From $135,000 in debt to selling her company to Bill Gates

Welcome ladies to The Real Estate Investor Show, providing inspiration, strategies, and insight to empower women investors to live balanced and financially free lives. Now here are your co-hosts Liz and Andresa Guidelli.

So ladies, on today's episode we have Bietta Chalet. She is a powerhouse on so many levels. She has been a very successful entrepreneur, sold her business to Bill Gates. And on today's episode, I think what you're gonna appreciate a lot about her entrepreneurial and her leadership style is being completely unapologetically owning your power. And what does that look like? What does that mean? She gives some great examples on what that even looks like, cuz it's easy to say it, but it's, it's more important to say what does that look like in your day-to-day? So I think you're gonna I think you're gonna be inspired enough to actually walk away with some great tools in your toolkit on how, as a woman, you can really own your power in any area of life, especially investing.

And one thing that I would say is like when we talk about like rock bottom, this is an example of rock bottom and turning around, right? So we look at the facts that happen to us and say, okay, where is there opportunity over here? Where are the lessons, right? Many times when we were going through it, we don't think about that. But she breaks it down and she also talks about how the women, how do we can play the game when making, building relationships with other people. And she talks about the Cinderella strategy. I'm not gonna give it away, but you gotta listen to this episode to know what is she talking about.

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Welcome back, ladies.

This is Liz and this is Andresa.

Welcome back to The Real Estate Investor Show, where we are all about empowering women to live a financially free and balanced life on your own terms. And we stand for that, right, Andresa Guidelli? Comes through our veins every day with everything we're up to because we have such a passion to see women thriving. In investing, in their business of investing, and also just taking care of themselves, most importantly, taking care of themselves, right? So Biaty, thank you so much for being on our show. We are so excited to have you on. You have such a wealth of knowledge in so many areas. We're just excited to dive in here in a moment. So thank you for making time to be on our show.

I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Liz and Andresa. Let's dive in. Let's balance. Women and help them to make some money.

Yes. Love it. I love it. So before we get to, to your story and, and everything, Andresa, what is happening for you? Let's get a quick, quick little tip or something women can bring into their world in a, you know, micro way, not an overwhelming way, but something they can take into their life.

Sure. So a lot of people you see on, on, on the internet, people wavering the, the checks that they get from wholesaling for flipping or in front of their cars. I usually say that I want to show off that I get the chance to pick up my son every day from school. That's what I get to, to the privilege to be in line at 3:00 PM to pick him up from school. And another day I was picking him up from school and on the drive back, I was having like this, like deeper conversation with him and he was a little upset because he's part of my little theater thing that they're doing, first grade, and he has a, a part on it and he has forgotten his script in school. And he went to this downhill, like, oh, I feel so bad about it. I'm disappointed. I forgot the paper in school. And then I looked at that, like my first instinct, right? Let me get back. Let me get him back to happy. To the happy place. Let me stop the bleeding here, him feeling bad or whatever that is. But I took a step back and I was like, I see you feel very disappointed on yourself because you forgot. He's like, yes. I was like, okay, let's sit with it and let's think about it's going to pass, right? But it's, people do get disappointed when they forget something or Something happened that they didn't want it to happen, right? But tomorrow is another day and you're going to get your script and it's going to be, it's going to be there. I think that I wanted him, and this is hard. We don't want our children to have feelings of negative feelings, right? We label negative feelings of feeling sorry or feeling bad about something that happened. And we always say, No, it's okay. It's okay. Like, and then we raise adults that also don't allow themselves to feel the feeling and are obligated to be positive and prosperous and be okay with things at all times. And for the women that are listening, the way that I see it is that if something's happening in your real estate business, in your projects, with your contractors, You have the right to be pissed off. You have the right to be upset about something. You have the right. And I don't want you to suppress it. I don't want you to ignore it. I just wanted to feel it. Let it pass it through you. Because the more that we suppress, we think, oh, I'm going to forget that. You're just balling it up. It's going to explode sometime. And you have the right to be sad. Too, right? There's different, I'm not saying that you should be, you should stay at that place. And I don't, I didn't want my son to stay at that place and he got out of it. But I, I, for the first time, I believe I was very conscious about not jumping in and forcing him to do not feel that feeling. And I encourage you to think about what's going on in your life right now and, and bring the awareness to the table. And just honor our feelings and name it, name, name the feeling and be okay with it, you're going to snap out of it later on. It's going to get out, out of your system, right? You have your support system around to, to go through it, but I encourage you to be aware and do not suppress.

Love that. Good, good advice, right? Not to, uh, solve the problems of our children, right? To let them come to their own. Conclusions, very hard to do, but very important to do. Good stuff. Yat-seen, without further ado, we, we'd love to jump into you and your story. You have such a powerful one where you sold your business to Bill Gates, and there's a lot in all of that that, you know, I really want to, that we really want to, to cover with you and your passion to support women entrepreneurs and leader and leaders. So we always like to kind of kick things off. What, What propelled you? Let's, let's talk about your entrepreneurial spirit and your entrepreneurial endeavor. What propelled you to start a business?

I got laid off and I had to figure out how to make money. I mean, you know, sometimes I think these great stories in our lives start with something really trivial. Is I was, you know, I was working for, for someone else and then there was a major recession that hit after fires, floods, and riots and the business owner couldn't continue with this particular area of the business. I was a photographer representative at the time. And then he said, I have to close this department. It doesn't make me any money, but you're welcome to, you know, whatever, take the photographers and do this on your own. As long as I don't have to pay for it, I'm good. And then there I am, and now I have a business and people that I'm representing and no income. And, you know, I'm facing some really difficult times. I have to figure out how I'm gonna make it work. So I really was an accidental entrepreneur more than anything else. And then from there on, the story just, just goes. Then you have to.

I love that. I wanna read something from, from your bio that's going to give a snapshot of, of, of this woman, ladies, and hear me out on this. A photo editor from Elle Magazine migrates from Germany to the US to escape a stereotypical fashion industry. While building an architectural photography business. Your top employee tries to steal your business from, from under your feet, leading you to a cost lawsuit while the US market crashes and your business loses half a million dollars overnight. On top of everything else, your father, your biggest supporter, passes away from pancreatic cancer. Right before your property manager serves you. So I did not, and I bet you also, we didn't, this was not like a script from a movie or anything else. That's your life. And I, listening ladies, if that did not catch your attention about what's about to happen during this episode, I'm not sure what will, right? You went from that to selling your business to Bill Gates. So walk me through that gap. What happened after everything else that, that you went through? You were $135 million in debt at that point. How did you get out of that? No, you sold it for $135 million, right? The business to Bill Gates. How did you get out of debt to selling the, the, the business to Bill Gates? How did that happen?

Yeah. So, so you forgot the tsunami. And you forgot September 11th, where I lost the other half million, you know, and then just litter a couple of like natural disasters, fires, floods, riots, and earthquakes in between. And then you kind of get the whole story. So the story really is sort of, you know, if we put this in relationship to your listeners and we say, okay, so here's what's going on. When you are activated, I call this an activation by God, spirit, the universe, or, you know, whatever you want to call it, by some energy inside of you that says you you can do this, go ahead and do it. Oftentimes it's not that you already have the skillset, so you are being put through these series of just absolutely outrageous things. I mean, let's face it, who would ever lose a key vendor in a tsunami in Asia? I mean, that just doesn't happen. You know, 2 photographers vanished. Mine was one of them. I mean, the chances of that are so so minimal, and yet it did happen. So I believe that when you step into this next area of your life, and it's happening to me right now, is that you're being forced to stretch way beyond your capabilities and your self-assessment, I wanna say almost, right? It's just like, that's too much. No single person should be needing to handle all of this. What is this even all about? And so as I'm facing, you know, this decade of bad luck with one thing after another, after another, after another, crowned by the death of my father, my big supporter. And then you sit there and you go, okay, okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Everybody hold their horses here. What the heck is going on? And you step back and you said, this is just not normal. I mean, this is just not normal that one single person has to Go over all of this while I'm a single mom, an immigrant, you know, in an ugly divorce with, with that, with that alcoholic ex-husband, pathological liar who's put my daughter in the hospital 3 times. One time she almost died from an almost fatal asthma attack. And all of this is happening and you go like, what did I ever do to deserve this? And that's the wrong question because the right question is, where's the gift in this? And so after all of these massive changes and challenges, there comes a point where you realize, I am clearly not in charge here, and you surrender. And that was when I, at the grave, after we buried my dad, that's when the phone rang, Andresa, and I got the notice that we'd just been served the notice. I mean, it was literally while I'm at the grave, 10 minutes after my father was buried, that's when that call came in. And you go just like, WTF, what, what, what now? Right? Like, like, bring it on, dude, because, you know, I'm, I'm here at saturation level. And then you say, I'm not in charge. All I can do is I've done the best I could. I'm surrendering. And when you go into the surrender point, that's when you just step away and say, I've done everything I could. There's nothing else I can do. And now it's a question of time until I have to declare bankruptcy. I'm gonna have to go back. I'm gonna have to figure out how, where I'm gonna live with my kid. How am I gonna continue this business? Can I continue this business? And then I get a letter from the White House and I had in my absolute desperation written a letter to the President of the United States, not because I thought that was a brilliant idea, but because my ex-mother-in-law just would not be quiet. You gotta write a letter to the president. He's your president too. You know, if anybody can help you, it's the president of the United States. You need to write a letter to the president. Fine, I'm writing a letter to the president of the United States. So just so we did not need to have this conversation anymore. And when I get a letter from the White House, I almost fell off my chair. I'm like, what? What? This actually, you know, kind of like works? Like you write a letter to the White House and then they write you a letter back. And it put me in touch with the Small Business Administration. And when I walked into my meeting, I walked in with the deputy chief director, not with some underling, but with the number 2, because the letter came from the White House. And I had written a business plan every night from 9 until midnight and every weekend. I had my business plan ready. I had, I had everything ready. So when I walked in, I was ready to figure out how the heck am I going to get out of this. And so they found me a bank a couple months later that restructured my debt into a 10-year fixed loan, freed up my line of credit that brought me to break even 3 months later. This is how close it was. It was a matter of 3 months. 18 months later, after the worst moment of my life when my dad died, I am the world leader in my category selling celebrity homes all over the world and like, 79 countries. And that's when the Bill Gates Company comes and says, can you tell us how you do it? And like any smart woman, like I know you guys are the exact same, you go like, I'm not telling you nothing. You, you, you want it, you have to pay for it. And then they made me a multimillion dollar offer and that was the number I wanted to get to that would allow me to buy the house, to have nobody ever throw me out of a house again. To put my daughter through college and to be able to live off the interest if I choose to. And so I sold.

Wow. A lot to unpack there. And I think there's a couple of things. I think so many times we think of surrendering as this like giving up, right? Or I should speak personally. I think sometimes surrendering can equate giving up, but it's not. It's almost like giving in. To what's happening, right? And I don't know if you had that experience too, because the surrendering, you took action, you surrendered in a sense, and then you also did something really interesting. You listened to the people in your circle who care about you. Your mother-in-law, you said, that told you to write a letter to the White House?

Yeah, my ex-mother-in-law.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you just really wanted to stop her telling you the same thing, but in reality—

Over again.

But in reality, clearly you, you, you, um, respected her enough and enough to say, okay, let me, let me just do this to get, you know, get, get, still have her stop talking. But more importantly, you listened and you took action on something and, and look, and then look what it yielded. And I think so often it's that story that, you know, you, you say a prayer to God and, you know, you're, you're, you're saying, you're praying to God and there's a flood. And, you know, all of a sudden a boat comes by and you're like, nope, waiting for a sign from God. And then a helicopter comes by. Nope, waiting for a sign from God. And then the person dies and they go to heaven. They're like, what happened? I was praying for you to help me. It's like, I sent a boat, a helicopter, a person. What other things do you need? And I think often we— I love that you took a micro action in that time. And I think we need to listen when we surrender, we give into what's going on. We need to also take that action and listen and take that action, not wait for this, the world to open up for this amazing thing. It's not gonna look amazing. It's just gonna be one step, one small, insignificant at the time you thought step, and then look what that led you to. So I just wanted to really reiterate that. The question I have is, so you create the momentum, the White House, you get your business back going, and then you obviously sold it to Bill Gates. There's a lot in it, and that was a short time. So what were those first few things? Once the momentum began and the first step was taken, the second step, what was the next thing? What was your way of being that you had to have to keep that momentum going to get yourself out of debt? You know, let's, let's explore that a little bit.

Yeah. So I think that the biggest part about this transformation is that when you avoid disaster or bankruptcy by such a small margin, I mean, I, I had to borrow money to pay interest on borrowed money, which I know you, you being who you are and doing what you do, you know that what a great strategy that is financially, right? That's called the death spiral in the finance world. So once you have such a repertoire, let's call it that, of stuff you had to overcome, there really isn't all that much that when it happens where you go, oh no, this is happening to me. I can't believe it. You just go, meh, you know, here's another thing. Meh, here's another thing. So you, you, you get really detached is I think the word that I want to use from when stuff happens and you go, that is so interesting. So I, I shifted this into curiosity and that's still how I deal with it today. So when I have this brilliant idea, you know, let's say I hired this writer, uh, who was supposed to fix my funnel and I paid him like $10,000 and he did nothing. Nothing. I mean, we had a lot of phone calls, but the copy didn't convert. The stuff didn't look like me. It felt very old school. I wasn't happy with it. We didn't make a single sale, you know, so I just could have taken that $10,000 and gone to a great vacation in the Fijis. But you go and you look at this and you go, nah, that's so interesting. So clearly this is not the road for me to go. So, and then you plug the hole. So the, the, the mental mindset, the shift in the mentality, the mental mindset shift that happens at this time is that you go, I will not be attached because you can't. I am going to have to do bigger steps. And I think this really applies to what you do as well, 'cause the investments that your clients make, that your tribes make, those are not $5 coffees at Starbucks. Those are big investments. Those are life savings. Those are, that's money borrowed from friends and family. That's, you know, that's, you know, I call these, you know, I'm just gonna say it, I call these the oh shit moments. In life where you go, oh shit, what am I gonna do now, right? This feels, this almost feels sometimes like, you know, somebody takes a hand on your throat and chokes you ever so briefly because it's so big and audacious and bigger than anything you've ever done. And then you go, well, the opportunity is born out of something that I don't know yet. All we have control over is the goal. We know where we are and we know where we wanna go. How we get there just isn't up to us. And the sooner we let that idea go, that you are in charge of the path with all the rest stops and, you know, and the picnic benches and people handing you water at the right time. You can forget about that. That just is never gonna happen. The ride is crazy insane. It's a weird phone call. You know, somebody's connecting you with somebody. You don't even know who this person is. Then you're on a phone call with them. And they say something, you're like, what? That is insane as an idea. And from there on, it's like a snowball going in a completely different direction, which still leads you to the goal. It's just not the hiking path you thought. You thought you're gonna stroll along on the ridgeline until you get to the top. And this person says, oh, there's a hidden way. It goes straight up. It's a little thorny. Very few people take it, but you'll get there faster, but be prepared for bruises and scratches. And next thing you know, in the middle of it, you can't turn around. So that's the best way to describe it. You, you keep going because you know that every mountain has a top. So if you give up now, you're gonna go right back down to where you came from, and you accomplished nothing other than you wasted your time, so you may as well keep going.

Absolutely.

And I think that when we are all going through different things, right? It doesn't feel like, oh, this is a blessing or there's an opportunity on that. We, it feels like what the hell is going on over here? I'm tired because I look at all the other people and it sounds so cool for them. It sounds almost like easy to them because I'm comparing my reality to somebody else's Instagram account. right? Or whatever social media post. I think for women, when we think about women taking leadership positions and owning it, owning it that they're the leaders of their companies, they're in charge of building process and not them by themselves, but they are the ones that initiate things and then other things happen, right? So, by reading what you stand for in terms of women in leadership nowadays, why is it so important for women to claim that seat on the table?

Oh God.

That I don't think that it's, it's, you know, we look around and we don't see it a lot, but why, why in your opinion is it important for women to claim it?

So, you know, when I, when I started out, I looked at women that were in their 50s And I, I thought, oh God, these are like angry old feminists, poorly aging, and they just don't know how to handle men. And gosh, you know, if they only would be better women, then they wouldn't be at war with the male world. And, you know, and while I did that, I was young and cute and, you know, and sexy. And I certainly, you know, was wearing the short skirts and, and made sure that I was something to look at. It was part of my strategy is that, when you are in business as a woman, you have to use what you got. And I'm not— please don't sleep around and do things like that, but you use your appearance, your charm, your, your natural gifts in a way that people take notice of you because that creates opportunities. That's just the way it is. And then as I progressed, I realized that the structure is set up so that women are in a catfight with each other and that they are raised and challenged almost to take each other out. And then I looked at this in the corporate structure, in the structure of the world, and I'm going like, this is, you know, as a strategist, this is a brilliant strategy. You take 51% of the population, you play them out against each other, you encourage them playing out against each other, you promote that in the media, you write about it. You make sure that everybody knows that that B did that to that woman, that poor woman. And the older I got and the more I looked at it, I'm like, this is insanity. That would, that would mean that every single woman, unless she's a housewife, she has 3 kids, she does everything for her husband, she never complains, even when he cheats and does other things or replaces her with a younger model, that's a good woman. But if you speak up and you say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna do my. I'm. I'm gonna be responsible for my own happiness, and I'm gonna be responsible for my own financial future. Suddenly it's like, oh, God, she's just ambitious, and I don't know what's wrong with her, but, you know, be careful with her. There's. There's something going on. And I looked at it. I'm like, this is like, insanity. This is insanity. And then I became the woman who is 50. And then young women look at me and they go like, well, you're just a poorly aging feminist who doesn't know how to handle men. If you would be a better woman, then you wouldn't have these difficulties with men. I'm like, what movie am I in now? Where in my world have— has anybody ever seen a negative word about me not liking men or being the cat lady lesbian, right? With a fake ring, no less. I mean, I have heard it all. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking to myself, At what point does this stop? At what point does this stop? And the problem is that young women get so lulled into that, it's not me, it's all of them, that by the time they figure out it is them who fueled that exact same behavior that we've been now for what, decades, been trying to overcome for the structure to change, it's too late. And then they are 50. And the poorly aging feminist that now is being looked at by the next set of 20-year-olds that say, oh, well, if you only knew how to handle men better, you wouldn't be in the position you're in. That's not the case. The case is that I'm divorced, and it was a bad divorce. I was in debt for a really long time. I did not know how to feed my daughter. I did not know how I was going to make it through all of that. I had Nobody. I was in a country, not, not my own, and I certainly wasn't going to go back to Germany with my tail between my legs. I'd rather die. And there is a point where you go, okay, this experience has to be beneficial for somebody, anybody, to say, take something from that story, learn, and don't make those mistakes. Have better relationships with other women earlier. Have that women's code that I founded, to know that other women are good women and don't fall into these traps, build these important female relationships, and understand that the system structure is just stacked against us just by the pure nature. It was built by white men for white men and worked great for white men. It's not working for white men so much anymore either, because this next generation doesn't want to have anything to do with it either. So we need a structural upgrade, but in the meantime, I think that awareness of saying, I am taking full responsibility for my behavior, that's what leadership for women is for me and why I fight so much and why I talk about this so much is because you are in charge of where you're going and what you do and what you say causes either the carnage or the victory lap for others. And I much rather have people run victory laps around me.

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I love what you're saying on so many levels, and I'm thinking about the women listening, and I'm thinking about this need, this incessant need for permission. And a lot of women have, right? They need, they appreciate, they need permission to make a change. Just the idea of permission. And when you own your power and you say, I'm in charge, right? And you're like, this is what I'm doing. This is where I'm headed. The idea that you've moved past a permission, you're not, you're not seeking permission. You're just making it happen. So for the women listening that want that, want to be more like that, and have that behavior in their life, in an area of their life, let's take investing, let's take their self-care, right? Make the long list of where you can actually apply that. They're still hung up a little bit on this, this sense of permission, friend, parent, themselves, spouse. I mean, again, fill in who you need permission from, the universe, but not, but how, what would you say to those women to move through this feeling of guilt, feeling of needing permission to really own it and, and take charge unapologetically. I don't think every woman out there is doing that to the level that you're saying, right? And we all would agree that's probably not the case. So I think one roadblock is, is needing permission. My opinion is probably many. So what would you say to those women to navigate that for themselves, to, to move beyond it so they can really own their power?

Yeah.

Well, I love that you said unapologetic, cuz I developed the program called the Unapologetic Value Proposition for that exact reason to teach that specific skill.

Sure.

So here's the, here's the answer. The answer to that is that, again, if we look at the structure, the structure is designed to say, in school, we give you the information, you learn the information, you regurgitate the information. If you regurgitate the information correctly, you get an A. You go to college, we give you the information, you learn the information, you give the information back to me the exact same I want it, you get an A. Then we go into real life and then people say, hey, Andresa, what are you bringing to the table that's so amazing and unique? And you go, nobody prepared me for this moment, right? And then they look at you and they go like, how can you not be prepared for this? And you go like, well, it's really not been part of any education. Everybody told me, you know, just regurgitate, regurgitate, and life will be grand, only to find out that that is the number one skill That gets you nowhere in life other, you know, except maybe a corporate job or at the post office or, and not that these are bad jobs. I'm humbled that there are people who are in these positions who want to do that because I would not survive. But when you recognize that your entire education is based on the opposite of what you're supposed to do now, Now, you know where the conflict is because you keep asking for, I have this idea, but who can I ask now who has the information that I can learn so I can regurgitate it? And it just doesn't exist. It exists to a certain degree, but in entrepreneurship or in investing, every deal is different. There is no, there is no one-size-fits-all. So suddenly you have to make decisions. And that is why women need permission because they figure if I ask you and then you tell me yes or no and it doesn't work, I can blame you and I'm out. You know, I, I, no fault of, no fault of mine. It was those, those bad ladies at The Real Estate Investor that gave me the advice that I should, you know, pursue my own financial freedom. I was skeptical at first, never mind they've done this for thousands of other women and they've been successful. In my case, it didn't work. They're fraudulent. And I must now proceed to take them down because they didn't— it didn't work for me, right? So I think that this is the part about the confidence is, I have a really simple, simple way I teach women how to— when somebody comes and questions your authority on the subject, because that's what this is about. It is other people asking you, and do you even have a right to be here? Because again, That's what men are trained. Men are trained to take out 50% of the competition just by asking stupid questions, right? What do you even know? Right? And then you get in that defensive mechanism. And you think you now have to, have to explain why you're here. And then you're stumbling along because you're offended that somebody— and it happens to the best. I've seen this to top women, where, you know, Hillary Clinton, You know, it happened to her and then suddenly they stumble around and they don't know what to say. So here's what you do instead. You pause, you give them a very puzzled look, like, like kind of like, what an idiot, what idiot would ask me a question like this? And then you laugh, you go, oh my God, that's hilarious. And you move right on and you don't even answer the question.

I love it.

That's it.

Majority of them, you know, hit a spot, right? You hit a spot and then it goes to this defense mode. And then we are playing a game that we don't even know we are playing.

And you already lost.

Yeah.

Because then you are, then you are, yeah, she's not, she doesn't seem very certain about that. I wouldn't do that because, you know, if she doesn't have that answer right there on the spot really hard and, you know, and can withstand a simple question like that, uh, be careful with her. So don't even go there. You know, I mean, I do this all the time. I did this when I, there's a real life example. So I went and I had a car accident and we were in settlement talks. I had a bad neck injury. And so the guy comes in with an offer of $20,000 for a settlement and I'm sitting there and I'm typing on my computer in, you know, in the room I was in. And I just looked up, I briefly paused my typing. I just looked at him and I went, no. And then I went back to typing. And he came back with $60,000 30 minutes later.

It's just a freaking game though.

It is a game.

But listen, I know we talked before about this and I want to share with women because networking is a nightmare to me. And I remember the last time that we talked that you were like, there is a game that I play when I meet people at the bar. And I play it and I go, where, where are they hanging out? At the bar. And, and, and you, I was like laughing so hard because there isn't a strategy behind it. So you go to this bar, you want to share what you do, you go to the bar, but you don't drink it. And then you, you, you have your own, own game.

Yeah, I do. So, so what I realized is that once I realized that, I mean, men are very playful. So, so men, men, men like a strategic play because that's, that's what they're raised in. So they will recognize what you're doing and they'll crack up over it, but they'll play along and they'll enjoy it. And that builds kind of this context. Yeah. And this bond's really interesting. So I saw that when I wanted these meetings and I couldn't get the meetings at these conferences, that all the men went to the bar. I mean, straight after. The conference closed, everybody went to the bar. I saw that the women didn't. And so I'm like, I'm gonna go to the bar. And so I'm one of like 2, 3 women at the bar that, you know, I dressed up and I looked good and I, you know, I talked to them and over time I started to get meetings. But I realized that what happens at the bar, and that's why women don't go to the bar, because men drink because they're letting loose, they're away from their family, they're away from their wives, they can do whatever they want, they can have the unhealthy bar food, nobody's looking at them funny, they can drink, nobody would notice, they're amongst other men who would never say anything about this. And off we go. And so I realized that as a strategy for women, I came up with a Cinderella rule for women. And it goes like this, you always dress up for the ball at the bar. You have a 3-drink maximum. So, you know, you can, you can, you know, you can have some fun, but please don't go further than that. In bed before midnight, and you walk to your room alone. That keeps you out of trouble. Men don't have a 3-drink minimum, a maximum. They'll drink and they'll tell you stuff. Now you are the holder of secrets which you can never spill. Like you can't tell, you cannot tell a soul about this. Because now you have a token over them. Because they told you stuff. I can't even tell you how many men have told me, you know, what's going on in their bedroom and relationships with their wives. If that would ever come out, it would be disastrous. And the next morning, they'd go like, you know, hungover. What happened to you? You were suddenly gone. I'm like, oh, yeah, no, I just went, you know, I went to bed. I wanted to be fresh for today. Well, about last night, I said, what about last night? And I don't remember anything. And so they knew that their secrets were safe with me. And suddenly, I got the meetings. And suddenly, they would help me because now I had proven that I can be one of them but remaining being who I was. And that's how everything changed. That's how I got the big deals.

Hmm. That was a lot of good lessons, and that all come from hanging out at the bar. But it is. It's about being true to yourself. And also adapting, right? We can't just— and people always say about even the InvestHer community. I said, Andresa and I don't sit around and tell women to just hang out with women only. That's not what we stand on. Obviously, we have really good relationships and want to cultivate relationships with other people, of course. But we say, where can we get the confidence, right, and get that courage so that they can go keynote at a conference that they're speaking at? Quick story on that. A few years ago, there was a conference happening. There was no women speaking, none. There's a pitch of about 30 men all speaking and none of them, no women, not one woman out of 30. And this is the second year I'm going to be speaking at it. And I've been asked now twice to come back and speak, solo speak, not be on a panel. And I say that because we have to speak up when we see things like you're saying. You have to assimilate, you have to adapt, but you also have to speak up. And you clearly—

that's what we did behind the scenes.

That's what we did behind the scenes. So now I'm, now I'll be speaking in front of 500 people, you know, in a few days. And that wouldn't have happened had we not raised awareness to that person. And, and that made a big difference. But, uh, Bietta, you clearly stand for women standing for what they want in a very simple way. No, like you just looked up from your computer and said, no, look back down. Like you didn't have a long conversation. It was no. And I think, think it's very powerful. So love this. Where can the ladies listening learn more about you and learn about the great things you're doing?

Yeah. So if you wanna know about the Cinderella Rule or learn more about The Women's Code, go get the book Happy Woman, Happy World. And it's available on Amazon as an audiobook, a printed book, and as an ebook. And if you wanna learn about what I do, go to my website, beatachalet.com. If you are in business, you heard something, you wanna speak to me, You know, I give away 7 Uncovery sessions per month. So those are free consulting sessions where I can help you to figure out where your business is possibly stuck or what you may have missed. And one of the tools that I give away is the Airtight Avatar, which is the ideal client profile. So you just go to airtightavatar.com and download that. We just redid the whole program where it is a checklist that will take you through Who is your client? Because that is the foundation of your entire business. If you're not clear who the person is you're selling to, you can't really be successful. So that's, I give that away because I believe that that step is that important.

So much great information, ladies. All of this, the links are going to be on our show notes. Now we're gonna transition to our fabulous 3 questions. Beate, the first one is, what's the most transformational book you ever read?

I think, um, I keep that really simple. I like The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy because it just shows you that small things compound to something bigger. And so that if you want to change your habits, you don't have to really do a lot, but if you just do a little bit different every single day, you compound it into something much larger.

Awesome.

The second question is, what's the most powerful routine that you do to create a financially free and balanced life, whatever balance means to you?

I probably, you know, on the financial aspect, I only invest in things I know and that I believe in. So I don't, I don't put my money in things that I don't understand. And that has fared me, fared me overall very, very well. So I would say in the most important thing is that you have to lose your fear of losing the money because the, Fear of losing the money presses the energy down. If you think about investing and your investment having babies, the energy goes up because it grows. So that's really a mindset piece to say, I want to grow this and get rid of that fear of losing it because that keeps you in that ping pong, in that sine wave mode. So you have to decide to, you know, make a conscious decision to let go of the fear.

The last question is, which woman, famous or not, has inspired you the most?

I probably would say today there's two. There's number one, Gloria Steinem, because as a feminist, you know, I get a lot of heat for what I say and what I do from a lot of very angry men. I cannot even imagine what that woman must have endured in her lifetime, and still she's out there, she's talking. That requires a particular type of character. The second one would be Ruth Bader Ginsburg because she's one of the few women who actually understood on how to turn a female brand in a longevity brand. She's like the only woman I know, except maybe Maya Angelou, that has been able to transform her brand into this classic that just remained relevant until the day she died. That's something to aspire to.

I love it. And we have, for those 3 ladies, I watched their documentary on Netflix. Highly, highly recommend. It's just like amazing to know all this stuff that they went through and still go through it. And then they're standing strong, right? Maya, before she passed, and same thing with Ruth. Recently, I watched Gloria and I was like, I'm a big fan of her. Such like inspiring, right? And I was like, how do we know, don't know about her more? That's what I keep asking myself, right? But that's on us to shine the light. Hopefully one day we'll interview her.

Let's put it out there.

Wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah, let's put it out there.

Let's put it out there. Awesome.

There you go.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, that is the energy that, yes.

Betsy, thank you so much for being on our show. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us and our community, and just appreciate your, your time so much.

And I appreciate what you're doing. And for everybody listening, please make sure you leave a comment, 5-star rating, and share it with at least one other person because this is a labor of love. Give them the love back. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

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Ciao.