Life After Springer: Reinventing the Entrepreneurial Journey with Reena Friedman Watts

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host, CEO of We close nodes, Scott Carson. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome this episode of the Note Closure show. As I, Scott Carson, excited to be here today. And I've got a very special friend on today's episode. Somebody who's kicking ass and taking names. Had to reinvent themselves a couple times, but that's what we do as entrepreneurs. We keep keep on trucking down the road till life gives us a different direction and then we got to make a turn and go a different route. And my good friend on here, she is the host of the Better Call Daddy podcast. She's out of Houston, Texas, formerly Chicago, dealing with the drama of selling a property in Chirac, as we like to say, or Crook county. But she's an all around, just absolutely amazing. People love her energy and she's had to make a few changes at times. And I won't take away what she used to do that you all will probably find interesting to begin with. So, Rena, what is going on? How are you doing today?

Yes, I've got my trucker hat on and I am ready to bring that high energy.

Good stuff. So let's talk about yourself, that you're in Houston now. You just moved across country. Talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. And let's, let's go in there because we're going to bring some relevance to everybody that's listened there from what we're talking about. Yeah.

So I feel like my entrepreneurial journey really started at the very beginning of my career, even though I was working for other people. My first job out of college was the Jerry Springer Show. Yes. I started off there as an intern and worked my way up from intern to producer in one season. And what that looked like was, you know, hanging out with the guests, taking them around town with some petty cash, learning what types of stories the show is actually looking for, how to make those people your friends so that they would tell their friends and you stay booked for weeks and then how to pitch those stories to an executive and manage a budget and make them do what they said they would do on stage.

Wow. So that's interesting. So it's all about storytelling. It draws and ratings, right?

Oh, yeah. And truthfully, it's not even necessarily the story, it's the guest. So the bread and butter of the show was love triangles and people cheating on each other. And really that carried the show for 20 something years. And you know, you're like, how many love triangle stories can you tell? Right. There always has to be like an interesting twist. But it's the people that are involved in those love triangles. Those stories continually did the best. You know, there were other stories about transsexuals and strippers and midgets and, you know, people that ended up on Howard Stern after. But the bread and butter of the show was cheating and the bread and butter of the show was high energy. You know, yelling at the crowd, didn't care what other people think type of guests. And I fed off of that. I loved that.

Yeah, but that's, that's, I think a lot of times we, as entrepreneurs, we're scared to make that transition because you have to do that. A lot of times you have to stand alone. You have to. You sometimes feel like you're shouting against the crowd wins because you're doing something completely different than other people. So there's a lot of symbolism in that aspect of things, of saying high energy. People are attracted to high energy no matter what it is, good, bad or ugly. In a lot of cases, energy attracts people. And if and depending on the energy, you're going to attract like minded energy. Correct.

I absolutely love that you made that comparison because that's really what marketing is. If you can bring the excitement, it doesn't matter what you are passionate about. People feel that and they will want to listen to what you have to say if you bring that energy.

Yeah, it totally is now. You know, you had Jerry Springer there for a while and you also had him on your podcast here too, a few years a little while ago. Not a few years, but obviously a few years after you left the show.

Oh my God, 20 years later. That was so amazing. I mean, truthfully, I feel like that was some sort of closure that I needed and some sort of like validation that was really nice to get. But I also just really wanted to one thank him for starting my career and really caring about his employees, which people don't so much know behind the scenes and just really find out, like how much did he know about like what we went through to get those guests out there? And he knew a lot more than I realized.

Oh, really? Well, he's, he was the ex mayor of Cincinnati, wasn't he? Right.

Yep.

And whenever you're in politics, it's A messy, messy business in a lot of cases there for you. And if you look at how the Springer show started, it was completely different than what it evolved into. You know, it morphed. And we, as entrepreneurs, we have to morph. We think sometimes we're going down one path and it ends up morphing to something that we may not even thought about to begin with. And going down that path because that's what our audience or our marketing tells us that they want. Okay, we'll feed you more of what you want. Right?

Oh, that is such a good segue. Yes. So after the Jerry Springer Show, I moved to la. I didn't really know anyone, and I thought since I worked on a couple seasons of Springer and got myself into the Producers Guild of America that, you know, I'm just going to land another producer job as easily as that job came about wrong. And so I did continually apply to positions through the Producers Guild and eventually those panned out. But I had to completely start over. And I took a job as like an executive assistant to three very seasoned producers. Very humbling, by the way. You know, you go from like an office in NBC and making 80,000 a year to answering phones. I totally did that. But you know what? Not everyone would. And I was like, look, I have a lot to learn about the film industry. I have a lot to learn about la, and everybody wants to be a producer, and those roles are fewer and far between. So I realized when I moved to LA that I might not get those creative roles as much. And so I needed to learn a new skill. And so I decided to learn post production because not everybody wants to be behind the scenes. Not everybody wants to supervise the deliverables, not everybody wants to turn in payroll and do accounts payable and receivable and do all the paper pushing. And if you're willing to learn other aspects of the business, you'll stay more employed. So I tried everything. I was an assistant editor, I was a post production supervisor, I was a field interviewer. I mean, you name it, I've tried it. And I was even a script supervisor on some independent projects. I figured out what I was good at, what I enjoyed doing, what I didn't like doing, and I leaned into that. And that has been a three theme of my entrepreneurial journey.

Well, you find it. Instead of basically digging for the gold, you're providing shovels and pans in a lot of cases.

Exactly.

Right now, the film industry, very similar to real estate investing because it's all run on investors. Right. It's all run on big budgets and production and bringing money, people investing into projects in a lot of cases, right Rena?

Oh, yeah. I mean, if you want the producer credit, the executive producer credit, that means you're finding money. But you know, there's different definitions too of producer. There are some producers that are creative and book guests and create the story and are out in the field. And then, yeah, there's the producer that needs to go find the investment. So you kind of have to know all of what a producer can include.

Well, I can throw that in real estate because producers are those that work through the deal. They're actually creating the stories, work through the deal and then for us, raising capital, we have to tell the story, we have to tell the deal. We have to share the message of what we're looking for, paint the picture of what this deal is going to look like. And I won't say convince, but sell the story or sell the sizzle. You know what I mean? Of what why this is such a great project or why this great deal and why people want to be involved with this project. Right.

Storytelling is so important. I just met with a girl yesterday and she's been working in the construction industry for 17 years. Her dad's a well known architect in Houston and she's worked at every firm because of who he knows and learned how to do marketing. And now she just opened her own firm. And what she was saying is there are many people that are bidding for the jobs, right? There are many people competing for these RFPs, but the differentiator is the engineer who can tell a really compelling story. That is so fascinating to me. Who would think that a story could set you apart?

Well, that's the thing. People buy into stories. They don't buy into numbers. They buy into the story and the emotions behind this or how it makes them feel good or what's the story looks like that they want to be involved with. And that's. Yeah, that's marketing. I mean that's literally marketing on the front. That's why you see these big developments, they build the skyrise or the models or the, the images to share their image. Because most people can't, can't see what people are looking. It's the same thing. Like I could walk into a house and look at something and suddenly imagine the paint colors. Imagine moving, get rid of the shag carpet and the stained, you know, stained stuff and the dirt and seed, the clean. But somebody right next to me, like they can't get beyond the blood stain on the carpet. You know what I mean? Or can't get beyond the holes in the drywall or, you know, or the cracked foundation and it's got a little bit of lean on it, you know what I mean? It's all about taking one product and realizing, hey, if I spit and polish this up or, you know, a little elbow grease into it or a lot of elbow grease, here's what my finished project can be turn out to be.

A lot of people in the television industry say they got used to putting lipstick on a pig.

Yep.

Right. And that's a bit of what marketing is. That's a bit of what editing is. I definitely learned in reality TV that not all of the fights that happen are really what they seem.

Oh yeah, there's. You mean. No, you must be kidding.

Well, that was actually eye opening to me as someone who, you know, started as a small town girl from Kentucky and my first job is the Jerry Springer Show. But yeah, like even when I worked on 9911 or VH1 or, you know, we're doing things in the field, you know, a dad could walk out of a house and be taking a work call and they can make that look like they just had a spat. The husband and the wife, right. They need drama. And even the television shows have changed so much. Like when I used to work on these reality shows, they would overshoot everything. So they're filming around the clock, they're living in homes with these people to get moments where they feel like the camera isn't on in order to construct the story. Like imagine if you had a camera on you all the time. Something good is going to happen for a sound bite. Right? Like once you forget the camera's not there, there's going to be moments of your true self coming out.

Well, it's the same thing we see on so much reality TV shows on like Flip this House or hgtv. It is not how it is in real life. You know, Flip or flop. That's not how a foreclosure works. That's not how rehab work. That's not how quick budget works and that stuff. That's not at all what it is. But I, I joke because those are the shows that got me interested in being an investor originally back in the day.

Really?

Oh yeah. Me and my ex wife at the time loved HGT Flip this House. And I grew up in a small town working in the hardware store with my dad. I could do just about everything. It's like, oh yeah, I can be a Flip this House. I could be at the next, you know, guy that's got a show flipping real estate, flipping notes, whatever like that. I'm like, yeah, no, that's not reality tv once you get into it, you.

Know, hey, but now you are that guy.

Yeah, no, I don't want to be. I've had actually, I've turned down three reality TV shows, actually.

Really?

Yeah. I'm like, no, not interested. Nonst at all. Because I talked to a couple guys that were on those. I had a good chance to share some stages with a few folks and I asked them, would you, if you could go back, would you do the reality TV show again? They're like, no, because their cost of acquisition went through the roof now because everybody thought, oh, it's him bidding on it. We're going to bid it up against him just so he pay. He or she pays more. And then they also had more drama where people wouldn't, you know what? They would used to get his discounts. They wouldn't get any more because people like, oh, no, I'm not going to accept that because you're going to. You've got all this money, you're an expert. TV so and so is paying you a ton of money. No, no, no, we're not going to do with it. So it made it harder for him to get a deal. And then with what I was doing, I had to think about what the worst possible thing if I'm going to reality TV shows talking about mod mortgages. Do you know how many phone calls I would have gotten from Tom, Dick and Harry out there? Hey, can you buy my note to modify my loan? You know how many Jerry Springer people I'd had on my. Trying to make. You know what I mean? No. My competitive advantage would have been gone in the fact of doing that stuff. So, yeah, it's. That's why I was cracked up. I was like, hey, we got to talk about this. Because it's, it's. There's good and bad sides to both of this. You know what I mean?

That actually is really interesting. And one thing I wanted to know from Jerry was like, what is it like to live at that level of fame and at the end of your life, what does it boil down to? Like, you've done everything. You've had an opera, you've had your own series, you've had your own court show. You were on every opportunity. Even as I think he was. He's on every show. Yeah, but what does it really boil down to? And you know what? You are going to know the answer his family at the end of the day. And has he spent enough time with them? Has he set them up well enough? Would he want. He's a normal guy. He's so humble, so down to earth. And actually that really made me pause. And I've worked for influencers too, a lot of them. What is it like not being able to go to the grocery? What is it like to have the need for security? What is it like to have people really want that?

Yeah, you know, what was it? They voted. The Jerry Springer show is like the most hated show at one point or.

The longest in the history of television. He capitalized on that. He literally put that into his intro. And you and I even talked about that when you were on my show is how can you take haters and turn them into fans? How can you learn a lesson from them? And how can you navigate the hate?

Just keep on trucking. That's literally what you have to do more so than anything else. And it's the hardest thing to do is put the trolls and the haters to the side. But here's the thing. If you start having that, it means you've arrived. It means you must be doing something good for folks to. You've never met, never know, never talked to. To come across and just start, you know, swinging my like. And I would never run for politics. You could think about that, how bad that is going on right now as we're in the, you know, midterms and stuff's coming up here, elections and things like that, you know, and that's the thing is a lot of us, when we're as entrepreneurs and we're striking out on our own and doing our own doing or doing something different that maybe shakes the waves a little, makes a little motion in the ocean that our family doesn't accept or our friends, like, why are you doing that? You're doing that something different. That's because I'm trying to accomplish a goal. And a lot of people, when they come across, say me things is a. Because I think they're jealous or they feel bad that they aren't taking the same type of risks or doing. Taking the same actions and investing themselves too. You know what I mean?

I don't know why it's making me think of this, but a lot of my pivots in my entrepreneurial journey have been due to working for people that don't like the fact that I worked for the Jerry Springer show or don't like the fact that I worked on post production for Ron Jeremy or some of the content that I have chosen to work on. You know, it's really interesting. I actually interviewed a Playboy after, I think I worked on maybe it was like an MTV VH1 show and one of the executive producers on that show had worked for Playboy. And then I ended up, instead of taking that job and I did interview there. I was like, it's cool, you know, I want to check out what that's like. Like I was young, in my 20s, right. But yeah, it was kind of like borderline porn. And I was like, I have spent a lot of time kind of exploring, explaining my time at Springer. You know, I was like, maybe I'll go work on nanny 911 on the post production side instead. You know, that seems a little more redeeming. But yeah, you know, even in the clients that you choose or on the content that you choose to create, you have to think about these things.

Right. How's it going to affect you long term and how's it going to affect the day in day out of a life? In a lot of cases there for.

You, you know, isn't that interesting?

Yeah. Can you go back and do the same thing? We always make the same. If what I do, if mom found out what I did, what would they say? Or in your case, if daddy found out what you were doing, what would he say? Right.

Okay, so that's also a really great transition. How I even got to Springer is crazy. So I worked for an NPR station at Purdue in college and I was making air check tapes at night and singing in the booth and I just loved the radio space. And I got an interview at WGN through the Career Services office. And I drove from Purdue to Chicago and interviewed at WGN and then didn't get the job. And I have experienced other rejection in the past, so I was kind of prepared. Anyway, I saw in the same courtyard that Jerry Springer was looking for interns on that trip. And so I walked across to NBC tower. I got ahold of the intern coordinator, got through security, it was pre 9 11. And I ended up starting there two weeks later. I had also interviewed for a production assistant role on Sun's stock exchange show in New York. And I was dating a guy in New York at the time and he was like, oh my God, you would work for Springer. And I'm like, yeah, it's totally not far fetched from where I grew up in Kentucky. I was like, I know these stories.

So I was like, I mean, West Lafayette, Indiana, you know, I've been there. Flip property there were flip notes there. I know that area was about a three hour, four hour drive from. Yeah. Because I had to fly into Chicago to drive down there because it wasn't really major or otherwise. But I mean, that's. But that's so thing. And that's. That's kind of what's led to a lot of investors. You end up going down one road. You think you're chasing something, an opportunity presents itself, and you chose to reach out and take that opportunity. What the hell, I'm here. I might as well try. It's. It's experience. And it's a little different experience than I'm looking for, but it's still experience. It turned out to be, you know, the number one show on tv.

It was amazing, really. The training ground for most of what I've ended up doing. Another experience that I never would have imagined was I decided to work for this financial firm in Chicago as director of sales and marketing. And I had no financial experience. Like, this was my first job, but it was close to home and it was the hours I wanted. And he wanted me to create these lunch and Learn experiences for CPAs, estate attorneys, financial advisors. And I can market anything, right? You know, just make it look like you have a great speaker and a great venue and nice handouts and good food. And I started posting the behind the scenes of those on LinkedIn. Then I started having CPAs reach out to me in Orange county and in Atlanta and in different cities, wanting to co host them with me, co sponsor them with me. It made my job so much easier. Instead of like cold reaching out to people to attend these events, they started filling up just from the CPA's book of business and me reaching out to his people and the CPA sharing his people with me. And I ended up starting off with like 25 people. Then it grew to 50 people. Then it grew to 75 people. Then my boss was like, all right, like, let's see how big we can go. And I ended up hiring Gary V's event producer to like, help me do a bigger one in Chicago. And truthfully, she had more of like, entrepreneurial crowd experience. So getting somebody in the room that was qualified for the products that we were selling was not really her niche. And they ended up parting ways. But her and I worked really well together in the trenches. So when I left that financial firm, she was like, hey, I'm looking for somebody to help me with sponsorships for this Haste and Hustle event in Toronto. Would you be interested in helping me book sponsorships? And I was like, yeah, why not? I don't never done that, but I could do that, right? And so she sent me like a 10 page Excel sheet of all these potential brands that she would love to have. And then she pretty much just wound me up and let me go. She was like, once you have somebody that's ready to close, you know, I'm happy to be on that call with you. If you don't feel comfortable doing it, you know, let me know what paperwork you need and who you've got on the hook. And I ended up actually booking a couple of sponsors, one being Spirit Airlines. And they gave me tickets to this event. I had never been to Canada. I had never been a part of a 2,500 person event. I got to meet Gary Vee. I got to be a part of the media junket. And then I was like, I help influencers with sponsorships for their events. And then I ended up working for multiple influencers after that. And then I didn't just work for a percentage. Then I was like, hell no. This is a lot of work. You're going to pay me a base rate and a percentage. Then you learn how to do multiple clients, right? And then you're like, do I even like doing sponsorships? Maybe I'll do other things that these influencers need me to do, like book guests for their shows or get them on shows or get them speaking engagements. And then you start adding things to your profile of what you like doing and what you can do. And then you take things off your profile of things you don't enjoy doing.

That's the truth. Amen to that. You delegate what you dislike and you focus on what you like. And then you're living in your superpower, your super strength in a lot of cases. Therefore, you delegate the stuff that you're not good at or below your pay grade to make things work. But I want you to share. You shared something there. I think maybe I want to come back there. Is that you didn't say no, you said yes. And let me figure this out, okay? And that's. We. A lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that. Or there are people that want to be that they don't know everything. So they say no. Instead of diving in and figuring out and growing stuff. We see that with all sorts of people want to dive into real estate. They're like, I got to know everything before I make my first offer. I got to know A to Z inside. Well, by the time you get to know A to Z inside out, that opportunity's passed or you've missed all these deals that you could have learned as you went. I had a conversation yesterday with a guy who is all worried about one facet of raising capital. I'm like, well, you're not going to get anybody excited about investing with unless you show them something tangible, tell them the story behind the deal, why they're going to get excited about investing in the deal. These are. Here's a couple opportunities. He's like, okay, that makes total sense. Well, sure enough, an email he sent out, Boom. He got people to respond that want to fund the deal now. Now it's easy because he went a path versus trying to bang his head against the wall. Trying to know everything first versus okay, let me figure this out as I go, get a little bit of coaching and learn as I go. Or as we say, we jump out of the airplane and build a parachute on the way down.

Yeah, no, totally. And one thing I realized with reaching out to sponsors and my first one, I actually got through Twitter. I went on like, you can see which brands are responsive by testing them on different platforms. You can message their help assistant, you can share something in the feed, see if they look at it, comment, see if they comment back. There's lots of different ways you can see if a brand engages on their social media. And it was a numbers game. I'm not going to lie. I was reaching out to hundreds of brands. But once I realized that a message worked, oh, my God, that lit me up. Once I got the first one. Oh, it was just like, rinse, recycle, repeat. So one really amazing thing that I learned was kind of like getting on big podcasts, right? Like, you've got to come with your bragging rights and you've got to do your research. So the way that I booked these sponsors was saying, hey, K Swiss is already there. Celsius is already there. I started naming the big players that they may have heard of, and I let them know that I don't have an airline yet. I don't have a rental car company yet. I'm going to give you the exclusive. You are going to be the only airline. You are going to be the only car company. Right? So making them feel like an A player, making them feel like they got.

Exclusive treatment, that's exactly what I love about the exclusive feeling. Hey, I don't have this yet. You'd fit the niche and I'm willing to offer you before I go to your competitors.

Exactly.

That's actually the power behind, like, bni, you know, bni Networking. The fact that going out, networking, hey, we are only all one realtor, one mortgage broker, one insurance rep, one real estate financial advisor in the group, you know, and that's getting in, surrounding yourself with those great organizations or other people that are focused on, they want to make something happen. And you can often leverage that relationship exclusivity to do cross promoting across marketing as well too, to make things happen and enriching that relationship that goes just beyond them paying a fee to be a sponsor.

It's really about how can you make it a win win for them. Even how I got Spirit Airlines. It was a bit of luck. Everything is a bit of luck. Ask Jerry Springer. He says his career is luck. I think, you know, obviously he's got a lot of skill and talent as well. But yes, it's the right place at the right time, it's the right messaging, it's the right energy. There's so many components to it, you.

Know, well, it's luck, but it's also being open to. It's the whole quantum, I say quantum physics aspect of opening yourself up the opportunity. If you're close to the opportunity, you're never going to have something show up because it's just, no, I'm not interested. Or you're just so close. If you're open up and look for the silver lining. A lot of things. Yeah, you know, I'm a big believer. Like when we have some bad happen here, a deal doesn't close or investor doesn't fund or doesn't come through like, okay, next, you know, there's a reason this wasn't meant to happen. What's the, what's the silver lining? Well, now I have time to go speak here or now I have time to fund this deal or oh yeah, or I can go do this now instead of that. And I probably wasn't meant to do that anyway because it was such a pain in the ass to do. I think we'll feel that too. If you try to force the situation, to force something and it doesn't go through and you keep trying to force it, force it, force it. You got to step back, say, okay, this is not meant to be. What's the easiest path that I can go to to make my life a whole lot easier. Right.

That's so true. Yeah. So I figured out the person that I needed to speak with at these brands was the brand manager. Like even knowing the title of who you need to speak with is a leg up. And so once I got ahold of the brand manager, I Started reaching out to a lot of other brands and trying to connect with brand managers. And I was just started bragging about the event, like, who are the speakers that are going to be at the event? What are the opportunities of collaborating with the people involved in the event? Do you have access to emails? Right? Like, what are the things that make it win, win? And truthfully, the brand manager of Spirit Airlines, her husband was a fan of Gary Vee. So I was like, what would make it exciting for you? Do you want to be a part of the media junket? Do you want to come meet me there? Do you want to meet the other employers influencers at the event? Would you like a signed book? She's like, actually, she's like, I don't have a passport. She's like, I'm not going to have one in time. Could you just get me some signed books by Gary and, like, get personalized messages? I was, like, done in exchange for, like, plane tickets. It's just amazing. When you reach the right person, the deal can go through so quickly.

Well, that's the thing is you have to add the value to it, too. I, I, we have folks that, like, I've talked to people like, oh, I want to reach out to this person. Well, if you're reaching out and it's just, you're, you're just doing it to have them benefit you, you got to do something to benefit them. Like, if you ever want to get a hold of celebrities, find out a passion or a charity they're passionate about and say, hey, I'd like to help you with your, your charity you're big of, and I'm putting on this event. I think it'd be perfect for your charity. Would you be interested in partnering with it or something like that? You know, that's always a great way to do it, right?

Oh, even how I got Jerry on my show, I literally was after him for like, a year and a half. I had listened to other podcasts that he had been on. I was still in touch with this publicist for 20 years. You know, anytime he was speaking at a college, I'd message her, and I'm like, hey, is there a recording of that? Or I can, like, listen to it. And then I would send her notes of what I found fascinating from those conversations. I got a yes, I got a no. I got a yes, I got a no. Then I got reached out to by a reality star, Kayl Lowery, who has a huge following, and for some reason, she likes something about my show. I think she's a mom of four. I'm a mom of four. She was on Teen mom and 16 and Pregnant. I had production managed a baby high show out of Kentucky. I had worked with MTV something. I'm not even sure seriously how she found me, but she asked me if I wanted to do a 50,000 impression swap with her. So that means she gets 50,000 impressions on my ad, I get 50,000 impressions on her ad and we play a 30 second spot on each other's show. I was like, look, I know you're going to get that in like two days. It might take me months. Are you cool with that? She said yes. So I then used that, contacted Jerry. I was like, look, I know we've got a yes, we've got to know. I would love to interview you. I know something that could be beneficial for you is eyeballs. This girl wants to do a swap with me, I want it to be around your episode. And then boom. I got a yes from both of them because I was like, hey, I like played them off each other. Right. And real estate is a bit of that as well.

Yep, yep, it is. Well, that's the thing. It's not always just in buying and selling the property. One of the things that we talk about a lot is if you're buying property, people don't always want to take the capital gain if they're selling an investment property and find a way to leverage that. Listen, you don't have to pay all the property gains taxes once you just carry the financing for me or put it in a trust of some sort, a deferred sales trust. And I can pay installments to you, but you're not getting that huge tax implication on the front end. But it's the same thing. You got to figure out it's not always black and white. There's a lot of gray and deal structuring. What's going to work in a lot of cases too. What's, what's most valuable to them and then playing off of that in a lot of cases.

That's really interesting. How much financial advising kind of goes along with real estate?

Well, it's. The thing is everybody has pain points. You know what I mean? Some pains. Like with what? I'll give you an example. We're working a couple of deals where the borrower's already passed away. It was a reverse mortgage and the borrowers passed away. The heirs, their pain point is now they have this property they don't do anything with. They don't have the money to pay off the mortgage, they don't have the money to fix the property up. And so they want it done with so it's not dragging around with them. They'd rather be clean and the estate closed and move on. Or in some cases, they want to keep the property. Okay, what can you afford? Does it make sense a win win here? Or can I just give you some cash to have it closed out and walk away from it? You know what I mean? And it's. Yeah, you're playing with emotion. Sometimes it's Jerry Springer. Like I had. We had. We're buying a note on a property in Houston. The one that you saw had three hairs, a brother and two sisters. And the one brother didn't talk to one of the sisters. The other sister didn't talk to the other sister, but she talked to the brother. So it was just trying to coordinate. And they were all worried, well, what is she gonna get or what is he gonna get? You know, And I had said, well, they're not getting anything. You know, you want something, this is what I'm willing to offer. And, you know, but I need this from you. You know, go from there.

So that's totally how the booking process goes for Jerry Springer. Is that the one who calls the show is always excited. Right. It's either usually the wife wants a piece of a mistress or the husband wants the mistress and the wife to fight. Right. But can that person, who you make your best friend get the other parties to say yes? Because you've already got a yes from the person that called. They're already a fan, they want to do it. Right. Don't spend too long making that person your friend until you at least talk to the other two.

Right. Well, that's the thing. It's always. It's the same thing, investing. Hey, it's great to have a property, you got a seller, but you better make sure you get the funding or that everything comes out collateral wise that you're actually buying what you're buying there. Now you just, you just recently moved from Chicago down to Houston. What led to that move?

My husband got a new job, amongst other things. I mean, come on, Texas is better weather, better taxes, a little bit more freedom.

Yeah. And once again led to a pivot. Let's talk about what you're doing now for a lot of folks.

Yeah. So, oh, my gosh, even yesterday, like, I feel like I'm leaving room for opportunity. Like, God, the world is so busy now. And like, I've maintained one of my clients from Chicago, which has been a Client of mine for a couple of years and how I work with them is they have an in house content writer, but they need somebody to help them with their intro outro and kind of supervise the recording of their podcast and then package it up and send it back in a nice little pretty bow. So I work as a podcast consultant. That's one thing that I do also from my financial advisor days and working in that space and actually getting licensed and understanding the language of working with financial advisors. I'll have financial advisors reach out to me and say, hey, I'm doing this event. Do you know anybody that might be interested in this event? And that's something that I help with. I just met with this girl yesterday, like I was saying, who she's worked in the construction industry and her dad's like a legend out here in Houston. And, and she just opened her own marketing firm and she was like, I would love to see how you might be able to like supervise even some of my marketing processes for me. And I'm working with a financial advisor in the same way. He is able to hire a expensive marketing company, but his strength is in doing insurance benefits. Right. He wants to give his story to this marketing agency, but he wants somebody who's known him for four years, knows his story, knows what the graphics need to look like, knows what the videos need to look like. He wanted to hire somebody that could do the sign off so he doesn't have to, and then even somebody who could potentially help with business development as well, which is something else that I love doing. So I'm. I'm an entrepreneur. I do things that excite me and I work with people who excite me.

And open to opportunities.

And open to opportunities. Yeah. And, you know, I met you at this POD Houston event, this PodFest event. I met another girl who literally came up to me, asked me what my podcast was about. I said, you know, it's for daddy's girls. It's for people that have inspirational fathers. Absent fathers, you know, need encouragement in their life and might want some encouragement from my dad. And she's like, I wrote a book with my dad. I was like, what? We have to do an episode together. So yesterday I, we go into her studio. You know, I saw a new part of Houston. She had really nice gear. She told me about her son who's a videographer for Realtors. And I'm just again, like, being open to opportunities and checking out new locations and making new friends and having fun creating content.

That's awesome. I love it. I Love it. I love it. Yeah. I love the Better Call Daddy logo. Better Call Saul, definitely. You know, so the attorney you're calling dad, hey, what's going on with this? You know what I mean? Now, how active is your dad in your podcast? And it's important, too, because we talked a little about that beforehand. It's important to have somebody who's just doing a lot of these things that you change can be kind of scary if you're alone on an island by yourself. Right?

Yeah. What I've seen is that, and I was even thinking about this when I was creating the theme song, which is going to come out soon, of the Better Call Daddy podcast. My dad is my encourager. He's my support system. He also pushes me, puts me in check. When I was having this conversation with Vibes by Alicia yesterday, we were even reflecting on, like, do you feel bad for having that relationship with your dad? But I don't, because it's so authentic. And for people that don't have that, I feel like it can even be a roadmap for them. And that's actually part of why I wanted to start my podcast. I was like, my dad's giving me really good advice. I think other people could benefit from it. And, like, when you have an authentic relationship like that, like, it can't be faked. Even Jerry was like, that can't be replicated. Like, Jerry got it. He was like, how cool that you're letting people be a fly on the wall with something good you've got going on in your life. Right. So my dad was an entrepreneur. My grandparents were entrepreneurs. And I think seeing that has given me the confidence to take more risks, to pivot, to know that everything will come together. Like, even when I worked at Springer, I had. I had stories back out. Like, literally the night before, I had no stories. And I'm like, they've already booked the studio audience. They've already, like, spent the budget. I have. You know, if this takes me swallowing my pride and asking some other producers, like, do you have a story that would hop on a plane? I'm going to do that. One thing I really learned at Springer was, like, the power of teamwork. You have to. Sometimes when you're in over your head, you've got to go to experts. And a lot of times my dad has experienced the problems that I'm facing. And so if you don't have a dad, you can work on self development. If you don't, if you struggle there, reach to God. If you struggle there, reach to A friend. Everybody needs encouragement from somewhere in order to be great and in order to be an entrepreneur, in order to be a good parent, you've got to find some sort of support system. It's so necessary, because being alone, you'll sink into a deep, dark hole.

Yeah, and that's so true. These days we see that, especially what's happened in the last couple of years. People have gotten into where we don't have that community. We're not out connecting with people. They're at home, they're scared. But listen to the media and all the falsities that's going on with that. And the oh, woe is me and the, you know, the world is coming to an end aspect, you know, that's such a huge thing. I know that when I've had my darkest days, entrepreneurs, it's when I've reached out to a coach or a friend or, you know, listen to the voice, my head from my dad telling me to keep going. In a lot of cases, you know, that's such an important aspect and having that support system and support group to keep cheering you on. Because the more you do climb that ladder, the rarer the air gets in that ladder of taking actions and doing more things that others won't. There's fewer people around there, but it's also much, so much more fulfilling. So that the valleys when you at that point, are much higher than the peaks ever were in the past in some cases. You know what I mean?

I love that you use the latter as a reference. Like, that totally goes along with, like, how men communicate honestly and your real estate and like, flipping homes. But really, like, who can you reach out to and help and who above you has gone first that you can find motivation from?

Yeah, or reach out to. Because most of the folks are most successful, the ones most giving their time to guide you and give you true counsel. Because I'm a believer. Advice is like assholes. Everybody has one, no matter their experience. So you got to seek counsel, not advice. That's one of my mentors, Gregory, taught me that seek counsel, not advice, because counsel comes from somebody who's been there, done that, or has gone through that can give you the most valuable take on your next position, your next play in a lot of cases, what to do next when shit hits the fan, and shit hits the fan all the time. As entrepreneurs, no matter what you're in, you just got to know how to pivot and tweak what you're doing.

Like you just mentioned, you know, it really boils down to something so simple. I believe in you. If you can say that to people, it really can turn around their day.

Yeah, yeah. And that's such a little thing to say, but I believe you. I'm proud of you. Keep rocking and rolling. I'm proud of you. I believe in you are some of the most powerful statements out there that you can give when people are going through a dark day, Even people that.

Have taken a chance on me in my career. Like, I applied for this job. It was a field interviewer role, and I so desperately wanted to get back into the field. After answering the phone for two years, I was like, oh, my God, this show is like going to six different cities. And, you know, I would be interviewing people on this competition show. It just sounded like so much fun. And I was in my 20s, and I just didn't have responsibilities. And the executive producer had worked on Road Rules and Real World and Big Brother and all these really big reality TV shows. He had a stack of resumes on his desk. He was like, why should I hire you? And, you know, it boiled down to, one, I can talk to anyone. But two, I just. I was like, if I can do Jerry Springer, I could definitely do this, you know, and he believed that, you know, and he gave me a shot. It was just like, if you answer with confidence, if you have something witty to say, if you're willing to take the risk, I mean, I left a job for it. I was like, I'm ready to spread my wings, right? Like, I can't tell you how many times, truthfully, that I have left without thinking about the consequences. Even leaving Chicago and moving to la. Like, you know, I felt burnout. I was ready for a new opportunity. I knew that if I could do that, I could do something else. Great.

Yeah.

I think knowing that is big. You know, you're like, if I can do that, I can do this. Even my experience at Tony Robbins, I had such a breakthrough there. It was just. And after I put my hand through that wooden board, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it, but I was like, I'm not going to stop at the board. I see my hand going through it. I think about that on a rough day. You've got to have those moments in your life where you did something you didn't think you could do, and you've got to, like, tap into that.

Yeah, that whole breakthrough, that's one of the most powerful images of everybody's breaking through that board, breaking through that fear, the false evidence appearing really I can't do this. Well, yes, you can break through if you just got to put some energy and momentum and stick with it and get rock and roll through it and take the action. Yeah, you never break a board if you never, ever try. That's.

That's myself firsthand. The difference between the people who did it and made it look like it happened with ease and the people who literally stopped at the board, the difference was in visualization. A little skinny old woman did it in front of me. I swear to God. She put her hand so smoothly through it, I couldn't believe it. But she was listening to everything that the trainer told her to do. She put her little hips into it and knocked that board in half. And then a chick that definitely had more power than the old lady stopped at the board, and I was like, oh, my God, this chick's gonna psych me out. I need to watch the people that are doing it with ease. Right? I need to listen to exactly where the guy is telling me to put my hand, exactly how he's telling me to position my hand, how I need to put my hips into it. If you listen to the formula of what works and put your spin on that, you win.

Amen. And that's the true thing of being a coach and working with people, sharing people that. And I always say, hey, you gotta be coachable. If you're doing something new, you gotta be coachable doing something you're not. The board. Listen what people say, follow their words. Don't do what you think, because if what you did got you where you're at, it's not getting you where you need to be. You know what I mean? If you want to be somewhere, you got to take a coach, got to change, follow instructions, and go that route. So that's. That's a beautiful thing there. Reno, what's the best way for our listeners out there in notation here to check you out or follow you? Keep up with what the amazing stuff that you're doing.

Better call daddy.com.

Better calldaddy.com and make sure you check out the Better call Daddy podcast anywhere that you listen to podcasts as well, everybody. So, Rena, thank you for coming on the Note Closure show, sharing your entrepreneurial journey and lessons learned. It's been a very valuable time frame here. Look forward to seeing you next time out in Houston as well. For you. Alrighty.

Yes. Thank you so much. You're an amazing host.

Awesome. Great stuff, guys. Okay, that's going to wrap it up for this episode. Go out, take some action. If you're struggling with where you're at, you've seen a pivot, don't be afraid to reach out to somebody. Don't be afraid to pick a up and call. Talk with Scott Carson.com or talk to your mentors or coach or, hey, if you value your daddy's opinion, better call Daddy. So go out, take some action, buddy, and we'll see you on the top. Bye.