I said, I absolutely am. You know why? Because people are paying me to be my most authentic self.

That is so powerful.

Right?

Wow. Yeah. So we, we were recently chatting with you and we started talking about designing your life and how many people make the mistake of going after the business and trying to figure out how to live life around the business instead of designing your lifestyle first and finding the business or the opportunity that works with the lifestyle design that you've chosen. So one of the things that you said that I thought was really powerful and I'd like to you to talk about real briefly, is that sometimes it's better to choose what you don't want.

Yes. I feel like, you know the shampoo aisle dilemma where like you come in and there's too many options in the shampoo aisle and you're like, I don't know what the best one is. Right. That's a real thing. It causes major anxiety. I feel like as entrepreneurs we're often told like, choose your passion, go after it. You know, you'll never work a day in your life. The problem is that's an iterative process. You don't always know what your passion is I don't.

That is so true. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember you saying, you know, I didn't want to travel or I wanted to travel only if I chose to travel. And you, you wanted to have a certain amount of hours for, you know, your family. But it was just really interesting how you can go at it two different ways. You can either go at what do I want? Or what are the things I seriously don't want. And listening to you go through the don't wants, I was like, oh, that's powerful. And maybe a little bit easier for you to identify what I do not want to be doing so that you can understand exactly the lifestyle that you do want. So I thought that was great and I just wanted to share that with everybody listening. So this is a, your freedom story was a perfect transition into what you're doing today. So I know this is very much about elite team design. I know it's very much about the right person in the right seat on the right bus. So tell us how what you do now helps that come true. Because as business owners ourselves, we know that people are the hardest thing about business. And turnover sucks. And just the emotional and mental energy that you put into hiring somebody hoping they're going to be your long term fit because you don't want to see them go and you don't want to have to go through the hiring process again. This is probably one of the biggest pain points that business owners have and I'd love for you to share as many gold nuggets as you have.

Yeah. So I, I work with Culture Index. They're a program, they're based on behavioral analytics. But there's a lot of great programs out there based on behavioral analytics. I use Culture Index to grow my real estate investing company. We used it in seven figure flipping. I'm a firm believer in it. It works for me. It's very simple, it's very straightforward. It's not like pages and pages of reports. You read the dots, you move forward. And the interesting thing about behavioral analytics is it tells you how a person is hardwired to get to get a job done. The easiest way that I show this in our workshops is when people come in, I ask them to write their name with their dominant hand on the top of the paper. And then I ask them to put the pen in their other hand and write their name. And I give them time and it always takes them about three times as long to write their name with their other hand. The quality sucks. Sometimes it's not even legible. And they have to exert a lot more mental energy to do it. And so the key with behavioral analytics is if we need a left handed person in the role, let's not put a right handed person in it. Because yes, they can do the job, but it's going to take longer, it's going to require more effort on their part and the quality is not going to be as good.

Right.

So that's, that's like the inherent how people are wired, right. Put the right people in the right seats and then the third piece of it is the under the right leaders. And that becoming the right leader for your organization is a whole journey in and of itself. You know, there's natural breakpoints in a business. There's the I'm a one man show and I have to hire my first person and that's terrifying. But you have to go through it. In order to be able to grow a business that has multiple employees, you've got to start learning how to interview and train people. And then you get to the point where usually around 15 employees, you start having to have one or two leaders aside from yourself in the business because you just can't manage everything. And then somewhere around like 50 or 60 employees, you've got a suite of leaders, you've got, you know, know four or five people who have different divisions that they're running. And then somewhere around 100 to 120 employees you need to have middle managers. So you as a CEO have to empower those maybe five people in your C suite. But then they have to be able to hire leaders underneath of them.

Right.

And this whole growth journey, Right. And each time you do it, each time you hire someone, you can attest to this, you get better at it.

Yes, that is true. So let me ask you a question. So we have a team of, I think we're at 59 now. So if you're coming to into a company like ours, what, what are you doing? What is the advice that you're giving the owners of the company in order to kind of fix some of the issues that we're having? Because some of the people are in the wrong seats. Like what does that process look like?

I was just thinking about this this morning. The first thing is every time I come into an organization, I have to de. Weaponize the data. Because you might be excited about this as the CEO, we're trying to uplevel your team. But you ask your team, all 60 people to do that, some of them are going to say, am I going to lose my Job. Am I going to get fired?

Like, what? Right, Good.

What is the survey going to say about me? Right? And the reality is, at 59 people, you've already built a machine that works, right? So I'm coming in and you're basically saying, like, I've built a car, right? I've built a car and I, I've put it together from parts that I had lying around my house. I've put it together, just trial and error. Just bought things off the shelf that, you know, I went on Amazon and I, I bought some parts. I'm not really the expert in them, but, you know, I went off Amazon, I got some, I, some people recommended some things. Like, you have got to have this steering wheel in your car, right? The reality is your car drives. When I come in, it gets you from point A to point B. So then what we do is we look at the parts that you've used and we say, like, maybe you put that part in the wrong place. Like that, that thing that you're using as your engine actually should be a radio. You know, whatever. Obviously not a fully baked metaphor, so just go with it.

I love it, right?

Like, I come in and I'm the car design expert. And so I say, hey, you've built a car. Good job. It looks really good. And by the way, the parts are doing what they're supposed to do. So let's, let's keep it running. And then, hey, maybe this part would go better here. We should put it over there. Or, or maybe like we do need. It's fine right now, but someday you want a radio in this car. Like, let's go get you the best radio. I know what the best radio looks like, right? And then the other thing is, you can have built a really great machine, but if you have a great machine and you don't know how to maintain it, like just the regular maintenance stuff, the oil changes, the tire pressure checks, all those things, that machine's going to stop working. So it's, it's twofold. Number one, I look at all the parts that are in the machine and say, are the right. Right parts in the right places are. Do we, as we get some natural turnover, how can we upgrade them? And then the other part is like, hey, here's your maintenance routine as a leader.

Yes.

So you can keep your machine running.

Yes, yes, exactly. So there's two things that came up and I want to make sure I remember them both. The first one is leaders. You talked about leadership and many CEOs. We didn't go to leadership school, right? We. We're just winging it, and we're figuring it out as we go, and as we make mistakes, we learn and we improve and we get better. So I don't want to say that I'm the greatest leader. I don't want to say I'm a really, really crappy leader. But I have learned a lot of lessons along the way. One of the probably most important things that maybe you have some insight on is I am the type of person that does not want to babysit somebody. I want to hire somebody where I can say, hey, Becca, I love you. I think you're perfect for this role. And when you come on, I'm going to give you tasks, and I'm going to say, you have the opportunity to ask any question that you have about this and come to me at any point in time with your questions. But I'm going to let you own this, and I'm going to let you take it to the finish line. And. And so I will do that, and I will let them go. And I've seen some people excel and some people bang their head against the wall. So me as a leader, I have realized that there's some people that I need to foster or nurture more or check on them more or just choose that. I can't hire that type of person underneath me because it just. It doesn't work. So what's your feedback for leaders like that?

My belief. And I actually had this epiphany as a Culture Index client. I was sitting in a workshop, and we were talking about our team design, and I had this epiphany where I realized that there are levels of leadership, and I was translating them into the Culture Index, you know, vernacular. But you are a huge visionary. You live up at 50,000ft, and so you've got this team down on the ground, and you're like, from 50,000ft, I can see that we're at my house, and I would like to go to Greece. Okay.

Yes.

And you're like, it's in that direction. Just right. Go. Okay. And you're like, ask me any questions you want. And they're like, I don't know. Like, do we have a car? And you're like, yes, you have a car. All right, cool. Do we have plane tickets? Yes, you've got plane tickets, too. And so then you're like, all right, we're good. I'll see you in Greece, because I'm going to go do something else, because I'm a. I'm A big visionary. So I've got other things to be working on. Right. So you leave the room and they're at your house and they walk out the front door and they're like, they get in the car and they're, they don't know where to go next. Like, they don't have any way points. You didn't give them any way points. You just said here to there go.

Yes, Right.

So that's the highest level of leadership. Leadership that's like the biggest visionary. So then what I realized is that underneath of you there needs to be a smaller visionary who is down at like 20,000ft. Who can say, all right, I can see closer, I'm closer to where you are. You see the, you see the house in Greece. That's it. They get down closer and they're like, I want you to get in the car and I want you to drive to the JFK airport. Okay? Then you're going to get the JFK airport. You're going to take that over to France. Then from France you're going to go from here to here. So then you've got your 20,000 square foot, square blood. 20,000 foot leaders.

Right?

Then you have another level of leadership. And the problem is both you and that 20,000 foot leader don't realize that there's a cow blocking the road at the end of the driveway because you're so high up that like, you don't even. This doesn't even register on you that this is a thing that would be a problem for them getting to Greece. Right?

Right.

So then you need someone who's in the car, who's driving, who has a level of leadership. They're down at the like 500 foot and they can say, oh, you get to the end of the driveway and there's a cow. You're going to go around the cow. Right? Like, I can see there's another road off to the left. Just make a left, go around it, come back to the right. So you need these like levels of getting closer and closer and closer to the ground. And then you've got the people in the car who are driving and they're actually doing all the work in your organization. So I in my head had this epiphany where I was like, there's actually four levels of leadership or maybe there's three, because maybe you have a smaller visionary. Like there's no big visionary atop. So maybe it starts with the smaller visionary. And then they need, they need the, the process managers and the project managers. And then there's the people executing.

That's really powerful in terms of a lot of people ask, who's my first hire? And I know when you're doing your very first hire, we tend to have the answer of, you know, write down all the things that you're doing and those $10 an hour activities that should be passed off to an administrative person so that you can start working on your highest and best use. But there comes a point in time where you're growing so big and if you don't have the knowledge that you just shared, then you're not sure that you need that middle person. And then there becomes this big gap between the CEO and this visionary and the people executing down there and they're just feeling a little lost and the visionary doesn't even realize it. Like you said, they're off like planning the next big thing. And I think that's been a big mistake that, that we've made in that when I say we, I mean I have made in our, in our organization is really learning how to fill that middle, middle gap. So another question for you is how does culture index? Because we have used tools like this and I personally know how helpful they are when hiring now that I started using them. But for people who are not aware, hiring is one of the hardest parts of business. So how does this help them make the right decision out of the gate?

It tells you what people, how they're motivated, how to communicate with them. So there's two pieces. There's the hiring and then there's the leadership hiring side of it. We do, we have a survey that you take specifically when you're hiring Someone. It's like 67 questions and it gets really in the weeds of what this person's going to do on a day to day basis. And then it maps it back to the traits of that person. And then we say, hey, this is the person you need or this is the person you think you need. We'll have three people do it on the team and they'll all come up with different answers. And so then we get together and we say, I mean, so just think about that. Think about if you never spend the time defining a role and you come in and you say, we're going to bring on an assistant. And in your head you have an idea of what they're going to do and then your operations person is like, oh, I'm getting an assistant. And they have an idea in their head of what that person's going to do.

Right? Yeah.

And then your salesperson is like, oh, I'm getting an assistant. And they have an idea of what that person's going to do. So right off the bat, you, this poor person is coming in and there's no clear role or responsibility of what they're actually going to do. And everybody has different expectations. They're setting them up to fail. So the first thing you do is you get really clear on what are their roles and responsibilities. This is what I tell everybody. When you're hiring, whether you're using Culture Index or anything else, the first thing you do is you write down what are they going to do daily, what are they going to do weekly, what are they going to do monthly, and what are they going to do as needed. And that will help you map the type of person that you need. Are they just doing the same thing all day, every day and it needs to be very detail oriented or are they customer facing and most of their work is going to be making clients feel good? Those are two different people. Okay, Right. So did I answer your question?

Yeah, you did. You did. Is there, is there ever a situation that where Culture Index will tell you a person is not? So think of me and my, my Culture Index profile and who you, you know, think I would be. So, like, in. I'm the visionary, right? And so is there a time where somebody gets hired and they take this test and you go, oh, that's definitely not somebody like that. That person and Danny are just going to clash. It's not going to work. Do you get that? Do you get that type of insight?

I think it's more so it gives you understanding and how the other person operates and how they approach the world. Because we assume that everyone approaches the world the way we do and that they want to be communicated with the way we do and that they want to be motivated the way we are. And the reality is, what we teach is there's three different main motivations for people. I call them the sharks, the shepherds, and the Shiners. You know, like, the sharks are like, I just want to win. I'm aggressive. I'm. I'm going to get out there. My. I am a solo creature. It's really about me at the end of the day. And so you communicate with them one way and then you've got your shepherds who are protecting your flock. They're, you know, your detail oriented people. They want to be talked to a completely different way and they're motivated a different way. And then we talk about, like the sunshine, happy people. They're the culture. They're the glue. They're the, the face of your company. Right. They're motivated completely differently. They want to be talked to completely differently. And so I think when you understand, number one, here's what I need in this role, here's the person who's going to do really well in it, and then here's how we approach the world differently, you can communicate so much more effectively. Can I share a personal story about this?

Yes, please do. Yes.

So Culture Index is not a dating or marriage tool, however, comma, but however. I think that one of the most amazing things that I ever got on a Culture Index, aside from all the business stuff, was how it helped my marriage. I am a very aggressive person. I like nine out of 10 people. I move extremely fast and I like a lot of variety in my day. And I am selectively detail oriented to hit my goals. I will build a process. I'm very good at building a process. I'm not the person that should run the process every day, but I can manage the process. Like I have the follow up to check in with the people regularly. My husband, humble team player, likes about 5 out of 10 people. Extremely patient and methodical and deliberate. His ability to focus mentally on one thing for extreme periods of time is huge. And then his detail, or he's also selectively detail oriented. So I took this test, the survey, sorry, we call it a survey, not a test because there's no right or wrong, there's no pass or fail. And I think I thought to that point we had been married about 12 years maybe at that point. So we've been together a long time. And I, I, I hope he doesn't listen this, but like I kind of thought he was out to get me. Sometimes when I would say, when I wake up on a Saturday and be like, here's the 10 things that we have to get done today. Like I made a list. And he would say, I'm going to go mow the lawn. And I would, I mean I felt that as like, what do you mean? Like, we have things to do, I have goals to hit and you're going to go mow the lawn. Like, are you being spiteful? Did I do something to piss you off? Like, is this intentional? And then I realized through Culture Index that like, no, he just, he will focus on one thing mentally for long periods of time. And he's a mechanical design engineer in the space industry. So like he makes these amazing engines for satellites and he can focus on that mentally for long periods of time. But it means on Thursday he started thinking about mowing the lawn. And so he knew that when he got the next opportunity of free time, that was the thing he was going to focus on. So the. I mean, it was. It was like, revolutionary to me to realize, oh, we just approach the world fundamentally different.

Yes. Yeah. Something like that could start an argument. Right. Unless you really, truly understood how the other person works. So, yeah, man, I love that. Let's talk about the quote that you. We always ask people what their favorite quote is, because I like just to be inspired by other people. So yours was Jocko Willink, but I think you just said that it didn't even. It didn't even really start with him. It was an Aristotle type quote. Share that quote and why it's important to you.

So Jocko Willink, I think, has made famous the discipline equals freedom. He's the big flag, and you see it everywhere, and I love it. It's one of my favorite quotes. It's actually from an Aristotle quote. Through discipline comes freedom. And I think that all of us, when we're living our best life, we have put some boundaries up and some schedules in and through that. Like, if you have, let's say, weight loss goals or gym big muscle goals. Right? I. You can't see me if you're just listening to this. I have tiny bar muscles, but I dream of them getting big. Just like, if I approach my day and I have no discipline to it, and I don't make it a priority to get to put the gym in my schedule, then I'm never gonna hit my goals. I will never have that freedom of, like, I did this thing and I'm here now. You have to be intentional about where you spend your time. And I heard somebody else say, like, show me your calendar for the last two weeks and I'll show. I'll tell you what your priorities are. And that just. That really hit me in the gut. And I was like, wow, you have to have discipline to put your priorities first to achieve the freedom you're seeking.

Yeah. And that doesn't mean. We were recently on a podcast and somebody had asked us just about how do we prioritize our relationship? Because we're a married couple and we're in business together. So, you know, how do we break those boundaries up? And we said, to your point, we actually schedule our date night. Like, it's on our calendar. Nobody can put an appointment there. It is 3pm on Fridays. We are out of there. And we can't. You know, we just don't schedule anything else. And then, you know, whenever we want to do something else, even if it's on Saturdays and Sundays, we'll put it there, because other people can manage our calendars, too. And we just. We have to prioritize the time that we have together, or we'll lose it and we won't have it. And that, to me, also equates to the discipline equals freedom. Because if something is important to you, then you will have the discipline to prioritize it and make sure that it's, you know, stuck somewhere, that you won't forget it and it won't get dropped. So I love.

Because for you, freedom is. We have a strong marriage, and I feel safe and secure in my marriage. Right. And so if we put the discipline in to make sure that we're connecting on our daily date, on our weekly dates, then I. Then I have that freedom and that security to go, not have to worry about, how's my marriage doing?

Yes. Yeah. It's not an open loop in your head going, hey, have I checked in with Flip? Is he okay? You know, or. He's doing the exact same thing to me, and we're always trying to do different things, but I just. I. I really, really love that quote. So I was super excited to talk about it. So, okay, the next thing I want to do, this kind of ties into what your superpower is and Culture Index and everything that you've been talking about. I'm always watching, like, trends and what are people asking on Google all the time. And one of the questions that I found that was going to be a great topic for the three of us to talk about together was, how does a good company culture affect your success? And so the very first thing that I thought of and I wrote down for me is what I mentioned already, is it lowers turnover. If you have good culture, if you have right people in the right seats, if you have happy team members, and we personally call them team members, not employees, because we do feel like this is our family. Like, I know people say, do not call your team your family, but I don't even care. I do. I love them.

And what do they know?

I hate it when we have to let them go. I hate it when it doesn't work. So it's important to me to work with people like you and tools like Culture Index to make sure that I'm finding the right people out of the gate, and then I'm not having to let them go, because I don't want to invest my mental energy and my emotional energy into somebody that I have to go. I'm sorry. We're going to have to let you know. And that turnover cost, I looked it up too, before we got on this call, and it's estimated that losing an employee can cost a company one and a half to two times the employee's salary. And I just thought. I was only thinking emotional and mental energy, because that's what that cost is to me is that time that I had to put in. But there is a financial cost to it, too. So, Becca, before we go to you, I'm just gonna hit you flip real quick, because you can really, really quiet. I won't hit you. Hit you.

But not on camera anyway.

Yeah, that'll be after we get on. Right. So company culture, like in our culture, what. What's something that you feel has attributed to success? And then last. Beck has the same question, because she's really kind of the pro in this space.

Well, I mean, when we first started, that was. That was the biggest thing. We wanted to create a company culture that people would love and would, you know, they wouldn't want to leave it.

Yeah.

You know, so, like, when we first started, we had a nap room. You know, it was. We might have taken it a little too far, but. But no, we had a nap room. We, you know, did special events. We had couches out in, you know, in a gathering area to make it relaxing, making comfortable, you know, and during the summer, because it gets really hot in Ohio, we would have Snickers ice cream bars. You know, that's it.

I want to come work for you. Those are my favorite.

But, you know, and then once, once a month, we Taco Tuesdays. You know, we do. We do a lot of stuff with the team, and. And. And it's important. It makes the team members because, yeah, we. We treat them as family. Well, we want them to treat each other like family, too.

Yeah.

And the more they're together, the more they're, know, doing things outside of their normal daily grind. You know, it's. It makes it more personal, makes it more of the. The. The better culture that we can create.

Yeah, I think it was really about joy, right?

Oh, yeah.

I wanted people to have joy coming to the workplace.

Y.

So, Becca, off to you. How would you answer this.

To me? Culture is. When you say culture, what I. What I feel. The first thing that came to my mind was trust. And that to build a culture where you trust that the people that come to work beside you, number one, are. There's some quote and there's some demographic from the Pew Research about the percent of actively engaged, disengaged and actively disengaged employees. I wish I had the numbers in front of me, but the actively disengaged employees are terrorists within your organization. They, they come in and they, you know, just try to tear you down. So when you talk about culture, I think it's about getting rid of those actively disengaged people so that we trust, number one, that we all came to work to see the success of the business. And we trust that the person alongside of us is competent at their job and is doing the best they can despite the circumstances. Because sometimes things get crazy. And then we trust that our leaders brought us on board because we were the best person for the job and they treat us accordingly. And so they don't micromanage us and they give us the tools we need to succeed and they clearly define success so that, you know, we can come in and yes, that to me is a good culture. And I love the, I mean, I want to be a part of your Disney esque culture, but I also think I work with a lot of engineers and stuff. Right. And that stuff would drive them crazy. Being forced to socialize at Taco Tuesday, you know, that would. Yeah, they wouldn't love that. But, but that trust piece of it would build a culture where they would love to be.

Yeah, I think that's super powerful. I love that. All right, we are going to hit the commercial.

You're listening to the Freedom show with Flippant Annie. Our guest is Becca Shea. We'll be right back after this short commercial break.

Add new income streams to your financial statement. Freedom Family investments can help own property and get paid rent. Join funds and get paid interest. Wealth is well being. Own your own future. Freedom Family investments get more time to focus on what matters. Learn which investing path is for you, where to start, and who to trust. Visit freedomfamilyinvestments.com welcome back to the Freedom.

Show with Flip and Danny. Our guest is Becca Shea. We're going to be one of our favorite parts of the show right now. This is my real Quick with Flip. Are you ready, Becca?

I am ready. I was born ready.

Okay. So, yeah, the title is Real Quick with Flip, but I like to call it this, that or the other. So I'm going to give you two things. You can choose one of the two things or you can say something else that you prefer. So, you know, if I say Rice Krispies or Frosted Flakes, you could say lucky Charms. You know, if you didn't like those two. Got it.

Okay.

All right, so we got 10. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Okay. Trivia night or board game night?

Board games.

Audiobook or physical book?

Audiobook.

Scary movie or romantic comedy?

Rom com all the way. Every time my husband's out of town, I watch romantic comedies.

Peanut M M's or plain M M's?

Peanut butter M M's.

All right. Batman or Superman?

Superman.

French fries or onion rings?

French fries. Chick Fil A. Waffle fries.

Oh, nice.

Done.

Love Chick Fil A.

He went there. Apple or Android?

Apple.

Sorry.

One of us. Right. Pop music or jazz?

Pop.

Oh, jazz. I know you guys are musicians. I'm sorry.

That was hilarious. She's like, pop. Oh.

It'S okay. Instagram or Tick Tock?

Tick Tock.

All right, now this last one, I'm very curious about this. Steelers or the Eagles?

Eagles.

So what I like about this is the. The fact that you said pop. I also like that you said tick tock. Only because I have seen some of your Facebook. I'm not on all those. Like, Facebook is really mine, but my team is on all the other channels. But I will see you and your daughters, or sometimes just you doing some type of dance. Right? And so tell us. Tell us about that. It is so fun. I love watching it. Every time I see it, I'm like, oops, stop. There's Becca dancing again. So tell us about where that came from. Why you do it? Because I love watching it.

My favorite way, especially if I'm in a mental funk, is to put on some music and dance. And so I used to. I had this Xbox game called Dance Central or something like that. Dance Dance Revolution. I don't know. Whatever. And before COVID when I. Because I've worked from home for a long time, every time I would get into a mental funk, I would go play that video game, and it would get me out of it. And then when Tick Tock came about in Covid and it was just people dancing and learning dances, I was like, this platform was made for me. And so I just. Occasionally, I'm not very often. Maybe like once a month, I'll. I'll learn a dance and I'll put it on there. And it's just. It's just about having fun. And I'm not a great dancer. I'm very gangly. But it's so fun.

I love it. It is fun. It makes me laugh, it makes me smile. It brings me joy. Like, if there was something bad going on today and I saw a video of you Dancing. I'm like, okay, my day just got better.

I.

So, yeah.

I have been known in the past when people, a couple of our mutual friends, have been diagnosed with cancer or bad health issues. And if I'm aware of it, I. And I know that they have seen tick tocks, I will make a tick tock just for them because it's like, it's just so wholesome. There's no angle. I'm not asking for anything. It's just, here, smile a little bit, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And you took some time to do. I mean, like, I can't imagine how long it takes to like, figure out the dance routines because that's not something that we do. Although maybe we'll do like a short one and send it to Becca sometimes. Sometime.

And I.

Short.

You're like five seconds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gotta be. But it. It takes some time. So, like, you know, that's a commitment to do that. I would. I would feel really, really happy if I was in that position. And I got that from you. Because a lot of people can throw thoughts and prayers out. They can. They can throw, you know, just. Just anything at all. That's money, you know, or. Or whatever it is. But the thought that you put behind that and the time that you invested in it, it just. There's just a different type of feeling that. That gives somebody that you really, truly care. So that is super, super cool. I love your real quick flip because I love when we can spin off on one of the topics.

Yep. Yeah, you need to open up more. Get out of your shell.

Yeah, I'm a shrinking violet over here. My sister got me a T shirt and she said, fragile. It said fragile and it said like a bomb, not like a flower. That's hilarious.

That's awesome.

Nice. Well, we have thoroughly enjoyed having you here with us today, Becca. Thank you so much for sharing your freedom story. Thank you for sharing your superpower. What Culture Index does to help business owners like us, even married couples. I love that part. If somebody wants to reach out to you to learn more or just connect, where do they go?

LinkedIn is the best way to reach me. I'm. I'm pretty active on there. I mean, you can find me on Facebook and social medias, but I. That whole discipline equals freedom. I really try to keep boundaries between, like, friends and. And social and downtime and work. So if you want to learn more about Culture Index and team design, find me on LinkedIn.

I love it. We will have a link in the show notes as well, and I think that's it for this week. We'll see everybody next week, next Wednesday. Thank you again, Becca. It was a joy talking to you.

Thank you. Hey, everybody, Hope you enjoyed that episode. Danny and I were talking. Actually, I really enjoyed the Get Real portion of that interview where she's interweaving her work business in with her personal with her husband. And I thought that was very cool.

Yeah, yeah, that was a really cool story. So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Becca is fantastic. We are so excited to have her on. Also, just so you know, at the end of these podcast episodes, we're going to let you know what we've got going on right now. And so I want to tell you about a 48 unit townhouse in Menorah, Ohio, that we are still raising capital for it. We only need, I think, another $600,000. That's all that we have left to raise on that property. We've actually already closed on it and we are ahead of schedule. So we're super excited about this property. It's one of those home runs we like to rave about when we find them because we underwrite so many properties to actually get one to work. And this one was amazing. So it does have a 12% blended return. It does have tax benefits. So we're super excited to get this one closed out and finalized. If you're interested in syndications or investing in apartment buildings, this is what you're going to want to call the team about. So just go to chatwithfreedom.com schedule a time with our investor relations team and they can tell you more about it. We're super excited about it and so thankful that you took your time out of your day to listen to our podcast, Big City.

Join us next Wednesday for another exciting episode of the Freedom Show.

Bye, everybody.

Bye. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions and information on the show are not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss.