Success Stories of Women Entrepreneurs - Desiree Doubrox- The Local Voice

Welcome to the Local Voice. I'm Jeff Harrison. I'm your host, and I'm here today with another fabulous guest that I can't wait to dive into. Her story, if you remember. The Local Voice is about those businesses in our local community and really what things that they've gone through. The struggles, maybe the trials and tribulations, but they've come out of it. And these are golden nuggets that you'll be able to watch and learn from. And so I encourage you to take notes. And today we have Desiree. Desiree, help me with the last name.

Dubois.

Dubois. I love that. Sounds like somebody from Louisiana.

Jamaica.

Jamaica. Well, I was close. I was close. She has a company called An Empowered Woman. Tell us a little bit about you and your company.

Well, I've been an entrepreneur since I was 12 years old, so I've always been in business. And I've always enjoyed the fact of starting businesses and either moving on from there or selling them or doing different things with them. And I always thought it was easy, but when I was working with other women and listening to other women, a lot of them had very lot of difficulty with it, and they didn't have the access to resources and community and information, and I think to show that.

Camaraderie that you happen when you're part of something. So I was in real estate, trying.

To get women to invest in real.

Estate, and the market was soft. So I said, let me invite people.

To my home and we'll have a brunch and I'll talk to them about real estate, and they'll invest in it, and I'll be. Well, I found out when they arrived that they needed more inspirational, more motivational type of things. So I invited some friends that spoke on Think and Grow Rich or the being a stoppable woman or Finding your why, and they became the speakers and every. We started doing it over and over again. And eight months later, in my home, we just. It was standing room only.

So it's like, okay, this. There has to be a business.

Yeah.

Or it just has to stop, because.

It was just growing too far. So we became.

We started it the next year at.

The Mountain Gate Country Club, and we had hundreds of people attend. And it started from there, right from that point on. And our goal is to provide education, motivation, and community for women in business.

Now, is that for. Is that for any women in business, or is it just. Were you talking about specifically for women in real estate?

No, no. The funny thing is that at the beginning of this mar Woman that was the end of my real estate career. I never opened escrow since.

I know. Well, the thing is, that was the good news and the bad news, but.

It'S for all types of women in business. We find we have professionals like attorneys and doctors and architects and women that are coaches, women that are fashion designers, chefs. I mean, any kind of woman in business wants to connect with other women in business. So the resources are relatively the same across the board. And it's just being able to have those conversations with people that know what you're going through, who've been there and done that. It can really offer constructive criticism as well as resources.

So it's a support team as well as helping them take it to the next level.

Yes. We work with women that are starting fixing and building their businesses, and that's through webinars, seminars, webcasts, radio shows, TV shows, podcasts, Google Hangouts. Now they have some few new instruments as well as live events, awesome live events, so that they can kind of just get that information.

So with these, with these things that you're doing, Desiree, that are. That are really, you know, there are no borders anymore, right?

Yes.

I mean, do you see all of your stuff being live, meaning they're coming to your home, if you will, or are you doing this from your home and they're anywhere in the world combination.

But a lot of them are from home. Like earlier today, I was coaching a woman in Israel. She has a. She's a business consultant and she wanted to know one of our programs to be able. She's taking one of our programs so she can share with her community. So you can be worldwide via Skype or Google Hangouts.

We do have local events and we.

Are going from different cities this year. Every month we'll be in a different city.

This month we're here in Palm Desert, but next month will be in Vegas.

And then New Jersey and then Miami and then in India.

We'll be in India in June. So we're really kind of reaching out.

To the women all over.

Well, I warned you that this was going to be exciting. And it all is. Desiree, thank you so much. So I'd like to ask before we get really started, is what is your favorite success quote and does it tie into your life?

Yes, my favorite quote that I constantly say is, do not let nothing or no one dim the light that shines within.

Because that's the tough one. You know, either the constant chatter we have from our loved ones or from our naysayers or just ourselves.

That monkey on the wheel in our head. Right.

So you constantly have to keep saying, okay, you have to be really focused and vision. You know, you have a vision to be really focused on it and just keep going forward no matter what.

Yeah. You know, it sounds like you did that when you said you were. You had that idea about bringing people into your home, talking about real estate, but then it went soft. And that didn't stop you. You just immediately. That's kind of I. Of the entrepreneurial mind of all of a sudden, you're saying, okay, I have to pivot. Right. And sometimes a hard pivot, but it's a pivot and saying I need to keep going. Right?

Yes.

And so you took that and then started your whole company because one was real estate, the other was not exactly. Wow, that's exciting. So tell us, as an entrepreneur, since you were age 12, I mean, let's face it, if you're an entrepreneur, you've had some ups and downs. I noticed your knees don't look like mine. I have a few scratches on my knees.

I think I fall my boob.

I fall back when that happens. Take us to a point when you say, you know what, Jeff? This was kind of my lowest point. This was my toughest point as an entrepreneur. And really, what lessons did you learn? I want you to take us there as if we were there that day, a day that time.

You know, it's.

I think most recently, you know, because a lot of us can relate to this, is that a couple years ago, when we had the downturn, the recession, I had, you know, even though I started empowered women.

For real estate, and I stopped doing real estate and did that. We had great success initially. We had really kind of. We were the first. One of the first women's communities out there, especially through using video and radio and things of that type. And then the market hit, and I was still during that time, except getting a lot of my revenue from my real estate. But I lost. I lost 10 properties. I lost my primary residents. I lost two apartment buildings during that time. You get really involved in the loan modifications and the legal suits. I had to file bankruptcy twice because one of our apartment buildings, we were being sued by contractors because we were right in the middle of completing. So I had to file personal bankruptcy and a business bankruptcy also. I became an empty nester. My youngest son went off to college, so I was alone. I also, I think cause of all this caused me to lose a relationship. Relationship. I had been dating for a while, so I found myself very, very, very alone. You know, my mother passed away, who.

Was one of my biggest fans. She'd sit in our events and get.

Dressed up and be there in the audience no matter what. And you, it's just one thing after another. So losing the home I went to.

I said I moved into a different area.

I was in Westlake Village, then to.

Orange county, and I rented for a.

While and I loved where I lived, but I could not continue paying rent. I wanted to buy again. And I just said, you know, one month. I said, just have to, I have to find someone who will sell to me. I needed a seller financing, a seller who would understand my story. And obviously my credit was, you know, caboose. And I lived on my credit, you know, as a realtor and as an investor. I used to be able to buy property, whole property on a credit card, a black American Express card, and sell it within the 30 days to pay that bill. I mean, so for me not to have any credit, for my credit to go so south.

It was pretty amazing. It was pretty heartbreaking. But I did find a seller out here in Palm Desert. Then I explained right up front before he ran my credit report, I said, this is the deal, so this is what I've lost and so forth, and this is what I'm trying to rebuild. And his response was that if he felt I did it once, I would do it again. The fact I was trying, he would support me and never even ran my credit report.

Wow, good for him.

But it was just got to a point where, you know, I mean, literally there are some days where when I was moving out of that apartment.

I had called in advance to get my utilities cut off. And when I was doing last minute things, clearing out everything, making sure the last things were done for them to do the inspection, my electric went off. So I called, of course, and said, well, it's not supposed to go off until next week. And da da da said, no, no, no, no, your bill was not paid. I said, well, I paid it, but the check had bounced. Nothing like, oh my gosh, at this point you're having your life, you're having check balance. And it wasn't extremely a lot of money just balanced because someone else's check did not go through. And I was so dependent on those small dollars. So I said, okay, I'll go across to the bank and make a deposit, switch some things around and do it. And I got over there, a little movement, Rob Peter to pay Paul. And I tried calling back. Then my phone was out, my cell phone was not on.

Oh, My goodness.

And it's like I was stand bank getting my electricity back on, but now my phone is. And so I had to use their phone to go back to now from robbing Peter to pay Paul. I had to rob Paul to pay.

John, whoever it was, you know, and then use their phone. They called the phone call me, said, could you please turn my phone back on? You know, because, I mean, it's like. It's a spiral of little things like that. And then, of course, going to your car and saying, like, okay, now I don't even have that much gas. And so I've exhausted this, this, and this. And it's like, I think it hits so hard when you're adult, because it could be, like, two. You know, you're over that already. Young people, you make all those kind of mistakes, and we all did. And. But when you become a mature person and then successful, because I had been successful, I made a million dollars twice in my life through my real estate, and prior to that, through a model's media business. So I had been there. But to be to the point where you're just negative, you know, your bank accounts, like, you're not even, like, in the red. You're, like, low.

Yeah.

Then it was just very heartbreaking, especially.

When you're supposed to be an empowered woman.

Yeah.

And empowering others. And that was the hardest thing, is to be able to keep showing up and keep offering others the motivation and inspiration and keep telling them how to, you know, continue their businesses and be wealthy. When I wasn't able to do it myself, basically because I was just really distracted. You know, I had all these other things juggling. I was juggling my life and my business and my. And, you know, my real estate. Still, the aftermath, you know, sometimes things. You move through things, you know, with a strong face, a series of events. But I think I should help make sure everyone knows that eventually one day it hits you. Yeah, it just hits you. It hits you like you don't know what hit you. You know, it just hits you so hard that all of a sudden, you just kind of become immobilized. You become frightened, you become unempowered. And I had to keep reminding myself, hey, Desiree, this is not your life. Yeah, this is not your life. This is something that's happening right now in your life, and it's a small portion of your life. Hopefully, really small portion of your life.

Yeah.

But it's not your life, because if you don't step into it as your life. Oh, my gosh, My Life is going to be terrible. I'm not going to have any money. I'm not going to be have a boyfriend. I'm not going to have my sons. Everyone's gonna be away. I'm going to be alone. You know, my business is going to fail. All those things, if you engage and embrace those thoughts because that is the reality at that moment, then all of a sudden you're stepping into that world. And that was the hardest thing is to make sure. Okay, you know, like, cancel, cancel, cancel. Anytime those thoughts come through, cancel, cancel, cancel. But first, before you do that, you do have to kind of like let.

It get in and purge it through.

You have to absorb it all and you have to mourn.

I guess you just can't ignore it because it's still there, right?

Exactly. Exactly. You just can't keep bouncing back and showing up and, like, nothing's happened. You've got to acknowledge, okay, this is happening, what's happened. And I, you know, I give myself a day or two days where I just kind of walled around, you know, just.

Thinking, reading, listening, watching. You know, I find that's the time you watch all these and listen to all these videos and things that you've listened to before and that really, you. Now you hear with a different ear and it makes difference and just kind of pull you. You allow yourself. I think I give us. I budget some time to mourn. I said I allowed myself this period of time. I think it was a couple of days, you know, because I'm not really too restless to stay there too long, but just a couple of days to really kind of think, okay, what do I really want to do? Not from where I'm in. Where I'm at at that moment. Because then you don't, you know, you monitor your dreams. You're going to curtail your dreams to what the reality is, but to like, what do I really want to do for the rest of my life if.

Failure was not an option?

You know, if I had every resource and everything to work with me, what would I relate to? And I realized that, you know, and people are saying, get a job. You know, forget the power woman. The time is up. You know, the market has changed. Do something different. You've got qualifications. And, you know, I just, I couldn't leave that space.

So. So what is you. What did you. What did you take away from that? What, like, what was the learning lesson with that?

The learning lesson is that you have to stop and think and really think about again what you really want to do. No Matter what, and find out what it's going to take to get there and start that path.

So not get consumed by what's happening right now. Because that's kind of like a bump in the road. Right. It could be a detour. You know, we all want to get on the freeway and there's a detour and think, ah, but it's. We have to move around it. Right, Exactly. While still focus, keeping focused on, hey, what's the end game? Right. Because that's what pulls us down the road.

Yeah.

So with that, tell us, really, then you mentioned a couple times going back into books and videos and whatnot. Is there a book for you that's a resource that you say, hey, when things are not quite on track, do I go back and take a look at what would you say is your favorite book that would fall into that resource guide?

One of the resources. And it's really funny because I'm just.

Trying to think of a newer version.

But Think and Grow Rich, it's the old classic. I find that it's not, you know, nowadays, it's not really designed or feminine.

It's not very feminine.

And I keep thinking I want to do one for the women, for women, by women.

But the basic principles are there.

You know, it's very basic. It's very simple. And I've taught programs like that. And I actually go back and I have it on audible and I just listen to it and have the book itself, and I listen to it. I like a lot of autobiographies.

You know, I think now you have YouTube.

We have so many stories of people and just listening to the Tony Robbins and listening to, you know, a lot of the. Even some of the female. I think some of the female. Just listening to people's biographies, you are able to determine the fact that they have been there, too.

Everybody has.

I know.

And just remind yourself it's not just you. Yeah.

I think it's one of those things. Sometimes maybe our viewer would look and say, well, you know, when they have a setback or failure, they say they might think I am a failure and I'm done. And in your story, you said, hey, that again, is not me. It's just a situation I'm going through. And I think that's a great golden nugget to take away. Tell us now what's going on in your life now that you're just, like, really super happy about and proud of in your business.

I think now that we're. I'm actually on the path to what.

We Want last year to pull myself out.

I started going down speaking a lot.

I spoke a lot last year and one of my proudest moments was to.

Speak at the LA Business Journal symposium. Because I've been going for five or six years looking at the stage, wanting to be there, and I actually made.

That a lot of speaking. So we are, we actually launched our let's Talk Success program. And that is a program where we spotlight a woman who've achieved the seven.

Figure mark and they share their stories.

Their challenges, their victories and their secrets to success.

And we go into their homes and small lifestyles for the rich and famous.

Okay.

And so because we want to see what women look like and what their homes look like and what they, how they live and just really get up close and personal with them. And so we did that. And it's a digital magazine and we also have their podcasts and Fitch pictures and some information in there, but it's really short, 12 or 14 pages. And so we only got four editions last year to complete it, but this year we're planning to do 12. And we started off with Lisa Nichols. We had to finish editing her, so she's our first speaker. And I think that's because that will.

Take me around the world.

I want to do all different places and countries. So women in different cities and countries have different perspectives on success and how they do their businesses. I find that fascinating. So women have that resource to look at when they need that traditional motivation and inspiration. And I think also we need a spotlight and really showcase our models. We have a lot of successful women out there and they need to know.

What they're doing and how they're doing it.

We have a lot of millionaires next door and it's not so much about the money, it's about the journey that.

They have gone through to get through that.

When you're talking to women that are showcased, there are seven figure earners, but probably there are those women out there that, yes, money is a byproduct of it, but such as yourself. I mean, you're going out and you're helping empower other women. And the byproduct are all these stories that you're getting.

Exactly.

And you said something, you said this is going to take you around the world. World. I mean, you have quite a, you have a, quite a travel schedule coming. Tell us about that. Because you're not, you're not staying still very long. And you mentioned the very beginning. You're not somebody who just sits still.

No, because I just realized that there's so much value. Everyone does things differently, you know, in different countries, and they do things differently, their businesses differently, and they want to know what we're doing, we want to know what they're doing, you know, so it's a way to be. Now that we have so many great resources via the Internet, there's no reason why to stay stagnant. And so I want to go. We have members all over the world, and I want to go visit them and honor them and connect with them and, you know, connect this community of all these women together.

Well, okay, so your company is called An Empowered Woman.

An Empowered Woman.

Tell us about, you know, if someone were listening, they're just starting out, or maybe they're coming through that rough patch, you know, what would you. What advice would you give them, Desiree, to help them, you know, take it to the next level or get through that rough patch?

Do what you have to do to be very clear about what you want. Again, just decide what you want, what's your dream, and no matter what it is, and do not, again, assess where you are right now and assume that success, failure is not an option. And write it down, record it, put it, post this, do whatever you need to do to remind yourself every day where it is, and then go backwards and start the path going there. So even if your daily trial takes you this way, allow a certain hour or two hours or a weekend, whatever it is, to move to your dream road, you know, so again, there's different roads you can take.

If you have to take this path.

Right now just to survive or just to make it through, in the meanwhile, still dedicate certain time that you're going to do to go towards your dream life. And before you know it, you'll be able. They'll start merging and merging and merging, and then you'll be specifically, you'll be able to afford, not only financially, but spiritually, mentally, to be able to stay on your dream path and go towards your dream, because it's there. It's just a matter of just getting on that path and find out the tools you need, make the contacts, connections, resources are huge. It shortens the distance quite a bit.

Where would somebody go? Let's say in our local area. We live in the Palm Desert, Palm Springs area. Like, where would somebody reach out and say, you know, I like what Desiree has to say? How would they get in touch with you? Or how would they start following you and connect with you? Because let's face, you've got some great information, great messages, and You've got a beautiful smile. And again, her knees look better than mine.

Contact anempoweredwoman.com for one and opt in. Also, feel free to contact us by phone. We are answer the phones. We enjoy phone calls. So it's 818-865-8563 and extension number three brings you directly to me. That's 818-865-5563. Or email us. You can email me directly@ Desiree nempoweredwoman.com and that's D E S I R EE e@annempoweredwoman.com well, Desiree, thank you so.

Much for joining us today. This has been a fabulous journey. I wish I could talk to you for another hour. You've got some great stories. So again, reach out to Desiree. She's a great resource. And I need to ask you now, do you have anything on your website that's like an ongoing kind of thing? Do you have podcasts?

We have our second Sundays that will be featured via livestream. We have every third Thursday month, Strictly Business, where we have Business Professionals Week. We do our Looking for Women for podcasts. We have one series called I Am an Empowered Woman. Then we have a let's Talk Success series. So we have lots of things that you can opt in for. And if you don't find what you're looking forward to see, mail me and I'll direct you where Direct you.

Fantastic. Well, thank you again and thank you for joining us. I'm Jeff Harrison and this is the Local Voice and we'll see you again next time.