From Childhood Poverty To Business Success with Angela Duncan

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I'm talking with Angela Duncan and she's in Miami. Hello, Angela.

Thank you so much, Larry, for having me today.

I'm enjoying looking at that pink chair you're sitting in. Pink is your part of your brand?

Yes, it's my favorite color. And I love that Barbie brought back pink and it's popular again for a little bit.

Yeah. Well, congratulations on your business success in so many different areas and we'll get into that. But, you know, one of the things, you know, it's substantial achievement to have success and then to keep it going for a long time. But you've owned and run a top 10 ReMax office, which is an entrepreneurial. It's like the biggest ReMax is the biggest realtor in the world. I didn't know that. They sell more houses and they're in 110 countries. Who knew all that? So thousands and thousands of offices. Over a hundred thousand, well over a hundred thousand agents. And you ran one of the top 10 offices for over five years and had to be a lot of education that came from that.

Definitely one of them is make sure you pick the right partners to run business with. Because understanding what you do great means you need to understand you hire out what you don't do great.

Yeah. Now talk about how does the young, beautiful Angela Duncan get started in life where she doesn't know anything about anything outside of her home, her family or friends? How did, what. What about your life stood out early on where you realized, you know, you as a, a human being, a young child, my reality is a little bit different than other people.

Yeah. So I think I'm a survivor of childhood poverty. So sex aid, housing, welfare moved around a ton. I've lived in motels, cars, other people's houses, but I didn't know any different. And I think when you grow up without anything, you don't necessarily have that fear of losing, you know, losing what you have because you just don't have anything. So being naive was probably an advantage for me as a young girl. But what I find is that I was just very curious. I always thought that money would solve every problem. And so when I was a kid and in going through my career, I thought if I earned more money, that that would solve my problem. And so that's where my early pursuit of learning about Money started, but definitely not where it is today.

Now, brothers and sisters, how big, you know, this family, you know, how many were there in this traveling band that's moving around?

Yeah, so it was my mom, my stepfather, and my younger brother, who is almost 11 years my junior. So he got to share a room with his big sister growing up until I moved out of the house.

Wow. And so what was that like? I mean, you know, you say poverty, very few people will say, you know, we lived in poverty. Unless you're in South Georgia. That's the South. And you're in a wooden shack and, you know, you share a crop or something like that, which is what my grandparents did, and did it successfully moved up through the ladder. But, you know, you don't hear poverty that much. But there's a world of people out there and kids growing up in that, especially with this immigrant situation we've got that kids are growing up in poverty. And what did you remember or if anything, the conversations about or what was it like? I mean, this constant jumble, never knowing where you're going to be, not being able to kind of plan, build relationships or things like that.

Yeah. And I. I'm glad that you said that, because poverty in the US Obviously can be quite different than, say, poverty in Africa. Right. So poverty, for me, growing up meant no Christmas. You know, for example, I remember one Christmas, we were living in a motel room, and I just wanted to have Christmas as a kid. So I drew a Christmas tree on a piece of paper and I put it on the wall. And that, to me, meant that we had Christmas. We didn't have any money for Christmas, but I really wanted to understand that it still existed in my world. But, you know, getting books from a local charity as a Christmas present, not having birthdays, getting food from other resources that, you know, provided for families without money. I said sharing a room with my brother because we couldn't afford to have more. You know, my mattress was on the floor. When we were living together, I didn' have new clothes, got made fun of a lot for having, you know, old, ugly clothes or receiving lunch and breakfast from the school because we qualified for that free food program. So there's a lot of things that go on early on in a childhood when you grow up in that kind of environment. And not learning about money was probably the biggest disadvantage, you know, going into my adulthood.

Well, it's, you know, if you're a boy, you know, you're a male, you think, you know, that you've got a tougher skin and you could, you know, but even, you know, it even gets to the males. But a fragile, you know, you think of the, the girls as being more fragile or, you know, because even in the best of homes, in the best neighborhoods, you know, the blue bloods, you know, they have the cat fighting, you know, you know, the, the little 12 year old girls doing, you know, I remember one of my, I won't say who, relatives, young relatives growing up and like little Helen at school, you know, tormented her every day and you know, they, you know, they, you know, they were saying this, that the other, and you know, she finally had to get out and go to public school just to get away from, from the, you know, what you think is a perfection, you know, but the teachers can't control it and this or the other. But then you take that to the nth degree where they don't have all the clothes they want, all the food they want, all the vacations they want and they have nothing and they have to deal with because kids can be tough and not sympathetic.

Yeah, I remember a teacher told me when I was younger, she could probably tell I was struggling with the other kids not being so nice. And she said to me, and it really helped change my perspective, she said, you never know what's going on in that other child's life. You know, they could be having parent issues or abuse issues and they're acting out towards you. So don't take it personally, be you do your thing and don't worry so much about the other side. And I think that really changed my perspective. So I was no longer necessarily so hurt by what they were saying. This was my world, this was my environment, I couldn't control it and who knows what the other kid is going through. So you learn to just kind of brush it off. And I wish more kids can kind of take that perspective, but it really helped me get through some of those really difficult times as a child.

Well, you hear about people, you know, they have these charities and they gave away so many meals at Thanksgiving and you know, toys for tots type, you know, those type things. Are those valid? I mean, you know it because I mean, I have looked at that and said, great, they got one meal, you know, what could that mean? Or they got one toy. But I guess that could make all the difference in the world, you know. Yeah, talk about that. Like when people do that, you actually get your hands on a toy or you actually have a decent meal.

Yeah, yeah. So I can recall one memory when I was probably in eighth grade, I received books from a local charity as a Christmas present. And that's where my love for reading really started. And it meant the world to me to receive those books. And so now, as an adult, I do the other side. Right. I love being part of the organizations that do go out into the community and provide food or toys or whatever it is that they need. Because I can remember as a kid that it really made a huge impact on me. I felt like someone saw me, someone cared about me. Even though we couldn't afford it, someone else gave that opportunity for me. And now I'm an avid reader because it started from that early gift.

So you would recommend, you know, when you get in the entrepreneurial world, you have some success and people are thinking about giving back, you would encourage any and all of those kinds of efforts to the people that are on the side of the tracks where hopefully they're moving up, but maybe they're just going to be there for a few years.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you have the time, get out there and volunteer, too. Because when we see the other people, that just makes it so much more valuable. Because then you get to see the person on the other side and know that there are people in this world that are good and that they care for you, and it helps to shape you, to make you want to do more in life and then be able to contribute back to someone else like yourself. As you were as a kid, where.

Did you coming up now, where was the kind of a moment to where something happened, you did something, someone said something, somewhere along the way, you realized things could be different in your world?

Yeah, I think I contribute that to when my daughter was born, I, at the time, was living in Oceanside, California, a neighborhood where even Domino's Pizza would not deliver. And so when she was born, it changed my perspective again. And I've been through a lot of hills and valleys over my life. But when she was born, I realized that I needed to change her environment, that I did not want her to feel the pain that I did as a kid. And it was my responsibility now to figure out how to really, truly change my life. And I started seeking out mentors and looking for people who I thought were successful in my world, asking them questions coming from contribution, just figuring out what do I need to do differently? How do I invest in myself so I can break this cycle and not allow for my daughter to go through the same poverty that I did up.

To that time, what kind of how old were you? And up to that time, what kind of jobs had you had?

Yeah. So from 18 to 23, I spent five years going to college. I had multiple jobs from 5am Call centers to Home Depot to Wendy's to bank of America. And I landed a full time job after college in bank of America, which is where the mentorships came from. I had my daughter in my early 20s, and when I started surrounding myself with other women that looked to be successful and I started asking them questions, I found that if you come from the right place, meaning I'm not demanding of your time, they're willing to help. I think as general, most people are willing to help, but we're just afraid to ask. And I had to take that first step and say, hey, do you mind teaching me more? I want to learn more and how can I help you? And just became a win, win situation for us.

So you have this light bulb moment goes on. You got mentors. What position did you wind up getting? Where did you move to in the business world? Now that where you say, this is where I start on a different. For, you know, I'm taking a different fork in the road here.

Yeah. So I went from being a teller at bank of America to getting my license for securities, which then they transferred me to being a receptionist at the investment hub of bank of America. And then when I started to ask for more opportunities, then that slowly moved me into the financial advisor group where I could help talk about stocks and IPOs and bond markets and bond ladders. And so it was my way of being able to get some experience in the financial advisor world. But, you know, still knowing that I'm a support system for the team as well.

And how did you jump the, you know, jump the gap to where you're an entrepreneur now? You're, you're, you're a realtor, you're on commission, and then eventually you get your own office. How did that, how long did that take and what was that journey like?

Yeah, so God had a different plan for me. He put a boy in my life. I say boy because I was still in my 20s and I already had my daughter at the time. And he lived in Florida, I lived in San Diego. And we thought, okay, well, somebody has to move. So I made the decision, I took the leap, and my daughter and I moved to Florida and he was just starting in real estate, and so I joined him and we just grew a company from there.

Okay, so talk about how you grew a company.

Yeah, well, I got my license in 2007. If you know the, the market at the time, we had the biggest crash in real estate is 2008, 2009. And so we had to figure out, how do you create leads? How do you build relationships in a down market? Well, open houses, door knocking, calling people Craigslist. Like any and everything we could find that was free because we didn't really have money. We hammered and we put in the time, and again, we still kept mentors and coaches in our life. So if that's one thing I can tell people is if they want to win in life, you need coaches, you need mentors in your life. That's how you're going to get to that other level of success.

Now, were these mentors coming from the real estate business primarily?

Oh, absolutely. I want people who have done bigger things than me to teach me. I wouldn't want to learn from someone who's not experienced in the field.

Are there things that concepts that you picked up there that you still use today?

Yes. Building out a team and hiring out what you're not great at. You know, I've heard coaches say, if you're not good at something, spend more time doing that or spend more time, you know, the hours that you put in. And while I do believe that that has some validity, the hours you put into something you enjoy doing is more important to me than putting in hours in something I don't enjoy. So I'm going to hire out things that I know are not my skill set so that I can grow more in what I do love to do and what I know I'm good at. And then that's going to add more value to my clients, to my team and everybody around me.

Yeah, I think there's a discipline and an advantage from that discipline to kind of confronting the things that you don't like to do and don't want to do and to go through a phase where you confront it and say, you know, I'm going to take a hard look at this thing and see if I can figure it out. But if you don't go anywhere on it, it's time to call in the Calvary. And so you have time and you have clear head to do the things you're good at where you could be productive. It's hard to be great at something you just hate. And, yeah, I guess you can be, but you can be a whole lot greater in something you love. So the. And I think we've all gone through experiences like that, but when you admit that to yourself and you realize you free yourself up to go get help in those areas and you don't beat Yourself up. There's a lot of people that are stuck beating themselves up because there's such, you know, basically with entrepreneurs, it's bookkeeping. You know, somebody's got to look at the book, someone's got to keep up with the folks or going to go out of business. And. But all that doesn't have to be you. And so you can have, you know, you could bring in help in that, that area. And that's, that's the kind of area where, you know, it's service, support, things like that.

Yeah. And over 50% of business owners do their own bookkeeping, which is awful because if that's not what they do, like a CPA or accountant, that's, they're likely missing IRS tax laws that are in place for them not to pay more in taxes.

Right. So they change all the time. I mean, it's, the laws are changing all the time. You can't stay current on all that. And yeah, I go to a therapist who, you know, last week she was, as soon as I left, she said, the rest of the day I'm going to be working on my bookkeeping and taxes. I thought, why not see a couple more clients and dump that off on somebody else? Well, it's not that hard. You know, I've seen the same thing in business where people open offices and they won't get, you know, they postpone, get a receptionist, secretary, administrative help, you know, it's like, well, it's not that much. Yeah, but it's enough to interrupt you, you know, and they say, well, my spouse can do it or so your spouse is more useful doing something else. Probably, you know, that might be a temporary solution. But people, and you see people like five years later, they're in the same, the same rut, you know, they haven't grown because they won't spend a quarter to get some help, you know.

Yeah, they have to view it as an investment. It's not a cost. You're investing in team members to help you grow and help more people.

How did it take? How long did it, how do you know? What was your rise to the top in the real estate market and in ReMax. How did your office come together?

The first couple years it was just me and my, my ex husband and we worked non stop seven days a week until we hired a coach who was the perfect fit for us. He made us take a vacation before he'd work with us because he knew we hadn't vacationed in three years. And we were known in the office as the bottom feeders. Meaning we helped the lower price market. And so the first thing we did is hire an assistant. Then we started hiring salespeople to help grow that. So it probably wasn't until about three or four years after we hired the coach that we really started hitting our stride and making the marks that we were doing.

Yeah. How hard? It's one thing to find mentors and have friends that advise you. It's another thing to pay money to a coach. How expensive was that coach? Did it pay off? We haven't called names here, so nobody's going to be hurt.

Yeah, no, he was the right fit. We really took our time to interview and find the right fit for us. It was so expensive, I don't even remember the dollar amount, but I remember thinking, oh, my God, if this doesn't work, I'm going to have to go get a job.

Wow. Wow. So how quick did things turn around? And what is it like running a top office versus an office where you, you know, you make a couple sales a week?

I think the impact for me. So what I've always enjoyed about having a real estate company, or a company in general, is the fact that I get to help other people and impact and change their lives. So I feel like my strength is building community and helping people figure out, you know, how to budget, how to create more income, how to invest in real estate. A lot of that for me was a lot of fun, and that's how I built my side of the business. And then my ex was great at sales and marketing.

So what is building a community? You hear that a lot. Everybody's out there building communities. Sounds like you had some early experience with this. What does that mean to you?

So for me, I want people to come, want to work with me. I want them to want to come to the office. We have fun, we do things together, like kickball tournaments or, you know, for those that drink, it was happy hours. But I want them to be able to count on each other. I want them to be able to trust each other. And that, to me, was important. So we did birthday parties, baby showers. You know, I wanted to do all the fun stuff so that they wanted to be part of this community. But then my ex was great at holding them accountable, setting expectations, setting goals, keeping them accountable for their goals. While I got to bring in the fun aspect of things.

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When you have success, success like that, doors open to you. And what were some of those kind of doors that are open? So right now I know that you, you know, you've written a best selling book on, on Money and we can talk about that. You've got your own podcast and I don't know how long that's been going on, but you've got your own podcast, you've spoken. One thing is you've spoken at the phone, were a keynote speaker recently. Is that true?

Yeah, that I've kind of been working on that. It's. For me, I've always told myself that was never my skill set, but once I started doing speaking, I realized that I enjoy it. I got past that fear, you know, part of getting on stage because I, I envision just one person coming up to me and saying thank you. I needed to hear that. And now I'm going to go take action and it's going to change their life. So I stopped putting the pressure on myself about the fear of speaking and then focus more on the impact that I could make because I have been in this world for 25 plus years. I have knowledge that I need to share with other people. And if it wasn't for those early people sharing their knowledge with me, I wouldn't be here today. So I want to have the same impact on someone else.

And so what have you found from the podcast? What results have you noticed? How is that changing you?

I used to think that it was just me telling my story and somehow I would change people's lives. But having my own podcast, as you probably know, you get to meet incredible people who have incredible stories, who all have something to teach about money. And maybe the audience might not relate to me, but they're going to relate to that other person. And when they can relate to you and they start to trust you, they start, that's when they're going to listen, that's when they're going to implement. Because until you reach them and they feel like they can understand where you're coming from, they're not going to listen to you, which means we're not going to change lives.

When you wrote your, you know, you had this desire to write your book, what was your thinking there? What was the compelling reason? Because it's, you know, it's a big effort to write a book.

Yeah. I wanted something simple. I've read a lot of finance and money books over my years, and sometimes they. They're so long and cumbersome and it can be overwhelming to someone who's just starting on their financial journey. So I wanted to reach that market. I wanted to reach a market that said, hey, I want to control my finances, I want a different life. I don't know where to start. So I wanted to provide them with 101 tips that they could implement easily into their life today, or at least peak some conversation around money. And you don't need a dictionary, but. But it's a simple blueprint for you to start on your money journey today.

But. Right. You know, on the face of it, 101 tips would sound complicated right there. The idea of giving them a smorgasbord of things and they could pick the ones that fit their situation now and then maybe down the road do other things. What was your idea between putting this flood of tips out there? You learn a lot of tips along the way.

Yeah. And as a money person, you know, numbers speak to me and to a certain audience, numbers speak. So I did a lot of research on book titles. So. Empower your money. Your and money are one of the five most Google words ever. So if you're googling money and the word your, you're going to pull up in rankings. So that was the first part. And then when you do the subtitle, people like numbers. And so I wanted to put the word tips in there.

So.

So it didn't seem like here's a whole dictionary for you. It's just a tip. Take the tip, run with it, implement it, or move on to the next one.

Yeah. Now, what was the main thing? When someone reads that book, what are the main. The main thing you want them to go away with?

The first thing is my number one tip, which is invest in yourself. And it really means take the time to figure out what you want to learn about. So when you invest in your own education first, that's the start of the journey. And it goes into, you know, tips about retirement, it goes into tips about your children. So you're going to take away from it where you are in life today, and just to be able to take one action, implement really can change.

Now, you ran that office, you had success, but you got restless, I guess, and decided you wanted to go on your own and do your own coaching, which is what you do now. And we talked before we got started about your coaching. You coach people on passive investing. You're, you're a big believer in passive investing. And how did that, how did you come around to that?

People are busy. That's probably the biggest objection I hear from people is they don't want to invest or they don't know where to start because they're running their careers, their business, their lives. They're so busy, they just want to set some money aside, let it work hard for them without having to put in all the additional effort. They don't want to watch the stock market, they don't want to drive by houses or deal with tenants. And so I give them a couple of options that's part of their investment, whole portfolio to be able to add some passive income opportunities to what they might be already doing. But that's where my expertise goes in. And then we bring in a financial advisor so that we at least diversify and get into some other areas. Because I never recommend for anyone just to be in one sector.

Now does that mean when people start with you as a new client, do they have to have a minimum amount of money to invest? And you know, because you'll go through the object, what are your objectives and how serious are you about this? And you know, are you going to, you're going to stay with us for a while? Because it's got to be worth your while to coach them. You know, they've got, they've got to, you know, you can't coach somebody who's not willing to be coached. I'm sure you have a question area that you put them through. So what are you looking for when.

You look for people? As a professional, you understand that I am looking for someone who's already experienced in some investing. The brand new people. I will refer them to financial advisors in my world that I might think is a good fit for them. This is an addition to their existing portfolio. So I'm looking for clients who have already been in the market. Perhaps they understand real estate, tax liens, things of that nature, commercial real estate. That's more of the lane that I stay in. So your, your brand newbie investor is not going to be my client, but I can help coach them and get them to a place where they will be able to invest with me. And we look at a lot of budget income and Bringing other partners so that we're all part of the same team to help the client achieve their own financial goals.

You're starting to sound like a hedge fund now.

No hedge funds. I, I am not. Securities license, Larry. I'll leave that for you.

Now, when you go on and look at the opportunities out there, if you're speaking to people right now and you're a keynote speaker and they're saying, show us some passive income opportunities in commercial real estate, what are some things for them to think about and possibly get excited about that maybe you've overlooked?

Yeah. So two areas I focus on. The first one I touched on is tax liens. We have a fund that we have people that are going out and acquiring tax liens. They could be foreclosing on properties, they could be giving cash to keys for people. So we're looking to acquire a discount on residential properties. And when I say passive, you're giving money and allowing the fund to do the work and we give you a promissory note in return for a certain percentage on your investment. So that's one sector I focus on.

You. You said fund. Now we're, you're getting into a, you know, financial enterprise or something.

Not necessarily nonprofits have funds. They're not securities license. It's just a fund is a pool of money.

Okay. So these pool of monies can be coming from anywhere, right?

Absolutely.

Now, do you have access to. Do you create funds from your clients that you'll go out and get these tax liens and like who's managing these folks? You know, who's calling the shots?

Yeah, our company does. And so they've been around for, you know, they've been investing in a third party company, right? It's the company I'm a broker with, correct?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So we collect the funds and then we have a team that goes out and does the physical and aspect work of it. And so as you know, my client coming in, they, they're not going to do any of the work. They're not going to do the research on the properties. They're not looking for tax liens. They're not hiring attorneys or title companies doing lien searches. You know, all the work that goes into it, we do. They're lending money to this fund and in return we're paying them a percentage interest rate.

Now, when they lend the money in, is it going to stay in there for a period of time? You know, is it like a five year commitment type thing, something like that?

Yes. This specific one is a three year Time commitment, but your interest is paid annually.

Uh huh. And so what other kind of things are out there that people have maybe overlooked? That or opportunities for passive investment?

Yeah, so the other one that we have to offer is more of a commercial or developer fund. And so as you probably know, the banks are a little bit leery right now on investing. Or say for example, a developer went over budget and they just need a little bit more capital to finish a project. Those are more short term requirements. And so that's the, where we focus on the other one. I primarily work with the tax lien fund, but those are a couple of the options that our company has to offer. And again, the client is giving the money or loaning the money to the fund and they just collect their interest. So that's passive, meaning they're not putting in the work to generate the income. We do that. We're just promising to pay a certain percentage called an interest rate back to them for the funds that they're giving to us.

Yeah, and that's more attractive than standard investments because.

You know what you're going to get at the end of the day, I don't know what's going to go on with the stock market. One crazy headline can take a stock down for, you know, whatever various reasons. I don't believe in investing in crypto. To me, bitcoin, there's no financial statement. I can't analyze a, a, you know, a bitcoin. So I stay away from that market. And those are very active. You need to be active in those roles or hire someone like yourself who's active in the industry to give you advice on, you know, other aspects of investing.

Oh no, not me. No, no, no, not, not me. I'm not going to get into the buying and selling the. Now the thing is that. Let's switch gears and go back. You've observed a lot of people, you know, coming up and you started on the underbelly of the financial side of life and you've had a chance to analyze people and make up your mind because a lot of times when you're, you're coming from the poverty side of the tracks, you're ignored and people don't realize you're watching them. And you know, you, you're in a unique position to observe. But then you move into a situation where you're running an office and you see people come in and you know, out of a hundred people you recruit, you know, in real estate it's just like any kind of commission environment. It's like gym memberships you know, out of a hundred people to sign up, you know, you're going to get the top 10%, the bottom 10% that don't do anything and, you know, never come, and then the top 10% that are in there all the time. And, you know, so what trends did you notice? Let's just talk about your real estate. In running the real estate company, what did you observe about the people who came in and were successful? What were their traits there? And talk about some of the success stories you witnessed with people who came up through your system. And maybe they developed them there, maybe they came in with a lot of these things in place. But what do you, first of all, what did you notice about the people who win and the people who lose in that environment?

Yeah. So one of them, I think people need to be disciplined. They need to know that they have to check their ego a little bit and learn from other people. Because you could be in real estate 20 years and not be successful. So if something is not working for you, you need to be disciplined enough to check your ego. Also consistency, you know, people will, especially real estate agents, I think they get the rap about, like, chasing the shining object. You have to allow for something that you implement, give it time to work and figure out, can I tweak it and make it better, or do we scrap it all together? But if you don't allow it enough time to go through a cycle, then you never really truly know if it's really going to work. So those are a couple things. And then also looking for places that other people are not. Early in our real estate, when we were developing our team, there were no real estate agents on radio. So we launched a radio show and we talked about real estate. So that was an early adapter for us. Then we started being on billboards. There's lots of attorneys on billboards, but you don't necessarily see a real estate agent. We wanted the audience to see that we were real people. We wanted them to be able to relate to us because they're not buying or selling a house from a company. They want someone on their side. And so building the brand around a person really worked well for us.

Yeah. And in terms of developing people skills, do you find that people can really change?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've been through many changes myself in my life. You need a compelling reason, too. So, like, if a new agent is coming in and maybe they're doing a career switch, maybe they got married or had a kid, maybe they have a chip on their shoulder because they failed at a previous business. Figuring out where that pain point is will help them to make that change or that transition to be a better version of themselves.

What would you say is your looking back the biggest pain point you went through? And maybe it happened to you, maybe you did it to yourself, but regardless, there you are, and you got to deal with it. You know, like, for example, yesterday, I won't get into it, but something happened with someone. I won't even say who they are in my life, but they're in my inner circle and I'm still furious at them, you know, because we, we had a plan, very clear, explain it, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like, you know, you're. You build day, week, month, year off tightly, using your schedule, and then they proceed to go like you never even had the conversation. And then all of a sudden, it's up to you to go rebuild the God bless it skyscraper that they bungled because they just must not been paying attention. And so this happens to us. You're never going to get away from it. But the worst time is when you do it to yourself. And I almost got run over by a bus coming over here from the. I told you, I came off the mountain skiing early, and I was so preoccupied with this one thing that I was telling you. I thought I was. I walked across the street, I thought I was on the curb. I was actually about 4ft out the middle of the road and a bus almost ran over me. And that would have been hard to explain to everybody, but it's worse when you do it to yourself. But these things are happening all the time, but they're really severe ones where it cuts to the bone. A lot of times we don't want to talk about it, Angela, but sometimes they're the most important.

Yeah, for me, the most recent one would be my divorce. So it's been three years now. And I'm a firm believer that in any type of relationship, marriage, business, whatever, it takes two people to win, it takes two people to lose. And so I really had to reflect on myself. How did I lose? What did I do? And what could I have done differently? And what do I need to change going forward? And not only that, but being married for a long time and now being a single. He bought out the companies, so I had to find a brand new identity. Who am I now as a single? Who am I not as a remax owner? Who am I in this new environment? And, and to re. Kind of revamp the person that I wanted to be was really difficult. It was a dark period in my life for me because I couldn't figure out what tomorrow looked like, let alone how do I continue on this new path. So that was a pain point for me because I had to re identify myself and figure out what's next. And going through divorce can be a really hard time. But I also chose. We are still good friends today. We, you know, I have a daughter that's 20 and we're very much part of her life. And so we had to choose to be friends and amicable afterwards, whereas a lot of people choose differently. But I can only control myself. And so I want it to be the best version of me going forward after I get through the darkness and the self reflection.

Well, the thing is that when you're thrown into a tailspin, you have to go through recovery and, you know, the first steps of survival and get your feet, you know, like I told you, I hadn't been able to ski in 16 years. And now I'm back on the mountain and I'm going very slow, getting my legs underneath me, getting the strength back and not, you know, not being stupid and going out there getting an ACL injury or something. But you have to do that pretty much anytime you go through a traumatic change in your career path, your life path. And so one of the things that we do is like, what do I really want now what you said, right there was one thing I want overall beyond anything is I want to be there to support my daughter and I want my ex and I to be there to support. We don't want it to ripple over and have a negative impact or minimize the negative impact in her life. And so that gives you. Starting whenever you get one thing like that, like, okay, I can agree on that, that's worth fighting for. When you get one thing like that, like non negotiable, I want that to happen, whatever that is, you know, and then you could start to build off, you know, it's kind of a. Becomes like a foundation for you moving forward, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Now and then you start adding other things like, you know, what was in my past life, what, what would I, not only what was I good at, what was I not good at, but what, what did I really enjoy, what's really fascinated me that I have not been able to do before. And you got into the, you know, the personal, you know, the podcasting, building your own brand basically, but working with clients. What have you observed from dealing with investors that are successful and investors that.

Are not successful, it Comes down to them kind of trusting me in my process because they could be real estate investors before that, or maybe they only believe in like stock market. And so you'll get those objections from people. And if they don't ask enough questions to truly understand what it is that I do and how that I can help them and fall. And a lot of that falls on me too. I do ask them questions and sometimes you might think that they understand what you're talking about and then they walk away and they don't know what you're talking about. I think that can lead to an unsuccessful relationship. And so you have to take the time up front. I'm not going to do what I used to call or what they called in banking, which is product popping. Oh, here's this investment. You need it. I don't know if you need it. If we haven't had a discussion and really understand what you need from financial planning or from your investments, this might not be the right fit for you.

Yeah, yeah, that's the, you know that, that's what the stockbrokers have been accused of all the time. You know, smile and dial. You know, we, you know, we got 10,000 shares of this came in this morning. We've got to move them by, by 5:00 clock today. You just go through your Rolodex and try and find somebody to buy a thousand of them, whatever, but that's not what you're doing. And are these, when you get in with these things, these are people that you're hopefully going to be having long term relationships with. So you have to be careful about getting started.

Yeah, it's just like a marriage, right. You're picking the right partner if you know that you're going to spend three years with a client. I want to work with someone that we can, you know, build a great relationship together, that we want to work with each other. I don't want to be stuck with someone who doesn't like me for three years because that's not going to serve them or me. And I'm grateful enough where I'm in a financial position where I don't have to make a sale. And that's the big thing. This is the wrong industry to be in. If you have to make a sell, go work somewhere else, build up your income and portfolio and then come to this industry. Because I feel like I'm a servant to my clients. I am helping them achieve goals. I'm not creating an income. While that's a byproduct of it, that's not my purpose. My purpose is to help my clients achieve their goals. And, and I don't have to have a cell in order to keep my lights on.

Let's talk about cost. And you know, like when you went in, I don't know if you, you, you know, you can either do things on a commission basis or a fee basis in financial services. I don't know what you're doing now. Is it t based or is it commission? It is commission. And so the thing is that when you're paying a fee to people like you paid you and your ex when you started your, you were three years into your real estate business, you wanted to break out and move up. And so you found this top dog coach in real estate and about broke your bank to go in there. But the way to look at what you successfully looked at it, I mean, your payoff was that. And you never know, you're never guaranteed success, but your payoff was that he became a top 10, built a top 10 office for over five years in the biggest financial, I mean, real estate company in the world, which is, you know, amazingly successful. And so the way of looking at that was not what it cost you to pay for his service and is what it would cost you if you didn't pay for services. Right. It's like that's what we talk, we tell people about coming to certain meetings or this, that the other. What's going to cost? What's it going to cost you if you don't go, you know.

Yeah, And I remember that too. As we were moving up the ranks, I could look around me and see people that were doing better, and then at some point we were doing better. And I would analyze it, what is it that they're doing or that I'm doing? And it really was hiring the right person, having the right people in our world that were doing bigger things and us taking the action and putting in the work to be more successful. You know, we would see people, they would go to a networking event, but they would hang out with the same people. And how do you learn and grow if the same people are all doing the same thing and they're not learning and growing? And I heard this analogy recently, and I love it because I'm a visual person, is if you take the closest people around you and they're not either more successful in different areas or if they're not uplifting or if they're not challenging you or you're not bouncing ideas off of each other, then you're in a cage there's no way for you to grow in the cage. And so I love that analogy because it. It gives you a very visual picture that you need to break out of that cage to find new people to be around so that you guys can continue to help each other grow and excel. So that I can give back to my clients and help them, too.

Yeah. And the thing is that, you know, you learn things, you settle into patterns. You know, like one of the business coaches that I was listening to recently was talking about routines. You know, they have a deal where, you know, you can run courses like anybody can. You want to start off as a business coach, you offer a coach a coaching series on setting up routines in your life, which is, you know, to get. The underlying principle is that general consistency usually wins, almost always wins. And people that win have winning routines in their life where they. They somehow figured out how to get done on a regular basis. The things that are difference makers, you know, if it's the health, if it's the, you know, nutrition, if it's the working out, if it's the, you know, family relationships, it's the recreational aspects, if it's the, you know, what the most important business numbers are, what the most important business activities are that lead to those numbers coming in. You know, they've got routines on that. And that's called life. That's designing a life. You know, like one of the things. One of the things that I've always. I never realized I did this, Angela, but, you know, we had, I guess, 10 years ago, my son came down from North Carolina with one of his buddies, and he came into my condo or my townhouse down there. And the guy said, man, it smells great in here. And, you know, and I said, just without thinking, I didn't even realize this. I said, yeah, that's by design, you know, because I'm just like walking in a smelly house. You know, I have those little scent things around where, you know, it just smells good. You don't have to have fresh cut flowers all the time. You can have. So I said, yeah, that's like, that's by design. And like two years later, my son reminded me of. Because I didn't think anything of it, but they obviously talk about it all the time. But it's like in your life, if you want good things to happen, you know, like, wherever I live, Angela, I'm having the cleaners come in twice a week, twice a week. I don't need them that much, but I want them that much. You know, I just don't and you.

Don'T want to clean toilets if I've.

Only been gone one day, you know, on a flight or this. I come back one day, I want the cleaners to come. Stay on your schedule. And, you know, it's like by design. And if you've got a successful business, any successful aspect of your life is either by neglect or it's going to be by design. And what are some things that you have in your life that maybe you haven't even thought about with your routines? They really are by design. There's like, no, you make that happen.

Oh, absolutely. It's by design. The way that I start my day is I journal, I'm writing what I'm grateful for, because I want to start my day in a positive manner. The way that I approach life is I want to teach people about investing. But who wants to listen to a negative person? So I really spend a lot of time on my own mindset, starting my day in a positive manner. I don't go check my phone first. I don't allow, you know, the faucet or the fire hydrant of the world to be turned on. I'm in a quiet space, and I'm reflecting on what my goals are and what I'm very grateful for. And it could be simple things like the sun is shining today. You know, just finding every piece of my life that I'm grateful for. But then I end my day. And don't laugh at me at this one, but I don't have, like, regular tv. I don't watch Netflix or Hulu or any of those thingies because for me, it's a waste of money. But I'll turn on my free YouTube and I watch funny videos because I want to go to bed laughing and feeling happy. And then I roll right back in the next day, and I start it in a positive manner because I feel like the more positive I can feel, then the more people will listen to me. The more that I can teach, the more people I can impact. And that's my purpose and that's my why as to what I do and what that is.

And I got started on the journey a long time ago, too. And I, you know, start. Start the same way. And there's a variety of ways you can do it. You know, I like that better than meditation. Meditation, I've always thought, was the way I understood it was stupid because you, like, just let your mind empty. Well, the Bible says you let your mind empty, you throw out all the spirit, then seven worst spirits will come in you know, if there's a void, there's not going to be a void. So I'm going to, I'm like you, I'm going to fill up my head with positive and make sure there's no empty space in my head where the negatives could come in. And if they do come in, you can kind of bounce them off, you know, because they're going to try and get in there all day long. And so the. And then I heard recently somebody, which he goes, they were talking about getting sleep and routines to get to sleep. I'd never heard this before. He listens to outtakes from seinfeld off of YouTube every night as he's going to sleep. So he goes to sleep in a good frame of mind.

Yeah, I watch two TV shows that you can only watch the clips for free on on YouTube, but impractical jokers ridiculousness. And I like watching like cats and dogs fall over. It's just something to watch, easygoing at the end of the night.

Yeah, baby things, you know, where babies are doing crazy stuff or kids, you know. And so the thing is that what that has to do with us managing ourselves. And one of the great realizations I had when I wrote my book serial winner back in 2015 was that, wait a minute, we've all got to be our own best self coach. Because in life, especially if you're an entrepreneur, high achiever, things happen so fast, you don't have time to always call in the special expert coach and explain a thousand parameters to this nightmare situation and then have. And then expect an instant answer back from them. It's just not the way life works. You got to make decisions on the run when you're going to be a high achiever. And so you have, first of all, if you can't coach yourself, nobody else really can. Eventually you got to get to where you can keep yourself on track. And that, you know, we're challenged to do that all the time. And so the first thing is like, how am I going to make sure I stay as positive as possible? And people wonder, ask me why I do the podcast. I don't know how long I'm going to be doing the podcast, but the one reason I do it is to keep me from turning into a grouchy old man. You know, the natural thing of life is you become experienced. But high achievers see success, but they also, for every success, they see nine disasters, they overcome the nine disasters out of 10 things that happen. So they can have that one out of 10. But all of Those things, they accumulate. And so as you go through life, it's like, oh, not that again. I mean, it's natural. It's not that you're a bad person or something. It's just natural that the trajectory of life is just. You'll be. You know, I used to say, why do billionaires bitch? Okay, because many billionaires just seem to be grumpy all the time. And the thing is that they're smarter than the rest of us, probably. You know, I'm sure there's some lucky ones that are dumber than us, but probably they're pretty sharp, and they probably see a whole lot more things that are wrong in life than you and I see. And it probably just drives them nuts, you know, that's the only thing I could figure out. But for me, I try to do things like you say, and that's the first step. So what's the second step, you would say, in terms of your activity, to make sure, your activities, once you got yourself your mindset right, that you do build into a day, week, month, year to make sure you're on the right activity track?

Yeah, for me, I usually have three to five big focuses. So, for example, my health right now is my biggest focus. I've had some issues this past year. So when I'm making decisions every day, if those decisions don't fit into my top priorities right now, then the answer is no. And it doesn't mean no forever. It's just no. Right now. If I don't stay super focused on my priorities, then you're just going to get sidetracked. And. And you're not going to accomplish what you want if you're allowing all the little distractions to take you in a direction that you don't want to be in.

And so what are the other. And now when it comes into the activities for your business, to make sure that, you know, one of those that you've set in place to make sure that, you know your mind's going to be on business and you're going to have a certain amount of regular exposure to new people is the podcast, you know, and to set that up, that's by design, you know. And so what other things would you say that you have going on your activities that cause you to continue to circulate, get out in the public, and be able to expand your brand?

Yeah, so the podcast is one of my priorities right now. I'm top 5% in the world, and I want to be top 1%, because I feel like if I can reach More people and teach them about money, then that will have a greater impact. So if I'm going to events or activities, I'm very focused on who I'm meeting. And since I interview women on my podcast, I seek out women. I ask, you know what. What exciting project are you working on right now? And it gives me a good perspective on whether or not they might be a good candidate, and then we can have a conversation about that. But I'm going to invent with intention of who I want to meet that's going to help me to reach my goals, impacting more people.

Yeah. Now, as a podcast host yourself, you can help coach me up here. What are some good questions that you find really useful in getting people to open up? Because when you get them, you know, they're on there. There's always a little tension. A little. Or you get the standard routine, the standard running for president speech they give every podcaster. You know, there's like, the first 30 minutes is always the same stuff they. They talk about everywhere. But how do you break through that barrier of the standard thing and get behind the scenes to get the fresh stuff that maybe, you know, they've never been asked before? You know?

Yeah, a couple things. You got to throw in a fun question. My fun question is, and I ask it at the end. I used to ask it in the beginning, and I found I got better answers at the end. So, you know, we. We test things to see how they work. Um, but my fun question is, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? And why? And when you kind of change the focus from their business to something different, it helps them open up their mind to having conversations that aren't so focused on themselves. So I like that aspect. And also, I do use ChatGPT a little bit. So if I know a guest is coming on and I know what their field is, I'll say, like, what are some, like, 10 outside of the box or fun questions to ask someone who's a financial advisor? And then kind of tweak those questions and make them a little bit more relevant or interesting for me. And then I ask those questions.

Okay, Angela, let me inform you, that's cheating. On behalf of the podcasters of the world, I'm going to just tell you you're cheating.

Hey. And the advance of AI is here, whether you like it or not. I'm going to use it to help my business.

All right, Now, I'm not sure I know what to answer to the superpower thing, so I'm going to Ask you, what superpower would you want?

Yeah, so I. Some superpower, super talent. For me, I would love to be able to sing in a voice that people would receive. So I'm. I'm a church person, and when I get up there and I listen to, you know, the gospel singing, and it just moves my heart. That's an incredible feeling. And to have that kind of positive impact on someone else, I think would just be amazing.

Wow. Very interesting. I would have never thought of that one. Now, when you go and look forward, once you get through your, you know, when the health is not, you know, the thing is that's. That's like light balance is that as you go through life, your priorities change. That's what people who don't understand, you know, basically, they're boneheads, you know, that's why again, you know, there's the. The fake amateur life coaches that, you know, have had no life experience, you know, they do, you know, God, family, business, you know, and it's like, yeah, we got to do this every hour of the day. You know, it's like, you know, very rigid. You know, the thing about life is that it. That a person who has achieved things like yourself is. You realize how complicated it is. Good night. You know, it's twisting, you know, every person that come, every situation has thousand variations, you know, and you got to, like, think on your feet all the time and keep yourself organized, evaluate the situation, make sure you say things that are, you know, and it's for podcast host. It's. I think we should say a prayer at the end of every podcast of gratitude that we didn't say something inadvertently that pisses the whole world off, you know, it's going to ruin our entire reputation. You know, when you're talking like this, it's so easy to blurt out something and, you know, offend the world, you know, but the life is so complicated. And the thing about balance is, like, you have different priorities at different times. Like, for example, your health is your priority right now. However, something happened with your daughter, and then she had a health issue. Now that's the number one priority. You're focusing on that, and your health is down the drift. We'll get to that later, right? Until we get the daughter. Right? And so we all go through life sorting of priorities, and that's how we establish the value of our life, is how what we put our mindset, you know, on and where we've invested our time and our energy and talents is. Why do you. You know, a lot of us believe that we were created for purposes, you know, and right from the beginning, we were created with a purpose. And if that was true, why do you think you came out of a poverty, you know, the purpose that has turned out of your life, helping people fancy. How do you think that purpose was, you know, helped to be realized? By sticking you in a poverty background right from the beginning?

Because I can relate and I can be empathetic. Who wants to listen to someone about transforming your life and becoming wealthy and financially free? If you started with a family that was millions of dollars, you know, already had millions of dollars in the bank, the person that doesn't have money can't relate to them. So they think, well, that can't be me, because I didn't start that way. But the fact that I came from poverty and I studied money and now I'm teaching people it relates to people because now they can see that it's possible. And when you can give them the possibility, then they're going to start taking action because they can relate to your story. And that's why the podcasting is so important, is because we can share each other's stories so that hopefully you're reaching someone else in your audience that might not have related to something you said, but they might relate to something I said, which is going to be the cause and effect. Right. The cause is being that now they can relate to the story. The effect is they're going to make a change because now it's possible.

Absolutely. Well said. I appreciate all your time. We've had a. We've had a great afternoon. And so I like to give my guests the final word. And, you know, you think we've. We've covered everything at this point, but I've always found that there's something left to say if I'll give the guests the chance. And so, Angela, what would you pass on to people that are coming up the pipeline, the next generation or the people who are going to create the next great sensational successes out there and impact the world in a positive way? What would you say to encourage them or to help them focus from your experience?

Yeah, be selfish. Spend that first time of your day for yourself. Control that environment that is around you. Invest in yourself. And so that, to me, is being selfish because you need to take care of yourself first in order to impact the people around you.

Fantastic. Thanks so much, Angela. Look forward to seeing how you're business grows. And we'll have to check in down the road, and especially since we're not too far apart down there in South Florida. It seems like the whole world is moving to Florida. Well, take care. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

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