Michelle Berman-Mikel shares the autonomy inherent in the worlds of real estate and mortgage professions, emphasizing that aspiring solopreneurs must take the initiative to cultivate their own business and revenue streams. The conversation, hosted by Bill Risser, delves into Michelle's extensive background, including her transition from competitive swimming and her journey into entrepreneurship. She articulates the importance of personal branding and storytelling in social media, asserting that agents must engage authentically to foster genuine connections rather than merely chasing trends. Furthermore, Michelle discusses her forthcoming book, "The Black Line," which intertwines her personal adversities with professional insights, offering a roadmap for others navigating similar challenges. This episode serves not only as an exploration of Michelle’s career but also as a motivational call to action for individuals in the real estate industry to embrace their unique narratives.
In dialogue with Bill Risser, Michelle Berman-Mikel shares her unique insights on the evolution of social media within the real estate sector and how agents can leverage these platforms effectively. She delineates the distinction between social media coaching and social media prospecting, asserting that the latter focuses on converting social interactions into tangible business opportunities. Michelle draws upon her extensive experience in the industry to articulate the significance of authenticity and personal branding in social media. She challenges conventional approaches that prioritize flashy content over genuine engagement, advocating for a strategy rooted in relationship-building and community connection. This episode not only provides listeners with actionable advice but also encourages a paradigm shift in how real estate professionals perceive and utilize social media as a tool for success.
Takeaways:
- The journey of a real estate agent or mortgage professional requires one to embody the spirit of a solopreneur, taking initiative to cultivate their own business and revenue streams, as no one will do it for them.
- Michelle Berman-Mikel's narrative illustrates the importance of personal resilience and adaptability, especially in the face of life's adversities, which ultimately shapes one's professional identity.
- The concept of the 'black line' serves as a metaphor for focus and direction in both personal and professional pursuits, emphasizing the need for individuals to identify their guiding principles amidst distractions.
- Successful social media engagement in real estate is fundamentally about building relationships and connections, rather than merely following trends or algorithms, a principle Michelle passionately advocates throughout her career.
- Michelle's experiences highlight the necessity for real estate professionals to leverage their unique personal stories and backgrounds as a means of differentiating themselves in a competitive market.
- The podcast serves as a platform for meaningful conversations that not only foster personal connections but also provide invaluable insights into the intricacies of the real estate industry and the human experience.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
As a real estate agent or as amortgage professional, a lot of them
are their own solopreneurs,right? Yes, their, their license
is hung somewhere. But it's upto you to go create your own business
and it's up to you to go buildrevenue for yourself. No one's going
to go do it for you. And yeah,some agents, I think, go to teams
that have really great splitsor, hey, yeah, we can provide all
(00:22):
these leads just to get theirfeet wet. But it, to get out of that
or to graduate out of that,and to really build a business out
of this, you have to go do it yourself.
You're listening to the RealEstate Sessions and I'm your host,
Bill Risser. With nearly 25years in the real estate business,
I love to interview industryleaders, up and comers, and really
(00:42):
anyone with a story to tell.It's the stories that led my guests
to a career in the real estateworld that drives me in my 10th year
and over 400 episodes of thepodcast. And now I hope you enjoy
the next journey. Hi,everybody. Welcome to episode 420
of the Real Estate Sessionspodcast. As always, thank you so
(01:03):
much for tuning in. Thank youso much for telling a friend. Today
I'm talking to MichelleBerman-Mikel. Michelle has her own
company, Beyond the Method.She's got a book coming out, The
Black Line, and she has anincredible life story that I can't
wait to share with you. Solet's get this thing going. Michelle,
welcome to the podcast.
(01:23):
Thank you so much for havingme, Bill. I'm really excited.
Yeah, I'm excited to talk withyou. I know you're part of a group
where Diana's in it and a fewother people I've interviewed. Eleni.
Right. So, yeah. So it'll befun to kind of catch up with you.
I like every episode I've everdone on the podcast, and this is
episode 420. I start with,like, where did you grow up?
(01:44):
Yeah, so I actually grew up inSouthern California. So for those
of you guys familiar withAnaheim, Fullerton, La Mirada, I
was born and raised. I livedthere Till I was 18, but I was born
and raised in La Mirada, wentto La Mirada High School and then
ended up actually swimmingmost of my career in Fullerton. So
Fullerton being kind of thebig swim part of Southern California.
(02:07):
And then, you know, lots oftime in Mission Viejo at their pools.
Lots of time in Lake Forest,some of the bigger outdoor pools.
Irvine was a big pool for us.So I've been all over But I lived
in La Mirada.
Give me the name of the swimclub you belong to in Fullerton,
because I know it was a club.
It was, yes. I swam for FastFast Fullerton Aquatic Sports Team,
formerly owned and operated byKevin Perry. He passed away my senior
(02:29):
year of high school, rightbefore my entire graduating class
was getting ready to go off tocollege. So it was a tough year for
all of us. You know, we'd swamfor him. I swam for him personally
for about 12 years out ofthose first 18, all the way from,
you know, the developmentalprogram up until I graduated from
high school and ended up offon a swimming scholarship to Rutgers.
(02:50):
So, you know, Kevin was anintegral part of, hey, where are
we going to go to school? Andhere's our options. And you know,
growing up in SouthernCalifornia, swimming was what we
did. So it was veryinteresting to go through that process,
which I'm sure we'll talkabout. But yeah, I swam for Fullerton
Aquatics. So if any of youguys have ever heard of Tyler Clary,
he was at one point the worldrecord holder in the 200 meter backstroke
(03:12):
and actually won the goldmedal in 2012, I think the year I
graduated from college. So Iactually grew up swimming in that
gentleman's lane for most ofmy time with Fullerton. So I met
him when we were like 12, 13and knew him all the way through.
So he's now married and has alittle one, I think. Man is retired
from swimming, but still doesa lot of big swimming related things.
(03:37):
So I need, I need yourfavorite. I don't want to call it
stroke, but it has. There's adifferent name for it other than
your favorite stroke. It'syour favorite event. Event. So what
was your favorite event?
Yeah, so my favorite eventwasn't necessarily what my specialty
was, we'll say it that way,but I actually was, you know, most
of my career I swam the 200butterfly, so I was known for being
(03:59):
a long distance person. Mysignature event was the mile. That
was actually what I wasrecruited to swim in college. But
I was a butterflyer as well.So I swam the 200 butterfly in the
mile. And typically they wereon the same day of every swim meet
or, or a competition, we callthem swim meets, but it was always
typically on the same day. Sothere's been many, many stories and
(04:20):
many times in my career whereI actually swam the 200 butterfly
and then got out of the waterand immediately started swimming
the mile. So very telling, Ithink. But it's, you know, for me,
butterfly was always Myfavorite for sure. Love training
for it, but I was never a fasttwitch muscle person, so, you know,
swimming the 50 or the ahundred was never an option for me.
(04:40):
So the 200 butterfly it was,but I had the endurance. So that's
part of, part of it.
Obviously, I, I, I think I'mspeaking for all of us laymen who've
never swam like you have.That's, that looks like the absolute
toughest stroke there is. Imean, the, the, the, what it does
to the shoulders, what it'sdoing to just the upper body must
(05:00):
be crazy. Am I right?
Yeah, you're not wrong. Lotsof injuries related to butterfly
over the years. I actually, Ithink the biggest issue, if you will,
when it relates to butterfly,especially for swimming it as long
as I did, was posture. So Ihave notoriously terrible posture.
Not because I want that to bethe case, but just because that is
(05:21):
20 years of being hunchedforward in that position. And then
also now I sit at home and,you know, sit at my computer and
am on zoom all the time. Sokind of a terrible combination. But
luckily I, I'm sure we'll talkabout my husband. Luckily I'm married
to a very special human thathelps me with that. So it's gotten
better. But definitely thatwould be the bigger issue related
(05:42):
to butterfly.
Yeah. Wow, that's. I couldtalk to you for hours just about
that stuff. Growing up inSouthern California, I did the same.
I was in San Diego. You werejust the one county up in Orange
County. Really. Or tell yourfavorite thing about growing up in
Southern California. And maybelike the biggest misconception, when
people find out you're fromSouthern California.
Yeah. So my, one of my bestfriends here, she's actually from
(06:04):
the Bronx in New York. Andwhen she met me, she was like, you're
from SoCal. Like, no. Right.Like, she just did not believe it
for a second. And I, you know,if anybody listening to this knows
anybody from New York City,they are their own breed and they,
they certainly operate on adifferent wavelength. And she always
(06:25):
says she's like, there's justno way you're from Southern California.
Like, my personality, if you,if you know me longer, and I'm sure,
Bill, you'll get to know meover the years, but I'm not your
quintessential SouthernCalifornia girl. I don't really dress
like one. I don't really actlike one. I'm, I'm really not that
type of a girl. I do wearrainbows, though. So for anybody
(06:46):
listening from San Diego orfrom Southern California. Like I
will not wear any other formof sandalwood. So that's the only
California girl in me that'sleft, I think. But I think the biggest
misconception is that we'reall kind of airheady, I think, which
sounds silly and hopefullyit's okay to say that. But I promise
you we're really smart. But Ido think that you have sort of this,
(07:08):
you know, hoity toity vibesort of personality that is typically
associated to that and sort ofthis airheady reality TV from all
the shows. We're not that. Atleast I'm definitely not that. And
you know, my family stilllives in Southern California now
and my sister does notanymore. But you know, we. We don't
like to be lumped into that,I'll say that.
(07:30):
Yeah, yeah. You're now inTennessee, correct?
We are, yes. So my husband andI live in Clarksville, Tennessee.
So for those of you guysfamiliar with the military, you know
that it's where Fort Campbellis. So it's one of the bigger military
bases. It's about 45 minutesnorth of Nashville.
You like Nashville? Do you go,do you head down that way?
We don't go into Nashville.Nashville a ton, I should say. I
(07:51):
was actually there yesterdayfor most of the day. But I have several
clients in Nashville, so Itend to go in occasionally to do
that. But I will say they haveinsane coffee shops. They have several
really, really good coffeeshop, bookstore combinations. I'm
a big reader and I love lotsof series and different not or different
fiction based books. For meit's just a disconnect from reality
(08:12):
and a way for me to kind ofturn my brain off. And I love hole
in the wall coffee. So I willsay Nashville has that, but you know,
I, I don't. I'm not a bigpartier. I don't really go out into
the scene much. But I doreally enjoy country music. I was
really born and raised on TimMcGraw and Lee Bryce and a lot of
these older country artists.So living in Nashville now, it's
really fun because I'm hereand I get to go and see all of those
(08:36):
people and all of theupcomers. But I think my favorite
thing about living inTennessee is just the land, the space,
having green everywhere allyear round. We didn't grow up with
that, you know, I grew up withtwo seasons and that was it. And
then I lived in Phoenix forseveral years. So it was very concrete,
cactusy type dirt vibes. Andnow I live in Tennessee where everything
(08:57):
is green and beautiful and wehave fall and all this color everywhere.
And you couldn't, you couldn'ttake me out of Tennessee anymore,
Bill. I'll say that.
Yeah, that's great. I, I liketo ask this question a lot of my
guests because it's, you know,you were a competitive swimmer at
the age of 16. You knew youhad a scholarship was coming your
way because you were goodenough to do that and head on to
Rutgers. What was the plan,you know, was, I mean, look, it could
(09:21):
have been Olympics. It couldhave been something big like that,
or it could have beensomething else. I'm curious, what
were you thinking at the ageof 16? What's Michelle doing?
Yeah, you know, at 16 yearsold, I think my number one goal was
go to college and be a reallygood swimmer. And I think most people
at that time, that's what wewere all thinking. You know, all
of the, the girls that I grewup swimming with and, and frankly,
(09:42):
just gentlemen, gentlemen andladies, I grew up swimming on a co
ed team. Rutgers was an allfemale team only because about two
years prior to my freshmanyear they had actually cut the men's
team as part of the Title 9situation that was going on at the
time. We were, at the time wewere also part of the Big east. So
it was a little bit different.Now they're not part of the Big East,
(10:02):
I believe it's the Big ten, ifI'm correct. So a little bit different
times. But at 16, for me itwas, you know, hey, I gotta get a
scholarship. I gotta figureout where I'm going to college and,
you know, academically. I grewup in a family of lawyers. My mom
was a paralegal for prettymuch all 40 years of her professional
life. And then my dad was abankruptcy lawyer. Just retired actually
(10:23):
in 2023, in December of 2023.But still sits on boards and still
travels the country going tolitigation and all that stuff still,
even though he's retired. ButI, I grew up in a family of, of lawyers.
My sister was a high schoolbiology teacher and a chemistry teacher.
So for me, I kind of justassumed that that's the route that
I was going to go. And a bigpart of my story, if I can just be
(10:45):
super honest with you, Bill,is I am the black sheep of my family
in the sense of I did not goto law school. I did get into UNLV
law school, but I actuallydeclined and originally went to college
thinking I was going to be aphysical therapist. That's what I
thought. I was going to go toschool for at Rutgers and, you know,
was very much so interested inthe academic side of that, you know,
being an athlete and knowingthe value of the physical therapist
(11:07):
that kept our bodies intact atsuch a young age at because of the
volume of just impact we wereputting on our bodies. You know,
I knew that there was so muchvalue in who those humans were because
they took care of me, that itwas fun for me to think about, hey,
I want to go take care ofother athletes when I become of age
to do so. So. I initiallyentered college with the intent of
(11:29):
being a physical therapist.And my freshman year of college,
at the very end of that year,I actually changed my major. That's
a story for you for sure. ButI will say I double majored in journalism
and psychology. So myundergrad degree is a double major
in journalism and mediastudies with a intent to double or
(11:49):
minor in psychology. But Iended up taking too many credits,
so it ended up being a doublemajor. My whole thought process,
there was at some point I knewI was going to write a book. And
I was really, really confidentin that even at such a young age.
And the story goes that, youknow, my senior year of college when
I graduated, I told my dad,I'm going to write a book, dad. But
have no idea what it's goingto be about. I just know that someday
(12:10):
I'm going to figure it out.And I think it's because I have a
voice and I have something tosay. But once I figure it out, I'll
let you know. And that was in2012. And I do have a book coming
out this year, actually in2025. So we've made it. But black
sheep wise there, I think it'sjust important to understand, like,
just because it's what yourfamily does doesn't necessarily mean
that it's what you have to do.And I think I'm the tale of that.
(12:33):
Yeah, I love that. I lovethat. I love that you're very open
about that. What was yourfirst gig out of school? What did
you. What was that first job?
Oh, man. Oh, man. It wasawful, Bill. I can't even. Oh, my
gosh. So my undergrad degree,as I mentioned, was in journalism
and psychology, and my ideawas to go write for newspapers. I
was going to do sportswriting. That's kind of where my
(12:53):
head went with the intentionof, you know, in the back of my mind,
I'm like, well, you can'twrite about people if you don't understand
people. So hence thePsychology degree. And I kind of
had this vision of being AaronAndrews in another life. You know,
everyone thinks I'm in somehowrelated to Chris Berman and no, I
am not. But I still get thatquestion today. But I really had
this idea that I was going togo write sports articles and travel
(13:15):
the country, going to sportingevents and be a part of the sporting
or sports world. So I actuallystarted working for Bleacher Report
and we got $10 an article towrite. It was absolutely brutal and
it didn't last very long. Ithink I wrote three or four articles
before I quickly realized itwas completely unsustainable. So
my first real job was actuallyworking for a network marketing corporate
(13:40):
firm in Philly. So if you'refamiliar with the King of Prussia
area outside of Philadelphia,I worked for this company. It was,
if anybody's ever heard ofSidcor, probably not, but it's a,
it's a network marketing typeorganization where you go door to
door for, at businesses tosell something. Right. So in this
case, it sounds so horriblewhen I say it out loud, but it's
(14:02):
still really funny to me nowlooking back on this. But this first
job, you know, the, it was100% commission and I was normally
for the most part anintrovert, not a super extroverted
person, but this job made mean extrovert real quick. But I was
selling direct energy door todoor at businesses. So I had to go
(14:23):
into big shopping complexes, Ihad to go into big corporate type
buildings and ask them fortheir electric bill to see if I could
save them money on theirelectric bills. And it was kind of
wild, but I was very good atit and didn't expect to be very good
at it. But I was one of thenumber one reps in all of the Northeast.
And I was still flat broke.Like it was awful. So I'm living
(14:48):
in Philly. I think I, youknow, my average PayCheck was like
1700 bucks every two weeks,which barely covered my rent, let
alone food and all the otherstuff that goes into life. So I did
that for about two and a halfyears. A little less than two and
a half years. About two. And Igot really, I was really good at
it. I loved it. I, I got to goto a bunch of different states and
(15:08):
go to all the big cities, didcore conferences and kind of caught
the network marketing bug alittle bit. But I found out my dad
had stage 4 non Hodgkin'slymphoma and decided that I was going
to move home to California. SoI Had got out of that job and actually
was working for a smallinterior design company working with
real estate agents. So I hadto work with the real estate agent
(15:31):
who was hiring the stager orthe person to come in and design
a listing or make it lookpretty. And my client was the interior
designer that would contractthe furniture out from the company
that I worked for. And it wasjust a designed to be a part time
type temporary thing to get mehome and back to California. Once
I officially moved back toCalifornia, they didn't want to pay
(15:52):
my salary anymore. So I had toquit and ended up at a PR firm in
Palm Desert, California. Forthose of you guys familiar, which
is where my parents were andwhere all my dad's doctor, a lot
of my dad's doctors were. Sothat's how I kind of transitioned
into the PR social world wasreally at that time.
That kind of explains then whyInstagram. Right? Especially Instagram
(16:15):
for you was part of thepicture, the Realtor side of it,
helping realtors and lenderswith that tool. I've watched a lot
of people that work in thatspace a little bit because it's really
important and it's reallytough to get agents to use that tool.
Right. Can you talk about thata little bit and just what you discovered
is you is this part of yourlife now starts to come around.
(16:38):
Well, what I can tell you,Bill, and May ruffle feathers is
that a lot of people who areteaching it and still are teaching
it are teaching it wrong andvery poorly, in my opinion. And I
don't say that to beconfrontational, but I do say that
to say you have to payattention to what really matters.
And the landscape of socialhas changed so, so drastically over
(17:02):
the last 10 years that whatyou were or what I was even doing
back in 2014 when I started mycompany, how different that is than
what it is today, you know,and I was 24 years old when I started
my company. I'll be 35 inabout three weeks. And what I can
tell you is the 24 year oldMichelle was really, really good
(17:22):
at one thing and the 35 yearold Michelle is still really, really
good at that one thing. Butnow I can actually articulate what
that thing is. And I thinkthat's the big difference because
in 2014 I was young and Istill think I'm young. I hope I still
think I'm young in theindustry in the sense of I feel like
a lot of people still need tohear the message because it hasn't
(17:45):
resonated Enough or gotten outenough. That what you are learning
and what you're doing, allthese social classes and trying to
consume all of thisinformation, it's not serving you.
And I think that that's a. Abig part of my love language and
a big part of why I feel likeI was put on this planet is really
just to disrupt thedisruptible. Right. In this sense
(18:08):
of like, hey, let's call aspade a spade and say, hey, what
you're doing doesn't actuallycreate revenue. And it's not because
you. You don't want it to, butit's because you're not doing it
with the intentions that yourfocus should be to connect, and your
focus should be to buildrelationships that you can then take
offline. And that's what I do.Right. I'm not a social media coach.
(18:29):
I'm a social media prospectingcoach. And I think it's really under
important to understand thedifference. But in 2014, I was trying
to lump myself into this worldto sort of fit in, and I realized
as I tried harder and harderto fit in, I was actually standing
out more and more and more,and I've just embraced that.
(18:50):
You focus on ROI way more thananybody else I've ever heard talk
about social media. Right. Imean, that's what you're talking
about.
100% true. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thinkthat's. That's key. So as an entrepreneur
at a young age, I mean, it'svery cool you started your own company.
You're doing this. Here youare 11 years later, still moving
down this path. There had tobe some bumps in the road. Like if
(19:10):
you were talking to a brandnew someone who had that same fire
you have. Right. Because youhave to have the fire. You have to
swim that many years. Whatwould you tell them?
Yeah. Oh, man. What? I. Iwould tell them a lot of things.
I'll say that. But the youngerversion of myself was very hungry
to feel accepted and to feelneeded in an industry that I felt
(19:34):
like, needed me. Right.Meaning I. I really saw a hole in
the game. People ask me allthe time, like, you know, why mortgage
and why real estate? And I'lltell you very candidly, I had a love
for it already. I bought myfirst house at 24. But the biggest
thing for me was we have tohave, essentially we own our own
companies. Right. Even though,yes, I do have my own official entity
(19:56):
as a real estate agent or as amortgage professional. A lot of them
are their own solopreneurs,right? Yes. Their license is hung
somewhere. But it's up to youto go create your own business and
it's up to you to go buildrevenue for yourself. No one's gonna
go do it for you. And yeah,some agents I think go to teams that
have really great splits orhey, yeah, we can provide all these
(20:18):
leads just to get their feetwet. But it to get out of that or
to graduate out of that and toreally build a business out of this,
you have to go do it yourself.So there was something very attractive
to me about the grittiness ofthose types of individuals because
that really just is who I am.But I will tell you that that version
(20:38):
of me, the 24 year old versionof me, was so desperate to just get
my voice heard that I wasalmost afraid to be a disruptor in
the space. I was almost like,oh, I don't want to disagree because
I want everyone to like me sothat enough people will find me.
But as my career has evolved,it actually has become very clear
(20:59):
to me that my superpower isactually really not agreeing and
not in a negative way. I'm notout here to say that what other people
are doing is not givingsolutions and helping people. But
I am saying like my thoughtprocess and my philosophy is very
different and really rooted inthe psychology aspect of why are
we doing this right? And thepsychological principles behind how
(21:23):
we show up and how we connectwith human beings and how people
like me. Right. Who, you know,I'll share the story. You know, I
was bullied most of my middleschool and high school life. I really
didn't have a ton of friends.I didn't go to prom with a boy. I
went with my girlfriends. LikeI didn't have, I didn't grow up that
way. Right. I didn't havethat. I feel like I fit in personality
(21:45):
or life, frankly. I went tocollege, was went from a co ed swim
team to an all female teamwhich exasperated that a lot for
me and it made it almost 10times worse because you're in an
all female team whereeverybody's got, you know, their
periods and we have hormonesand we have like all of our emotions
and things that go into beingyoung females. And you just created,
(22:07):
for me it just created abigger disconnect from real relationships
and real friendships because Ijust was almost on the outside looking
in all the time. Wasn't thegirl invited to the parties, wasn't
the one with the boyfriend.Like I was the girl that showed up
to swim practice, crushed it,went to class, got an A Went back
to practice and was reallygood in the weight room. Like, that
was my identity. And so when Igot into the space in 2024 and launched
(22:33):
my company, I, I felt like thefaster I could get approval from
people, the faster my careerwould grow. And it's not that we
don't want approval. It's notthat we don't want people to like
us, but it's we, we want themto like us for the right reasons
and not just because we'regood at what we do. We want them
to like us because our moralsand our ethics and our values align
(22:56):
with who they are. And then,oh, by the way, I can help you do
this thing in business. So the24 year old version of me was just
trying to fit in anywhere. Andtoday, you know, I have the ability
to say no to stuff. And I alsohave the ability of, of taking a
sales call with someone andsaying, I don't think we're the right
fit. And that's okay. And I'malso at the point as a mom and as
(23:18):
a wife now that I'm veryconfident in, if you don't like me,
it's okay because there arepeople that will. And I think just
being confident in who I am,if that, if I would have been that
confident at 24, I would havesolved a lot of problems for myself.
That last three minutes rightthere applies to 97% of realtors.
(23:40):
I'm going to say that rightnow they need to know the same things,
they need to do the samethings. They need to be able to say
no. Right. And not just oh no,it's another buyer or seller. I know
I can make it work. Yeah, Ithink that's fair. It's incredibly
powerful. Let's talk about,for all you mentioned, your husband
and your child, let's talkabout that. So where was that in
the process? In the flow. Soyou got this company rolling along.
Where, where did that kind of take?
(24:02):
Yeah, so I have, I have a, afun story and I think it's really
relatable whether you're a manor a woman or, you know, married
or not married. But a lot ofthe insecurities in my younger life
sort of bled into myrelationships because of the nature
of it. So my first long termserious boyfriend, I was actually
(24:23):
living in Michigan, which ishow I ended up. I, I left Philly
and went to Michigan duringthe time I was with that Sid Corps
organization, moved toMichigan to be with him. And he still
is a friend of mine to thisday. We We, Our birthdays are actually
24 hours apart. Um, he's a fewyears older than me, but he was a
professional billiards player.So we traveled the country pretty
much going to. To pool barsand, you know, dive bars, playing
(24:47):
pool all over the place. Andit was really fun, but it was so
not me. And it was. I hadgained 25, almost 30 pounds in a
matter of a year aftergraduating. So this was the year
I graduated from college,going into my first year outside
of College, so 2012 to 2013.And it was during that season when
my dad called me to tell methat he had stage four non Hodgkin's
(25:08):
lymphoma. And so he told me,michelle, I don't care what you do,
Just find some sport again.And I. The. I can still remember
it very vividly. He said,michelle, I don't even care if it's
badminton, just do something.And I joke about that now, but in
the moment, it was veryserious and it was very, very hard
because I was. I had gotten sofar away from who I was at that point
(25:30):
in such a short period oftime. So I actually left that gentleman
and unfortunately ended up ina relationship that I thought would
be my forever. I'll say itthat way in the moment, but I think
there were enough red flagsthat I knew I knew better, but I
was still hopeful. But I hadgotten into CrossFit, so I became
a competitive CrossFitter forabout six, almost seven years, about
(25:51):
six and a half years. And thisgentleman was someone I had met at
the CrossFit gym. But itturned into being a very verbally
and partially physicallyabusive relationship. But it was
a status symbol for me at thetime, meaning I had gotten the hot
guy from the CrossFit gym. AndI think a lot of people can attest
to that. Like, we sort of feelbetter about ourselves. Oh, I got
(26:12):
the guy. But it put me down aspiral, Bill, if I can be honest
with you. It was a very, verytough five years of my life. Ultimately
left him 80 days before Iwalked down the aisle to marry him
in January of 2018. Stillgives me the goosebumps and still
pisses me off to this day thatI allowed that to be part of my life
for such a long time. But thereality is, is that we all face stuff
(26:34):
like that, and I think we alldo things that we're not proud of.
But I'm. I am really proud ofwho I became out of that relationship,
because I actually later thatyear, so I left my fiance at the
Time in January of 2018. And Imet my now husband in December of
that year. We did not talkwhen we first met at all. We. He
(26:55):
was very shy and very quiet.And I was new to the gym that we
met in. So I was not super,you know, out there and talking and
chatty. I was kind of sittingoff to myself into my. To my own
little corner. But I hadactually texted my best friend at
the time and said, I just metmy husband. I guarantee it. And she
thought I was. I hope I cansay this on your show, Bill, but
(27:18):
she said, michelle, you arebatshit crazy. Like, absolutely not.
And I, you know, because Ihad. I just had to leave the gym
that I was at. And a lot ofthings had happened over the last
year because of my end to therelationship that I had been in.
So I had uprooted everything.Like my whole life had changed because
of this decision that I made,which I albeit was the right decision.
(27:39):
So my girlfriend was like,michelle, just no way. And I said.
I said, he's it. I guaranteeyou he's it. And we mind you, my
husband and I, his name isDave. We had not ever spoken at that
point in this is in earlyDecember. He went home for Christmas.
I went home for Christmas.Come to find out he also is from
Southern California. He wasactually born in Chino Hills, so,
(27:59):
you know, from SouthernCalifornia, but we didn't know that
at the time. We get back fromChristmas break, we're in the gym.
I think it was January 7th, ifI recall, the exact date of 2019
was the first day that wespoke and said hello because there
was hardly anybody in the gymbecause it was right after the holiday
and not everybody had comeback to the gym yet. And he took
(28:19):
a sweatshirt off and he had agiant wolf tattoo on his side. And
I. I love tattoos. I haveseveral of my own. And I yelled across
the gym at him. I was like,hey, what's your tattoo of? And the
rest is pretty much historythere. But we started talking. I
got very, very nervous. Thiswill be surprising for most, but
I got very, very nervoustalking to him. So I actually left
(28:41):
in the middle of my workoutand went home because I was so nervous
about talking to him. Butlater that evening, I sent him a
Facebook message just talkingto him about his tattoos and saying,
sorry, I had to leave. I hadto work, right? Those of you guys
who are listening this, I justdid air quotes. But I had to, quote,
work, right? So I sent him amessage and just said, hey, I'm sorry.
I had to leave. But I, youknow, I look forward to seeing you
(29:03):
at the gym tomorrow orwhatever, whenever you're going to
be in there next. And wetalked all night until about 9:30,
which he had a hard stop at9:30, that's another story. But we
talked until about 9:30 and hesaid to me at the end of the conversation
on the second day. So wetalked the whole next day pretty
much. He said, any girl thatis confident enough to invite me
(29:23):
to church and I'm is. Is a yesfor me on one condition. You'll go
to the shooting range with mewhen we're done. And you know, for
those of you guys who don'tknow who my husband is, he is a.
He is a former Green Beret. Heis former special Forces here in
at Fort Campbell. And we havea lot of guns in our home and we're,
we're big fans of supportingthe military and obviously we live
in a military town now. But.So yeah, we went to church Sunday
(29:47):
morning and then he took me tothe shooting range and he moved into
my house 24 hours later. Soliterally after our third day together.
And we got married almostexactly two months to the day after
that. So we got married at thehouse on March 7th of 2019. And we
have been married now for sixand a half years and we have an almost
four year old named Knox. Andhe is the best thing ever.
(30:09):
That's.
But all I gotta say is shootyour shot. And I knew I was right.
You were? Yeah. So thegirlfriend was at the wedding, I
imagine.
Yeah, yeah. He was our onlywitness actually.
Okay.
Got married at the courthouse.So she was. Her and her now husband
were our only witnesses whenwe got married legally. And then
(30:30):
we did a full big familywedding in Flagstaff, Arizona. Actually,
I was supposed to be in 2020with COVID happening. It was postponed
until 2021. So I was actuallyseven months pregnant with Knox when
we have our formal official wedding.
Lots of joking going on there.I'm sure that was.
Oh my gosh. And my husband,his vows, I can't. I. Not a dry eye
in the house with his vows forsure. You know, being a father and
(30:53):
being someone that, you know,I was carrying his. His son was a
very special thing. So it wasreally, really fun and it's great
to look back on it now and saylike, hey, I knew. And he kind of
laughs and says, I didn'treally know, but I kind of knew.
And I was like, well, I forsure knew.
That's another book I'Mtelling you right now. Let's talk
(31:15):
about your book, the BlackLine. First of all, the name is really
intriguing because I, youknow, my first thought is like, I
could figure that out. Let'ssee, you know, swimming. No, I mean,
well, there's a line in thepool. Okay. That may be it. Why didn't.
I was trying to figure it out,but I'm going to just give up and
say, tell me the title, whatthe title is about, and then what
the book is about.
(31:35):
Yeah. So I'll tell you. Myvision for the book when I decided
to write it was I didn't wantit to be another one of those entrepreneur
books. I didn't want it tofeel like another one of those. Pick
this book up, you're going tolearn all the things that you're
not doing, and here's all thereasons why you should be doing them.
Right. Which I love thosebooks. Right. I'll tell you. In the
(31:57):
sense of High PerformanceHabits, which was one of the very
first business books I everread. In 2019, actually, when I launched
beyond the Method, was one ofthe most influential books still
to this date that I've everread. Good to great being another
one of them with Jim Collins.Like, I. I still talk about the flywheel.
It's a big part of even how Ibuilt my company and how I built
my. My structure. So thosebooks are so powerful and so Val
(32:21):
really just so valuable. Butfor me, there was a little bit of
a difference in how I wantedto approach this. So I really wanted
it to be a book that createdan intersection between Life is really
freaking hard in general. Andwe also have this thing called Shiny
Object Syndrome when it comesto creating our careers, where there
(32:44):
are things in life that aredesigned to pull us off our center.
So whether that's personallyor professionally, and as it relates
to social and as it relates topersonally, what I can tell you the
book does is it parallels thetwo. So on the personal side, the
black line, for me,figuratively, was the black line
on the bottom of the pool inthe sense of I stared at it long
(33:04):
enough to. From one side ofthe pool to the other side of the
pool, confidently did a flipturn. And I knew that if I just followed
the line long enough, I wouldget to the other side. And if I did
that 66 times, I completed themile. Right. Hence the. The event
I swam. But on a personallevel, there are four main storms
that the book documentsthroughout my life, one of which
being my dad's cancerdiagnosis. The Other one actually
(33:28):
being the end of my CrossFitcareer. So really was a pivotal moment
in my life. It was the onlytime I've ever been suicidal in my
life. And it was a very, verydark time for me. And I ended up
meeting my now husband abouttwo months later. So there's a really
special storm there that Ithink a lot of people can relate
(33:49):
to. And then the third big onebeing the miscarriage that I had
in November of last year. Somy husband and I had been trying
for quite some time, ended upfinally getting pregnant, which was
a miracle by itself, and lostour baby. I was just shy of 10 weeks.
I was a little over nineweeks. And it was the darkest time
of my entire life. Still, Ijust don't. There's nothing I could
(34:12):
even compare to it. So the,the personal stories or the storms,
right, are designed to be away for people in their life to say,
what is that black line forme? What is that thing that I can
get back to that's going toget me out of what I'm in? And for
me, that's God and my faith. Iam a very much so a faith based and
driven human. And I trulybelieve in the power of the Holy
(34:34):
Spirit. And I have a sayingthat I talk a lot about, which is
God gives us a mess to give usa message. And what is the mess and
what's the message? A lot ofthe times we don't know when the
mess is happening or when it'sgoing to come, but we always know
that there's something that wecan trust to come out of it. And
there are a ton of messagesthat came out of all of the storms
that I document in the book.But the whole premise of it parallels
(34:57):
the social media side, whichis, you know, you go and you take
all these classes, which oneof the things I love to do when I
do a keynote anywhere is I'llsay how many people in the room have
taken a social media classrecently? You know, everybody raises
their hand and then I'll say,okay, how many of you have taken
two or three in the last fewmonths? And I swear the whole room
still raises their hand. And Imy promise to them is at the end
(35:18):
of my session with them, theywill never have to take another social
media class again because theblack line is now laid out in front
of them. So the black line iswhat I now call beyond the method,
the course itself or the blackline approach being the methodology
that is built into beyond themethod, which is I have the straight
Line. I know exactly what todo. I know exactly how to get you
(35:41):
from where you currently areto actually making money off of social.
And it's not what you thinkbecause it's not all the flashy stuff.
And so the black line is thatvisual metronome, in this case being
the plan or beyond the method,being the name of the course that
I created in 2019.
I love the phrase visualmetronome. You know, just staying
in rhythm. Right. Just don't,don't, don't, don't get off track.
(36:04):
But it is very easy. It isvery, very easy, too. And. And the.
The swimming analogy was veryspecial to me. Very relatable to
people. The lane lines, youknow, lane lines are designed to
keep us from going off intothe next person's lane. Keeps you
from going in the straightestline as possible from one side to
the other side. So I alwayssay, you know, the other social classes
(36:25):
are trying to piecemeal thisand this and this and all these different
strategies together and to tryto turn that into your own. It's
like swimming in a pool withno lane lines. Like, you're just
screwed. Like you really justare. And most likely you're going
to end up at one. Start on oneside of the pool and end up totally
diagonal way the heck overthere and wonder why it took you
so long. And I think that'sthe visual analogy I was trying to
(36:49):
create. But the COVID whichhas not been released yet, the COVID
I can tell you, is sobeautiful, in my opinion, but it's
really this mixture of hopeand darkness and kind of all of that,
how that comes together tocreate this beautiful story. And
my goal is that someone picksit up and doesn't say, oh, this is
(37:10):
just another entrepreneurbook. Instead, they pick it up and
they say, what is this?Exactly what you said when you went
to. To kind of start theconversation. I want that. I want
them to up and be like, I'm sointrigued because I don't know where
this is going.
Yeah. You started a podcast.
I did.
How do you like it?
Oh, I like it.
You like doing it? Good, good.I. I like talking to other podcasters.
(37:31):
Tell me, tell me what put youdown that path. Right. What was the
thought process there? Becauseobviously, for beyond the method.
Right. For your. For yourinstruction. Right. And how to. How
to handle social and how towork this stuff out in a better way.
It's always good to have apodcast because more people are going
to hear about that. But Iimagine there's a part of you that
(37:52):
just wants to learn more aboutpeople as well?
Yeah. Oh. A huge part of mewas just, I'm just curious about
other people and want to learnabout how other people are doing
things and also have reallyinsightful conversations with people
that I feel like can move aneedle. So I was very strategic about
how I launched the podcast asfar as guests. And when I chose to
(38:12):
build the podcast, my mindwas, I did, or my thought process
was, I don't want this to justbe another podcast about social,
because that's not what thisis. I really wanted it to be very,
very directed at prospectingand how do we use social as a prospecting
tool. So I've been veryselective. Some better than others,
you know, some I thought wouldgo better than they did, and then
(38:34):
some that went better than Icould have ever expected them to
go. But what I can tell youthe podcast has turned into for me
is really a strategic allianceplay, because there's a lot of people
who I feel like I need to knowbecause I understand the value of
what they're doing, and Ialign so hardcore with that and with
what they're doing that I'mlike, how do I build the building
(38:56):
blocks to get to them? Andthat's part of the podcast for me
now is it's a. I don't want tosay it's a strategic play to, like,
get in front of them, butreally that's what it came down to,
right, Is my ability to builda relationship with someone that
could then create the nextrelationship and then create the
next relationship, but do itfrom a place of value and not from
(39:17):
a place of, hey, I just wantto earn your business. But I think
because of the way I've goneabout it, it's been so wildly successful
for me because at the end ofthe day, to my very core, I am a
relationship person. I want tobe friends with everyone. I really
want that. And so I always usethe podcast as a way for me to really
get to know somebody first. Ifthey're somebody who I think I need
(39:39):
to work with or I think I canadd value to their company. If I
feel like maybe there's amoral or ethic match, I will invite
them onto the show. And basedoff of how the show goes, that gives
me the intuition of yes or no.Do I pursue this relationship or
do I not?
Yeah.
And so it's really become avery strategic alliance type opportunity
(40:00):
for me. You know, I've had. Ithink I just recorded episode 77
this Morning, which is great.But really, what started off as more
of a side gig, like, I'll getto this when I get to this, and I'll
interview a couple of coolpeople here and there, which will
create some snowball, hasturned into one of the funnest things
I've ever done.
Yeah.
And just some of the coolestfriendships that still to this day,
(40:20):
I'm like, you're way too coolfor me. But I really appreciate it.
You know, look, there you have77 people you can reach out to. If
you have a question aboutsomething or you need an answer,
whatever it is, they're there.And that's, for me, that's exactly
why the podcast was kind ofcreated, was a way for me to connect
with people in the industrythat's going to help me help others.
(40:41):
And the ability to be able togo back. And now the ability to go
back and reach back to you.Right. If I have somebody who hits
maybe a storm, I say, I gotsomebody maybe you could talk to.
My guess is you would probablytalk to that person.
Thousand percent. Absolutely.All the time. I love getting those
DMS on, on social, whetherit's on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn,
you know, I get them. Andpeople say, I heard you on this show,
and, yeah, holy smokes. Like,your story just res. I had. I got
(41:03):
a message very recently, andit really hit me, like, cry tears
hit me. But the gentleman waslike, you know, I just wanted to
reach out to you. I heardabout your dad's story, you know,
the story I tell about my dad,and. And it. It's a very loaded story.
But what I can tell you is mydad called me while I was living
in Michigan. I had just gottenhome from work, and he said sort
of the story I mentioned, buton a. On a bigger, deeper scale.
(41:25):
He basically mentioned to meor told me on the call that he was
given six months to live.Really? That was. That was about
the guess. Right. But theycouldn't guarantee that. That, you
know, the prognosis was notgood, but they. They were confident
that they couldn't. Couldmaximize his life and that there
were ways to. To get out ofit, but it was going to be an uphill
battle. So I sat down on mycouch, and I just remember sitting
(41:49):
there thinking, like, oh, myGod, I have to go home. I have to
fly home. I have to leaveMichigan, and I have to get home,
back to my. To my family. Butthe gentleman who DMed me, he heard
the story about, you know, mydad saying to me, like, go back to
being who you are and getcloser to the daughter that I raised
and, you know, find. Findsports again and all of these things.
And. But the gentleman thatDM'd me, he heard that whole story
(42:11):
and he said to me, like, mydad has the exact same cancer right
now and told me all this stuffabout him personally and the backstory
going into it. And he is inreal estate and has been in real
estate for several years. Saidhe wanted to quit. He was really
just like, with everythingthat was going on, he was like, I'm
done with doing this. Like, Ithink I just need to go take care
(42:31):
of my dad. And I said in themessage, I said, I'd love to get
on a call with you if you feellike what I do might help you. He
did not end up buyingcoaching, but what I can tell you
is he did end up solving hisproblem, right? He did not quit real
estate. He actually still doesreal estate today.
Wow.
But what he needed waspermission to be okay not being okay,
(42:56):
but to do it anyway, right?And to find a reason to get back
to who he was. And. And I saidto him, I said, your dad would not
want you to quit, right? Yourdad wouldn't want that. Because I'm
assuming your dad is probablylike my dad based off this conversation
that we're having. And what mydad wanted was for me to just be
the daughter that he raised.And it was really impactful for me.
(43:18):
He did end up hiring me for,like, one on one, a couple of one
on ones. But it turned out tobe truly more of a therapy session
for him than actually coachinghim. But I'm really proud of. I'm
proud of that. I'm proud ofthe fact that that's what happens
out of, you know, doing thingscorrectly. But I also think sharing
(43:38):
your stories and being onpodcasts like this at this time with
you even is. We are people,right? We are real people going through
real stuff, but we also needreminders that we don't have. We
don't need excuses. There'snot time for that, Right? And so
I love podcasting because Ithink it allows us to have a voice,
allows us for people to hearour emotions and our thoughts and
(43:59):
our feelings, but also hearhow good we are at what we do, hopefully,
and realize that, yeah, that'smy person, right? That's the person
I want to work with, or, yeah,that's the realtor I need to hire,
or, yeah, that's the socialperson I need to hire or whoever
it is. But I don't Think youcan get that from still content the
way that you can when youlisten to it on a podcast?
(44:20):
Totally agree. Look, I'mwatching the clock because I got
to get you going. The finalquestion I've asked every guest and
whether they've been in realestate or not, I love these answers.
What one piece of advice wouldyou give a new agent? Just getting
started.
Oh, my gosh, I love thatquestion. I would tell you you do
not need to do what everybodyelse is doing. That is a farce, right?
That is so far from true. Andyou know, with what I do specifically.
(44:43):
Again, I'm a social mediaprospecting coach. I am not a social
media coach. They are verydifferent. One is strategy based,
based off of content, right?Meaning one of them on the social
coaching side. What a socialmedia coach does is they teach you
how to create a contentstrategy. What a social media prospecting
coach, which is who I am,does, is we teach you how to create
a conversion strategy. Theyare very, very, very different, right?
(45:07):
So what I would tell thatyounger agent especially is you do
not need a bunch of socialmedia classes. You do not need to
focus on algorithmic changesor trends. And you also do not need
to go look up the best realtorin your area and be like, oh, that
person is doing this, sotherefore I will too, right? That
is not the answer. The answeris, who are you? Two things. Three
(45:28):
things, really. One, who areyou? Right. Most of you came out
of something prior to gettinginto real estate. Very common, right?
They came from a previouscareer. Real estate is not typically
their first thing or theirfirst gig, right? Which means you
came from somewhere. So whatprimary skills did you acquire during
that time? And how can youbring that into your content? Right?
(45:51):
That's. That's a big piece ofit. And then secondly, be a person
in your content, right? I am amom. I am a wife. I have been through
really hard things in my lifeand I am not afraid to share them.
I, you know, yes, I haveboundaries and lines and things,
but at the same time, Iunderstand and just actually built
for. For conversation sake. Iliterally, just this morning before
(46:13):
I was on here with you,interviewed a gentleman who is a
master storyteller on. So thatis how he wins. That's how he's created
all of his opportunity. Not byposting mortgage content. Not by
posting real estate marketupdates. Not by posting, you know,
in house marketing flyers ofthe five steps to the home buying
process, or here's the springcleaning checklist. Like none of
(46:33):
that crap, right? Butstorytelling his way through to building
opportunity and creatingrelationships. So I would tell the
person listening to this thatone, you don't need to follow the
trends. You don't need tofollow what other people are doing
and take that as the holygrail, because at the end of the
day, those people do not havethe experiences that you do. You
have your own primary skillsfrom a previous career or from a
(46:56):
previous life. Right. Whathave. What has life thrown at you
that you can bring into it?And then secondly, you need to show
up as a human being. And thethird thing I can tell you is do
your best to. To take this andrun with it. But what I want you
to do is every single day for365 days of the year, send a message
to someone that you do notknow on purpose. Make that decision.
(47:19):
I am waking up every morning.And Bill, you're one of them. Right.
I sent a message to you. I didnot know you. Yeah. But I had a relationship
with several other women whodid. And I said, I don't know Bill,
but knows who these peopleare, and I have a great friendship
and relationship with them. SoBill will probably say, sure, I'd
(47:40):
love to get to know you basedoff of those relationships. So if
you can understand the powerof leverage and how to create it
and then execute on it. Right.Meaning the execution is every single
day, you wake up and you senda message to someone you do not know.
Very on purpose, veryintentionally, but strategically,
with a game plan of. Of, hey,what is this message? Or what is
(48:03):
this person on the other side?Where do they fit into my flywheel?
Right. For Jim Collins's sake,to give credit where credit's due.
Right. Where do they fit intomy flywheel? But the homework assignment
is very simple. Send a messageevery single day to someone that
you do not know. And if youcan do it through leverage, your
business, your life, yourcareer will not look the same a year
(48:27):
from now. And that is not a.That's not theory, that is fact.
And I am living, breathingproof of that exact thing, because
virality has never been mygame. I've never gone viral once
in my career, and I don'tanticipate it ever happening, because
that's not what the point ofit is.
Yeah, this is fantastic,Michelle, if somebody wants to reach
out to you, what's the bestway for them to do that?
(48:49):
Oh, man. Easy. Instagram orLinkedIn. Instagram is my favorite
platform to be on, but I'm.I'm very active on LinkedIn too.
Really? All three Facebook,Instagram and LinkedIn for that matter.
But I would say send me amessage. I'll tell you. I answer
all my own messages. So if yousend me one, you will hear back from
me. It is not AI. It is not ava, it is me. So that's really important
(49:09):
to me, too. But, and then asfar as like, you know, what do I
have coming up there? I don't.I, I have several big speaking opportunities
coming up. I'll be atMastermind Summit if you, any of
your listeners are going to bethere. That's at the end of June.
More on the mortgage side, butthere's a lot of real estate agents
going. But I will also bespeaking at Momentum Builder Sales
Mastery later this year, whichis the merger between Todd Duncan
(49:30):
and the Momentum Builderorganization. I'll be speaking of
that in Dallas. So really coolopportunities coming up for me. But
my favorite thing is whenpeople message me and say, hey, I
heard you on Bill show or, youknow, whatever, because then I get
to reach out to you, Bill, andsay, hey, look at the messages that
I've gotten. So, yeah, that'smy favorite, favorite thing to do.
So if you're hearing Bill andI tell us that you heard it, we heard
(49:51):
Michelle.
This has been great. I'mgetting so much good stuff out of
that Mastermind group. I loveit. I'll just keep working through
there. I think ultimatelythat's what I'll end up doing. So
thanks so much, really, forbeing so open for what you've shared
with us today and continuedsuccess because it's been really
fun to kind of see what you'vebeen doing. And as I was doing a
(50:12):
little research and I can'twait to see what comes next.
Oh, my gosh. Well, Iappreciate that so much, Bill, and
just more than I can say, justthank you for having me. I appreciate
the opportunity.
As a real estate agent or as amortgage professional, a lot of them
are their own solopreneurs,right? Yes, their, their license
is hung somewhere. But it's upto you to go create your own business
and it's up to you to go buildrevenue for yourself. No one's going
to go do it for you. And yeah,some agents, I think, go to teams
that have really great splitsor, hey, yeah, we can provide all
(00:22):
these leads just to get theirfeet wet. But it, to get out of that
or to graduate out of that,and to really build a business out
of this, you have to go do it yourself.
You're listening to the RealEstate Sessions and I'm your host,
Bill Risser. With nearly 25years in the real estate business,
I love to interview industryleaders, up and comers, and really
(00:42):
anyone with a story to tell.It's the stories that led my guests
to a career in the real estateworld that drives me in my 10th year
and over 400 episodes of thepodcast. And now I hope you enjoy
the next journey. Hi,everybody. Welcome to episode 420
of the Real Estate Sessionspodcast. As always, thank you so
(01:03):
much for tuning in. Thank youso much for telling a friend. Today
I'm talking to MichelleBerman-Mikel. Michelle has her own
company, Beyond the Method.She's got a book coming out, The
Black Line, and she has anincredible life story that I can't
wait to share with you. Solet's get this thing going. Michelle,
welcome to the podcast.
(01:23):
Thank you so much for havingme, Bill. I'm really excited.
Yeah, I'm excited to talk withyou. I know you're part of a group
where Diana's in it and a fewother people I've interviewed. Eleni.
Right. So, yeah. So it'll befun to kind of catch up with you.
I like every episode I've everdone on the podcast, and this is
episode 420. I start with,like, where did you grow up?
(01:44):
Yeah, so I actually grew up inSouthern California. So for those
of you guys familiar withAnaheim, Fullerton, La Mirada, I
was born and raised. I livedthere Till I was 18, but I was born
and raised in La Mirada, wentto La Mirada High School and then
ended up actually swimmingmost of my career in Fullerton. So
Fullerton being kind of thebig swim part of Southern California.
(02:07):
And then, you know, lots oftime in Mission Viejo at their pools.
Lots of time in Lake Forest,some of the bigger outdoor pools.
Irvine was a big pool for us.So I've been all over But I lived
in La Mirada.
Give me the name of the swimclub you belong to in Fullerton,
because I know it was a club.
It was, yes. I swam for FastFast Fullerton Aquatic Sports Team,
formerly owned and operated byKevin Perry. He passed away my senior
(02:29):
year of high school, rightbefore my entire graduating class
was getting ready to go off tocollege. So it was a tough year for
all of us. You know, we'd swamfor him. I swam for him personally
for about 12 years out ofthose first 18, all the way from,
you know, the developmentalprogram up until I graduated from
high school and ended up offon a swimming scholarship to Rutgers.
(02:50):
So, you know, Kevin was anintegral part of, hey, where are
we going to go to school? Andhere's our options. And you know,
growing up in SouthernCalifornia, swimming was what we
did. So it was veryinteresting to go through that process,
which I'm sure we'll talkabout. But yeah, I swam for Fullerton
Aquatics. So if any of youguys have ever heard of Tyler Clary,
he was at one point the worldrecord holder in the 200 meter backstroke
(03:12):
and actually won the goldmedal in 2012, I think the year I
graduated from college. So Iactually grew up swimming in that
gentleman's lane for most ofmy time with Fullerton. So I met
him when we were like 12, 13and knew him all the way through.
So he's now married and has alittle one, I think. Man is retired
from swimming, but still doesa lot of big swimming related things.
(03:37):
So I need, I need yourfavorite. I don't want to call it
stroke, but it has. There's adifferent name for it other than
your favorite stroke. It'syour favorite event. Event. So what
was your favorite event?
Yeah, so my favorite eventwasn't necessarily what my specialty
was, we'll say it that way,but I actually was, you know, most
of my career I swam the 200butterfly, so I was known for being
(03:59):
a long distance person. Mysignature event was the mile. That
was actually what I wasrecruited to swim in college. But
I was a butterflyer as well.So I swam the 200 butterfly in the
mile. And typically they wereon the same day of every swim meet
or, or a competition, we callthem swim meets, but it was always
typically on the same day. Sothere's been many, many stories and
(04:20):
many times in my career whereI actually swam the 200 butterfly
and then got out of the waterand immediately started swimming
the mile. So very telling, Ithink. But it's, you know, for me,
butterfly was always Myfavorite for sure. Love training
for it, but I was never a fasttwitch muscle person, so, you know,
swimming the 50 or the ahundred was never an option for me.
(04:40):
So the 200 butterfly it was,but I had the endurance. So that's
part of, part of it.
Obviously, I, I, I think I'mspeaking for all of us laymen who've
never swam like you have.That's, that looks like the absolute
toughest stroke there is. Imean, the, the, the, what it does
to the shoulders, what it'sdoing to just the upper body must
(05:00):
be crazy. Am I right?
Yeah, you're not wrong. Lotsof injuries related to butterfly
over the years. I actually, Ithink the biggest issue, if you will,
when it relates to butterfly,especially for swimming it as long
as I did, was posture. So Ihave notoriously terrible posture.
Not because I want that to bethe case, but just because that is
(05:21):
20 years of being hunchedforward in that position. And then
also now I sit at home and,you know, sit at my computer and
am on zoom all the time. Sokind of a terrible combination. But
luckily I, I'm sure we'll talkabout my husband. Luckily I'm married
to a very special human thathelps me with that. So it's gotten
better. But definitely thatwould be the bigger issue related
(05:42):
to butterfly.
Yeah. Wow, that's. I couldtalk to you for hours just about
that stuff. Growing up inSouthern California, I did the same.
I was in San Diego. You werejust the one county up in Orange
County. Really. Or tell yourfavorite thing about growing up in
Southern California. And maybelike the biggest misconception, when
people find out you're fromSouthern California.
Yeah. So my, one of my bestfriends here, she's actually from
(06:04):
the Bronx in New York. Andwhen she met me, she was like, you're
from SoCal. Like, no. Right.Like, she just did not believe it
for a second. And I, you know,if anybody listening to this knows
anybody from New York City,they are their own breed and they,
they certainly operate on adifferent wavelength. And she always
(06:25):
says she's like, there's justno way you're from Southern California.
Like, my personality, if you,if you know me longer, and I'm sure,
Bill, you'll get to know meover the years, but I'm not your
quintessential SouthernCalifornia girl. I don't really dress
like one. I don't really actlike one. I'm, I'm really not that
type of a girl. I do wearrainbows, though. So for anybody
(06:46):
listening from San Diego orfrom Southern California. Like I
will not wear any other formof sandalwood. So that's the only
California girl in me that'sleft, I think. But I think the biggest
misconception is that we'reall kind of airheady, I think, which
sounds silly and hopefullyit's okay to say that. But I promise
you we're really smart. But Ido think that you have sort of this,
(07:08):
you know, hoity toity vibesort of personality that is typically
associated to that and sort ofthis airheady reality TV from all
the shows. We're not that. Atleast I'm definitely not that. And
you know, my family stilllives in Southern California now
and my sister does notanymore. But you know, we. We don't
like to be lumped into that,I'll say that.
(07:30):
Yeah, yeah. You're now inTennessee, correct?
We are, yes. So my husband andI live in Clarksville, Tennessee.
So for those of you guysfamiliar with the military, you know
that it's where Fort Campbellis. So it's one of the bigger military
bases. It's about 45 minutesnorth of Nashville.
You like Nashville? Do you go,do you head down that way?
We don't go into Nashville.Nashville a ton, I should say. I
(07:51):
was actually there yesterdayfor most of the day. But I have several
clients in Nashville, so Itend to go in occasionally to do
that. But I will say they haveinsane coffee shops. They have several
really, really good coffeeshop, bookstore combinations. I'm
a big reader and I love lotsof series and different not or different
fiction based books. For meit's just a disconnect from reality
(08:12):
and a way for me to kind ofturn my brain off. And I love hole
in the wall coffee. So I willsay Nashville has that, but you know,
I, I don't. I'm not a bigpartier. I don't really go out into
the scene much. But I doreally enjoy country music. I was
really born and raised on TimMcGraw and Lee Bryce and a lot of
these older country artists.So living in Nashville now, it's
really fun because I'm hereand I get to go and see all of those
(08:36):
people and all of theupcomers. But I think my favorite
thing about living inTennessee is just the land, the space,
having green everywhere allyear round. We didn't grow up with
that, you know, I grew up withtwo seasons and that was it. And
then I lived in Phoenix forseveral years. So it was very concrete,
cactusy type dirt vibes. Andnow I live in Tennessee where everything
(08:57):
is green and beautiful and wehave fall and all this color everywhere.
And you couldn't, you couldn'ttake me out of Tennessee anymore,
Bill. I'll say that.
Yeah, that's great. I, I liketo ask this question a lot of my
guests because it's, you know,you were a competitive swimmer at
the age of 16. You knew youhad a scholarship was coming your
way because you were goodenough to do that and head on to
Rutgers. What was the plan,you know, was, I mean, look, it could
(09:21):
have been Olympics. It couldhave been something big like that,
or it could have beensomething else. I'm curious, what
were you thinking at the ageof 16? What's Michelle doing?
Yeah, you know, at 16 yearsold, I think my number one goal was
go to college and be a reallygood swimmer. And I think most people
at that time, that's what wewere all thinking. You know, all
of the, the girls that I grewup swimming with and, and frankly,
(09:42):
just gentlemen, gentlemen andladies, I grew up swimming on a co
ed team. Rutgers was an allfemale team only because about two
years prior to my freshmanyear they had actually cut the men's
team as part of the Title 9situation that was going on at the
time. We were, at the time wewere also part of the Big east. So
it was a little bit different.Now they're not part of the Big East,
(10:02):
I believe it's the Big ten, ifI'm correct. So a little bit different
times. But at 16, for me itwas, you know, hey, I gotta get a
scholarship. I gotta figureout where I'm going to college and,
you know, academically. I grewup in a family of lawyers. My mom
was a paralegal for prettymuch all 40 years of her professional
life. And then my dad was abankruptcy lawyer. Just retired actually
(10:23):
in 2023, in December of 2023.But still sits on boards and still
travels the country going tolitigation and all that stuff still,
even though he's retired. ButI, I grew up in a family of, of lawyers.
My sister was a high schoolbiology teacher and a chemistry teacher.
So for me, I kind of justassumed that that's the route that
I was going to go. And a bigpart of my story, if I can just be
(10:45):
super honest with you, Bill,is I am the black sheep of my family
in the sense of I did not goto law school. I did get into UNLV
law school, but I actuallydeclined and originally went to college
thinking I was going to be aphysical therapist. That's what I
thought. I was going to go toschool for at Rutgers and, you know,
was very much so interested inthe academic side of that, you know,
being an athlete and knowingthe value of the physical therapist
(11:07):
that kept our bodies intact atsuch a young age at because of the
volume of just impact we wereputting on our bodies. You know,
I knew that there was so muchvalue in who those humans were because
they took care of me, that itwas fun for me to think about, hey,
I want to go take care ofother athletes when I become of age
to do so. So. I initiallyentered college with the intent of
(11:29):
being a physical therapist.And my freshman year of college,
at the very end of that year,I actually changed my major. That's
a story for you for sure. ButI will say I double majored in journalism
and psychology. So myundergrad degree is a double major
in journalism and mediastudies with a intent to double or
(11:49):
minor in psychology. But Iended up taking too many credits,
so it ended up being a doublemajor. My whole thought process,
there was at some point I knewI was going to write a book. And
I was really, really confidentin that even at such a young age.
And the story goes that, youknow, my senior year of college when
I graduated, I told my dad,I'm going to write a book, dad. But
have no idea what it's goingto be about. I just know that someday
(12:10):
I'm going to figure it out.And I think it's because I have a
voice and I have something tosay. But once I figure it out, I'll
let you know. And that was in2012. And I do have a book coming
out this year, actually in2025. So we've made it. But black
sheep wise there, I think it'sjust important to understand, like,
just because it's what yourfamily does doesn't necessarily mean
that it's what you have to do.And I think I'm the tale of that.
(12:33):
Yeah, I love that. I lovethat. I love that you're very open
about that. What was yourfirst gig out of school? What did
you. What was that first job?
Oh, man. Oh, man. It wasawful, Bill. I can't even. Oh, my
gosh. So my undergrad degree,as I mentioned, was in journalism
and psychology, and my ideawas to go write for newspapers. I
was going to do sportswriting. That's kind of where my
(12:53):
head went with the intentionof, you know, in the back of my mind,
I'm like, well, you can'twrite about people if you don't understand
people. So hence thePsychology degree. And I kind of
had this vision of being AaronAndrews in another life. You know,
everyone thinks I'm in somehowrelated to Chris Berman and no, I
am not. But I still get thatquestion today. But I really had
this idea that I was going togo write sports articles and travel
(13:15):
the country, going to sportingevents and be a part of the sporting
or sports world. So I actuallystarted working for Bleacher Report
and we got $10 an article towrite. It was absolutely brutal and
it didn't last very long. Ithink I wrote three or four articles
before I quickly realized itwas completely unsustainable. So
my first real job was actuallyworking for a network marketing corporate
(13:40):
firm in Philly. So if you'refamiliar with the King of Prussia
area outside of Philadelphia,I worked for this company. It was,
if anybody's ever heard ofSidcor, probably not, but it's a,
it's a network marketing typeorganization where you go door to
door for, at businesses tosell something. Right. So in this
case, it sounds so horriblewhen I say it out loud, but it's
(14:02):
still really funny to me nowlooking back on this. But this first
job, you know, the, it was100% commission and I was normally
for the most part anintrovert, not a super extroverted
person, but this job made mean extrovert real quick. But I was
selling direct energy door todoor at businesses. So I had to go
(14:23):
into big shopping complexes, Ihad to go into big corporate type
buildings and ask them fortheir electric bill to see if I could
save them money on theirelectric bills. And it was kind of
wild, but I was very good atit and didn't expect to be very good
at it. But I was one of thenumber one reps in all of the Northeast.
And I was still flat broke.Like it was awful. So I'm living
(14:48):
in Philly. I think I, youknow, my average PayCheck was like
1700 bucks every two weeks,which barely covered my rent, let
alone food and all the otherstuff that goes into life. So I did
that for about two and a halfyears. A little less than two and
a half years. About two. And Igot really, I was really good at
it. I loved it. I, I got to goto a bunch of different states and
(15:08):
go to all the big cities, didcore conferences and kind of caught
the network marketing bug alittle bit. But I found out my dad
had stage 4 non Hodgkin'slymphoma and decided that I was going
to move home to California. SoI Had got out of that job and actually
was working for a smallinterior design company working with
real estate agents. So I hadto work with the real estate agent
(15:31):
who was hiring the stager orthe person to come in and design
a listing or make it lookpretty. And my client was the interior
designer that would contractthe furniture out from the company
that I worked for. And it wasjust a designed to be a part time
type temporary thing to get mehome and back to California. Once
I officially moved back toCalifornia, they didn't want to pay
(15:52):
my salary anymore. So I had toquit and ended up at a PR firm in
Palm Desert, California. Forthose of you guys familiar, which
is where my parents were andwhere all my dad's doctor, a lot
of my dad's doctors were. Sothat's how I kind of transitioned
into the PR social world wasreally at that time.
That kind of explains then whyInstagram. Right? Especially Instagram
(16:15):
for you was part of thepicture, the Realtor side of it,
helping realtors and lenderswith that tool. I've watched a lot
of people that work in thatspace a little bit because it's really
important and it's reallytough to get agents to use that tool.
Right. Can you talk about thata little bit and just what you discovered
is you is this part of yourlife now starts to come around.
(16:38):
Well, what I can tell you,Bill, and May ruffle feathers is
that a lot of people who areteaching it and still are teaching
it are teaching it wrong andvery poorly, in my opinion. And I
don't say that to beconfrontational, but I do say that
to say you have to payattention to what really matters.
And the landscape of socialhas changed so, so drastically over
(17:02):
the last 10 years that whatyou were or what I was even doing
back in 2014 when I started mycompany, how different that is than
what it is today, you know,and I was 24 years old when I started
my company. I'll be 35 inabout three weeks. And what I can
tell you is the 24 year oldMichelle was really, really good
(17:22):
at one thing and the 35 yearold Michelle is still really, really
good at that one thing. Butnow I can actually articulate what
that thing is. And I thinkthat's the big difference because
in 2014 I was young and Istill think I'm young. I hope I still
think I'm young in theindustry in the sense of I feel like
a lot of people still need tohear the message because it hasn't
(17:45):
resonated Enough or gotten outenough. That what you are learning
and what you're doing, allthese social classes and trying to
consume all of thisinformation, it's not serving you.
And I think that that's a. Abig part of my love language and
a big part of why I feel likeI was put on this planet is really
just to disrupt thedisruptible. Right. In this sense
(18:08):
of like, hey, let's call aspade a spade and say, hey, what
you're doing doesn't actuallycreate revenue. And it's not because
you. You don't want it to, butit's because you're not doing it
with the intentions that yourfocus should be to connect, and your
focus should be to buildrelationships that you can then take
offline. And that's what I do.Right. I'm not a social media coach.
(18:29):
I'm a social media prospectingcoach. And I think it's really under
important to understand thedifference. But in 2014, I was trying
to lump myself into this worldto sort of fit in, and I realized
as I tried harder and harderto fit in, I was actually standing
out more and more and more,and I've just embraced that.
(18:50):
You focus on ROI way more thananybody else I've ever heard talk
about social media. Right. Imean, that's what you're talking
about.
100% true. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thinkthat's. That's key. So as an entrepreneur
at a young age, I mean, it'svery cool you started your own company.
You're doing this. Here youare 11 years later, still moving
down this path. There had tobe some bumps in the road. Like if
(19:10):
you were talking to a brandnew someone who had that same fire
you have. Right. Because youhave to have the fire. You have to
swim that many years. Whatwould you tell them?
Yeah. Oh, man. What? I. Iwould tell them a lot of things.
I'll say that. But the youngerversion of myself was very hungry
to feel accepted and to feelneeded in an industry that I felt
(19:34):
like, needed me. Right.Meaning I. I really saw a hole in
the game. People ask me allthe time, like, you know, why mortgage
and why real estate? And I'lltell you very candidly, I had a love
for it already. I bought myfirst house at 24. But the biggest
thing for me was we have tohave, essentially we own our own
companies. Right. Even though,yes, I do have my own official entity
(19:56):
as a real estate agent or as amortgage professional. A lot of them
are their own solopreneurs,right? Yes. Their license is hung
somewhere. But it's up to youto go create your own business and
it's up to you to go buildrevenue for yourself. No one's gonna
go do it for you. And yeah,some agents I think go to teams that
have really great splits orhey, yeah, we can provide all these
(20:18):
leads just to get their feetwet. But it to get out of that or
to graduate out of that and toreally build a business out of this,
you have to go do it yourself.So there was something very attractive
to me about the grittiness ofthose types of individuals because
that really just is who I am.But I will tell you that that version
(20:38):
of me, the 24 year old versionof me, was so desperate to just get
my voice heard that I wasalmost afraid to be a disruptor in
the space. I was almost like,oh, I don't want to disagree because
I want everyone to like me sothat enough people will find me.
But as my career has evolved,it actually has become very clear
(20:59):
to me that my superpower isactually really not agreeing and
not in a negative way. I'm notout here to say that what other people
are doing is not givingsolutions and helping people. But
I am saying like my thoughtprocess and my philosophy is very
different and really rooted inthe psychology aspect of why are
we doing this right? And thepsychological principles behind how
(21:23):
we show up and how we connectwith human beings and how people
like me. Right. Who, you know,I'll share the story. You know, I
was bullied most of my middleschool and high school life. I really
didn't have a ton of friends.I didn't go to prom with a boy. I
went with my girlfriends. LikeI didn't have, I didn't grow up that
way. Right. I didn't havethat. I feel like I fit in personality
(21:45):
or life, frankly. I went tocollege, was went from a co ed swim
team to an all female teamwhich exasperated that a lot for
me and it made it almost 10times worse because you're in an
all female team whereeverybody's got, you know, their
periods and we have hormonesand we have like all of our emotions
and things that go into beingyoung females. And you just created,
(22:07):
for me it just created abigger disconnect from real relationships
and real friendships because Ijust was almost on the outside looking
in all the time. Wasn't thegirl invited to the parties, wasn't
the one with the boyfriend.Like I was the girl that showed up
to swim practice, crushed it,went to class, got an A Went back
to practice and was reallygood in the weight room. Like, that
was my identity. And so when Igot into the space in 2024 and launched
(22:33):
my company, I, I felt like thefaster I could get approval from
people, the faster my careerwould grow. And it's not that we
don't want approval. It's notthat we don't want people to like
us, but it's we, we want themto like us for the right reasons
and not just because we'regood at what we do. We want them
to like us because our moralsand our ethics and our values align
(22:56):
with who they are. And then,oh, by the way, I can help you do
this thing in business. So the24 year old version of me was just
trying to fit in anywhere. Andtoday, you know, I have the ability
to say no to stuff. And I alsohave the ability of, of taking a
sales call with someone andsaying, I don't think we're the right
fit. And that's okay. And I'malso at the point as a mom and as
(23:18):
a wife now that I'm veryconfident in, if you don't like me,
it's okay because there arepeople that will. And I think just
being confident in who I am,if that, if I would have been that
confident at 24, I would havesolved a lot of problems for myself.
That last three minutes rightthere applies to 97% of realtors.
(23:40):
I'm going to say that rightnow they need to know the same things,
they need to do the samethings. They need to be able to say
no. Right. And not just oh no,it's another buyer or seller. I know
I can make it work. Yeah, Ithink that's fair. It's incredibly
powerful. Let's talk about,for all you mentioned, your husband
and your child, let's talkabout that. So where was that in
the process? In the flow. Soyou got this company rolling along.
Where, where did that kind of take?
(24:02):
Yeah, so I have, I have a, afun story and I think it's really
relatable whether you're a manor a woman or, you know, married
or not married. But a lot ofthe insecurities in my younger life
sort of bled into myrelationships because of the nature
of it. So my first long termserious boyfriend, I was actually
(24:23):
living in Michigan, which ishow I ended up. I, I left Philly
and went to Michigan duringthe time I was with that Sid Corps
organization, moved toMichigan to be with him. And he still
is a friend of mine to thisday. We We, Our birthdays are actually
24 hours apart. Um, he's a fewyears older than me, but he was a
professional billiards player.So we traveled the country pretty
much going to. To pool barsand, you know, dive bars, playing
(24:47):
pool all over the place. Andit was really fun, but it was so
not me. And it was. I hadgained 25, almost 30 pounds in a
matter of a year aftergraduating. So this was the year
I graduated from college,going into my first year outside
of College, so 2012 to 2013.And it was during that season when
my dad called me to tell methat he had stage four non Hodgkin's
(25:08):
lymphoma. And so he told me,michelle, I don't care what you do,
Just find some sport again.And I. The. I can still remember
it very vividly. He said,michelle, I don't even care if it's
badminton, just do something.And I joke about that now, but in
the moment, it was veryserious and it was very, very hard
because I was. I had gotten sofar away from who I was at that point
(25:30):
in such a short period oftime. So I actually left that gentleman
and unfortunately ended up ina relationship that I thought would
be my forever. I'll say itthat way in the moment, but I think
there were enough red flagsthat I knew I knew better, but I
was still hopeful. But I hadgotten into CrossFit, so I became
a competitive CrossFitter forabout six, almost seven years, about
(25:51):
six and a half years. And thisgentleman was someone I had met at
the CrossFit gym. But itturned into being a very verbally
and partially physicallyabusive relationship. But it was
a status symbol for me at thetime, meaning I had gotten the hot
guy from the CrossFit gym. AndI think a lot of people can attest
to that. Like, we sort of feelbetter about ourselves. Oh, I got
(26:12):
the guy. But it put me down aspiral, Bill, if I can be honest
with you. It was a very, verytough five years of my life. Ultimately
left him 80 days before Iwalked down the aisle to marry him
in January of 2018. Stillgives me the goosebumps and still
pisses me off to this day thatI allowed that to be part of my life
for such a long time. But thereality is, is that we all face stuff
(26:34):
like that, and I think we alldo things that we're not proud of.
But I'm. I am really proud ofwho I became out of that relationship,
because I actually later thatyear, so I left my fiance at the
Time in January of 2018. And Imet my now husband in December of
that year. We did not talkwhen we first met at all. We. He
(26:55):
was very shy and very quiet.And I was new to the gym that we
met in. So I was not super,you know, out there and talking and
chatty. I was kind of sittingoff to myself into my. To my own
little corner. But I hadactually texted my best friend at
the time and said, I just metmy husband. I guarantee it. And she
thought I was. I hope I cansay this on your show, Bill, but
(27:18):
she said, michelle, you arebatshit crazy. Like, absolutely not.
And I, you know, because Ihad. I just had to leave the gym
that I was at. And a lot ofthings had happened over the last
year because of my end to therelationship that I had been in.
So I had uprooted everything.Like my whole life had changed because
of this decision that I made,which I albeit was the right decision.
(27:39):
So my girlfriend was like,michelle, just no way. And I said.
I said, he's it. I guaranteeyou he's it. And we mind you, my
husband and I, his name isDave. We had not ever spoken at that
point in this is in earlyDecember. He went home for Christmas.
I went home for Christmas.Come to find out he also is from
Southern California. He wasactually born in Chino Hills, so,
(27:59):
you know, from SouthernCalifornia, but we didn't know that
at the time. We get back fromChristmas break, we're in the gym.
I think it was January 7th, ifI recall, the exact date of 2019
was the first day that wespoke and said hello because there
was hardly anybody in the gymbecause it was right after the holiday
and not everybody had comeback to the gym yet. And he took
(28:19):
a sweatshirt off and he had agiant wolf tattoo on his side. And
I. I love tattoos. I haveseveral of my own. And I yelled across
the gym at him. I was like,hey, what's your tattoo of? And the
rest is pretty much historythere. But we started talking. I
got very, very nervous. Thiswill be surprising for most, but
I got very, very nervoustalking to him. So I actually left
(28:41):
in the middle of my workoutand went home because I was so nervous
about talking to him. Butlater that evening, I sent him a
Facebook message just talkingto him about his tattoos and saying,
sorry, I had to leave. I hadto work, right? Those of you guys
who are listening this, I justdid air quotes. But I had to, quote,
work, right? So I sent him amessage and just said, hey, I'm sorry.
I had to leave. But I, youknow, I look forward to seeing you
(29:03):
at the gym tomorrow orwhatever, whenever you're going to
be in there next. And wetalked all night until about 9:30,
which he had a hard stop at9:30, that's another story. But we
talked until about 9:30 and hesaid to me at the end of the conversation
on the second day. So wetalked the whole next day pretty
much. He said, any girl thatis confident enough to invite me
(29:23):
to church and I'm is. Is a yesfor me on one condition. You'll go
to the shooting range with mewhen we're done. And you know, for
those of you guys who don'tknow who my husband is, he is a.
He is a former Green Beret. Heis former special Forces here in
at Fort Campbell. And we havea lot of guns in our home and we're,
we're big fans of supportingthe military and obviously we live
in a military town now. But.So yeah, we went to church Sunday
(29:47):
morning and then he took me tothe shooting range and he moved into
my house 24 hours later. Soliterally after our third day together.
And we got married almostexactly two months to the day after
that. So we got married at thehouse on March 7th of 2019. And we
have been married now for sixand a half years and we have an almost
four year old named Knox. Andhe is the best thing ever.
(30:09):
That's.
But all I gotta say is shootyour shot. And I knew I was right.
You were? Yeah. So thegirlfriend was at the wedding, I
imagine.
Yeah, yeah. He was our onlywitness actually.
Okay.
Got married at the courthouse.So she was. Her and her now husband
were our only witnesses whenwe got married legally. And then
(30:30):
we did a full big familywedding in Flagstaff, Arizona. Actually,
I was supposed to be in 2020with COVID happening. It was postponed
until 2021. So I was actuallyseven months pregnant with Knox when
we have our formal official wedding.
Lots of joking going on there.I'm sure that was.
Oh my gosh. And my husband,his vows, I can't. I. Not a dry eye
in the house with his vows forsure. You know, being a father and
(30:53):
being someone that, you know,I was carrying his. His son was a
very special thing. So it wasreally, really fun and it's great
to look back on it now and saylike, hey, I knew. And he kind of
laughs and says, I didn'treally know, but I kind of knew.
And I was like, well, I forsure knew.
That's another book I'Mtelling you right now. Let's talk
(31:15):
about your book, the BlackLine. First of all, the name is really
intriguing because I, youknow, my first thought is like, I
could figure that out. Let'ssee, you know, swimming. No, I mean,
well, there's a line in thepool. Okay. That may be it. Why didn't.
I was trying to figure it out,but I'm going to just give up and
say, tell me the title, whatthe title is about, and then what
the book is about.
(31:35):
Yeah. So I'll tell you. Myvision for the book when I decided
to write it was I didn't wantit to be another one of those entrepreneur
books. I didn't want it tofeel like another one of those. Pick
this book up, you're going tolearn all the things that you're
not doing, and here's all thereasons why you should be doing them.
Right. Which I love thosebooks. Right. I'll tell you. In the
(31:57):
sense of High PerformanceHabits, which was one of the very
first business books I everread. In 2019, actually, when I launched
beyond the Method, was one ofthe most influential books still
to this date that I've everread. Good to great being another
one of them with Jim Collins.Like, I. I still talk about the flywheel.
It's a big part of even how Ibuilt my company and how I built
my. My structure. So thosebooks are so powerful and so Val
(32:21):
really just so valuable. Butfor me, there was a little bit of
a difference in how I wantedto approach this. So I really wanted
it to be a book that createdan intersection between Life is really
freaking hard in general. Andwe also have this thing called Shiny
Object Syndrome when it comesto creating our careers, where there
(32:44):
are things in life that aredesigned to pull us off our center.
So whether that's personallyor professionally, and as it relates
to social and as it relates topersonally, what I can tell you the
book does is it parallels thetwo. So on the personal side, the
black line, for me,figuratively, was the black line
on the bottom of the pool inthe sense of I stared at it long
(33:04):
enough to. From one side ofthe pool to the other side of the
pool, confidently did a flipturn. And I knew that if I just followed
the line long enough, I wouldget to the other side. And if I did
that 66 times, I completed themile. Right. Hence the. The event
I swam. But on a personallevel, there are four main storms
that the book documentsthroughout my life, one of which
being my dad's cancerdiagnosis. The Other one actually
(33:28):
being the end of my CrossFitcareer. So really was a pivotal moment
in my life. It was the onlytime I've ever been suicidal in my
life. And it was a very, verydark time for me. And I ended up
meeting my now husband abouttwo months later. So there's a really
special storm there that Ithink a lot of people can relate
(33:49):
to. And then the third big onebeing the miscarriage that I had
in November of last year. Somy husband and I had been trying
for quite some time, ended upfinally getting pregnant, which was
a miracle by itself, and lostour baby. I was just shy of 10 weeks.
I was a little over nineweeks. And it was the darkest time
of my entire life. Still, Ijust don't. There's nothing I could
(34:12):
even compare to it. So the,the personal stories or the storms,
right, are designed to be away for people in their life to say,
what is that black line forme? What is that thing that I can
get back to that's going toget me out of what I'm in? And for
me, that's God and my faith. Iam a very much so a faith based and
driven human. And I trulybelieve in the power of the Holy
(34:34):
Spirit. And I have a sayingthat I talk a lot about, which is
God gives us a mess to give usa message. And what is the mess and
what's the message? A lot ofthe times we don't know when the
mess is happening or when it'sgoing to come, but we always know
that there's something that wecan trust to come out of it. And
there are a ton of messagesthat came out of all of the storms
that I document in the book.But the whole premise of it parallels
(34:57):
the social media side, whichis, you know, you go and you take
all these classes, which oneof the things I love to do when I
do a keynote anywhere is I'llsay how many people in the room have
taken a social media classrecently? You know, everybody raises
their hand and then I'll say,okay, how many of you have taken
two or three in the last fewmonths? And I swear the whole room
still raises their hand. And Imy promise to them is at the end
(35:18):
of my session with them, theywill never have to take another social
media class again because theblack line is now laid out in front
of them. So the black line iswhat I now call beyond the method,
the course itself or the blackline approach being the methodology
that is built into beyond themethod, which is I have the straight
Line. I know exactly what todo. I know exactly how to get you
(35:41):
from where you currently areto actually making money off of social.
And it's not what you thinkbecause it's not all the flashy stuff.
And so the black line is thatvisual metronome, in this case being
the plan or beyond the method,being the name of the course that
I created in 2019.
I love the phrase visualmetronome. You know, just staying
in rhythm. Right. Just don't,don't, don't, don't get off track.
(36:04):
But it is very easy. It isvery, very easy, too. And. And the.
The swimming analogy was veryspecial to me. Very relatable to
people. The lane lines, youknow, lane lines are designed to
keep us from going off intothe next person's lane. Keeps you
from going in the straightestline as possible from one side to
the other side. So I alwayssay, you know, the other social classes
(36:25):
are trying to piecemeal thisand this and this and all these different
strategies together and to tryto turn that into your own. It's
like swimming in a pool withno lane lines. Like, you're just
screwed. Like you really justare. And most likely you're going
to end up at one. Start on oneside of the pool and end up totally
diagonal way the heck overthere and wonder why it took you
so long. And I think that'sthe visual analogy I was trying to
(36:49):
create. But the COVID whichhas not been released yet, the COVID
I can tell you, is sobeautiful, in my opinion, but it's
really this mixture of hopeand darkness and kind of all of that,
how that comes together tocreate this beautiful story. And
my goal is that someone picksit up and doesn't say, oh, this is
(37:10):
just another entrepreneurbook. Instead, they pick it up and
they say, what is this?Exactly what you said when you went
to. To kind of start theconversation. I want that. I want
them to up and be like, I'm sointrigued because I don't know where
this is going.
Yeah. You started a podcast.
I did.
How do you like it?
Oh, I like it.
You like doing it? Good, good.I. I like talking to other podcasters.
(37:31):
Tell me, tell me what put youdown that path. Right. What was the
thought process there? Becauseobviously, for beyond the method.
Right. For your. For yourinstruction. Right. And how to. How
to handle social and how towork this stuff out in a better way.
It's always good to have apodcast because more people are going
to hear about that. But Iimagine there's a part of you that
(37:52):
just wants to learn more aboutpeople as well?
Yeah. Oh. A huge part of mewas just, I'm just curious about
other people and want to learnabout how other people are doing
things and also have reallyinsightful conversations with people
that I feel like can move aneedle. So I was very strategic about
how I launched the podcast asfar as guests. And when I chose to
(38:12):
build the podcast, my mindwas, I did, or my thought process
was, I don't want this to justbe another podcast about social,
because that's not what thisis. I really wanted it to be very,
very directed at prospectingand how do we use social as a prospecting
tool. So I've been veryselective. Some better than others,
you know, some I thought wouldgo better than they did, and then
(38:34):
some that went better than Icould have ever expected them to
go. But what I can tell youthe podcast has turned into for me
is really a strategic allianceplay, because there's a lot of people
who I feel like I need to knowbecause I understand the value of
what they're doing, and Ialign so hardcore with that and with
what they're doing that I'mlike, how do I build the building
(38:56):
blocks to get to them? Andthat's part of the podcast for me
now is it's a. I don't want tosay it's a strategic play to, like,
get in front of them, butreally that's what it came down to,
right, Is my ability to builda relationship with someone that
could then create the nextrelationship and then create the
next relationship, but do itfrom a place of value and not from
(39:17):
a place of, hey, I just wantto earn your business. But I think
because of the way I've goneabout it, it's been so wildly successful
for me because at the end ofthe day, to my very core, I am a
relationship person. I want tobe friends with everyone. I really
want that. And so I always usethe podcast as a way for me to really
get to know somebody first. Ifthey're somebody who I think I need
(39:39):
to work with or I think I canadd value to their company. If I
feel like maybe there's amoral or ethic match, I will invite
them onto the show. And basedoff of how the show goes, that gives
me the intuition of yes or no.Do I pursue this relationship or
do I not?
Yeah.
And so it's really become avery strategic alliance type opportunity
(40:00):
for me. You know, I've had. Ithink I just recorded episode 77
this Morning, which is great.But really, what started off as more
of a side gig, like, I'll getto this when I get to this, and I'll
interview a couple of coolpeople here and there, which will
create some snowball, hasturned into one of the funnest things
I've ever done.
Yeah.
And just some of the coolestfriendships that still to this day,
(40:20):
I'm like, you're way too coolfor me. But I really appreciate it.
You know, look, there you have77 people you can reach out to. If
you have a question aboutsomething or you need an answer,
whatever it is, they're there.And that's, for me, that's exactly
why the podcast was kind ofcreated, was a way for me to connect
with people in the industrythat's going to help me help others.
(40:41):
And the ability to be able togo back. And now the ability to go
back and reach back to you.Right. If I have somebody who hits
maybe a storm, I say, I gotsomebody maybe you could talk to.
My guess is you would probablytalk to that person.
Thousand percent. Absolutely.All the time. I love getting those
DMS on, on social, whetherit's on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn,
you know, I get them. Andpeople say, I heard you on this show,
and, yeah, holy smokes. Like,your story just res. I had. I got
(41:03):
a message very recently, andit really hit me, like, cry tears
hit me. But the gentleman waslike, you know, I just wanted to
reach out to you. I heardabout your dad's story, you know,
the story I tell about my dad,and. And it. It's a very loaded story.
But what I can tell you is mydad called me while I was living
in Michigan. I had just gottenhome from work, and he said sort
of the story I mentioned, buton a. On a bigger, deeper scale.
(41:25):
He basically mentioned to meor told me on the call that he was
given six months to live.Really? That was. That was about
the guess. Right. But theycouldn't guarantee that. That, you
know, the prognosis was notgood, but they. They were confident
that they couldn't. Couldmaximize his life and that there
were ways to. To get out ofit, but it was going to be an uphill
battle. So I sat down on mycouch, and I just remember sitting
(41:49):
there thinking, like, oh, myGod, I have to go home. I have to
fly home. I have to leaveMichigan, and I have to get home,
back to my. To my family. Butthe gentleman who DMed me, he heard
the story about, you know, mydad saying to me, like, go back to
being who you are and getcloser to the daughter that I raised
and, you know, find. Findsports again and all of these things.
And. But the gentleman thatDM'd me, he heard that whole story
(42:11):
and he said to me, like, mydad has the exact same cancer right
now and told me all this stuffabout him personally and the backstory
going into it. And he is inreal estate and has been in real
estate for several years. Saidhe wanted to quit. He was really
just like, with everythingthat was going on, he was like, I'm
done with doing this. Like, Ithink I just need to go take care
(42:31):
of my dad. And I said in themessage, I said, I'd love to get
on a call with you if you feellike what I do might help you. He
did not end up buyingcoaching, but what I can tell you
is he did end up solving hisproblem, right? He did not quit real
estate. He actually still doesreal estate today.
Wow.
But what he needed waspermission to be okay not being okay,
(42:56):
but to do it anyway, right?And to find a reason to get back
to who he was. And. And I saidto him, I said, your dad would not
want you to quit, right? Yourdad wouldn't want that. Because I'm
assuming your dad is probablylike my dad based off this conversation
that we're having. And what mydad wanted was for me to just be
the daughter that he raised.And it was really impactful for me.
(43:18):
He did end up hiring me for,like, one on one, a couple of one
on ones. But it turned out tobe truly more of a therapy session
for him than actually coachinghim. But I'm really proud of. I'm
proud of that. I'm proud ofthe fact that that's what happens
out of, you know, doing thingscorrectly. But I also think sharing
(43:38):
your stories and being onpodcasts like this at this time with
you even is. We are people,right? We are real people going through
real stuff, but we also needreminders that we don't have. We
don't need excuses. There'snot time for that, Right? And so
I love podcasting because Ithink it allows us to have a voice,
allows us for people to hearour emotions and our thoughts and
(43:59):
our feelings, but also hearhow good we are at what we do, hopefully,
and realize that, yeah, that'smy person, right? That's the person
I want to work with, or, yeah,that's the realtor I need to hire,
or, yeah, that's the socialperson I need to hire or whoever
it is. But I don't Think youcan get that from still content the
way that you can when youlisten to it on a podcast?
(44:20):
Totally agree. Look, I'mwatching the clock because I got
to get you going. The finalquestion I've asked every guest and
whether they've been in realestate or not, I love these answers.
What one piece of advice wouldyou give a new agent? Just getting
started.
Oh, my gosh, I love thatquestion. I would tell you you do
not need to do what everybodyelse is doing. That is a farce, right?
That is so far from true. Andyou know, with what I do specifically.
(44:43):
Again, I'm a social mediaprospecting coach. I am not a social
media coach. They are verydifferent. One is strategy based,
based off of content, right?Meaning one of them on the social
coaching side. What a socialmedia coach does is they teach you
how to create a contentstrategy. What a social media prospecting
coach, which is who I am,does, is we teach you how to create
a conversion strategy. Theyare very, very, very different, right?
(45:07):
So what I would tell thatyounger agent especially is you do
not need a bunch of socialmedia classes. You do not need to
focus on algorithmic changesor trends. And you also do not need
to go look up the best realtorin your area and be like, oh, that
person is doing this, sotherefore I will too, right? That
is not the answer. The answeris, who are you? Two things. Three
(45:28):
things, really. One, who areyou? Right. Most of you came out
of something prior to gettinginto real estate. Very common, right?
They came from a previouscareer. Real estate is not typically
their first thing or theirfirst gig, right? Which means you
came from somewhere. So whatprimary skills did you acquire during
that time? And how can youbring that into your content? Right?
(45:51):
That's. That's a big piece ofit. And then secondly, be a person
in your content, right? I am amom. I am a wife. I have been through
really hard things in my lifeand I am not afraid to share them.
I, you know, yes, I haveboundaries and lines and things,
but at the same time, Iunderstand and just actually built
for. For conversation sake. Iliterally, just this morning before
(46:13):
I was on here with you,interviewed a gentleman who is a
master storyteller on. So thatis how he wins. That's how he's created
all of his opportunity. Not byposting mortgage content. Not by
posting real estate marketupdates. Not by posting, you know,
in house marketing flyers ofthe five steps to the home buying
process, or here's the springcleaning checklist. Like none of
(46:33):
that crap, right? Butstorytelling his way through to building
opportunity and creatingrelationships. So I would tell the
person listening to this thatone, you don't need to follow the
trends. You don't need tofollow what other people are doing
and take that as the holygrail, because at the end of the
day, those people do not havethe experiences that you do. You
have your own primary skillsfrom a previous career or from a
(46:56):
previous life. Right. Whathave. What has life thrown at you
that you can bring into it?And then secondly, you need to show
up as a human being. And thethird thing I can tell you is do
your best to. To take this andrun with it. But what I want you
to do is every single day for365 days of the year, send a message
to someone that you do notknow on purpose. Make that decision.
(47:19):
I am waking up every morning.And Bill, you're one of them. Right.
I sent a message to you. I didnot know you. Yeah. But I had a relationship
with several other women whodid. And I said, I don't know Bill,
but knows who these peopleare, and I have a great friendship
and relationship with them. SoBill will probably say, sure, I'd
(47:40):
love to get to know you basedoff of those relationships. So if
you can understand the powerof leverage and how to create it
and then execute on it. Right.Meaning the execution is every single
day, you wake up and you senda message to someone you do not know.
Very on purpose, veryintentionally, but strategically,
with a game plan of. Of, hey,what is this message? Or what is
(48:03):
this person on the other side?Where do they fit into my flywheel?
Right. For Jim Collins's sake,to give credit where credit's due.
Right. Where do they fit intomy flywheel? But the homework assignment
is very simple. Send a messageevery single day to someone that
you do not know. And if youcan do it through leverage, your
business, your life, yourcareer will not look the same a year
(48:27):
from now. And that is not a.That's not theory, that is fact.
And I am living, breathingproof of that exact thing, because
virality has never been mygame. I've never gone viral once
in my career, and I don'tanticipate it ever happening, because
that's not what the point ofit is.
Yeah, this is fantastic,Michelle, if somebody wants to reach
out to you, what's the bestway for them to do that?
(48:49):
Oh, man. Easy. Instagram orLinkedIn. Instagram is my favorite
platform to be on, but I'm.I'm very active on LinkedIn too.
Really? All three Facebook,Instagram and LinkedIn for that matter.
But I would say send me amessage. I'll tell you. I answer
all my own messages. So if yousend me one, you will hear back from
me. It is not AI. It is not ava, it is me. So that's really important
(49:09):
to me, too. But, and then asfar as like, you know, what do I
have coming up there? I don't.I, I have several big speaking opportunities
coming up. I'll be atMastermind Summit if you, any of
your listeners are going to bethere. That's at the end of June.
More on the mortgage side, butthere's a lot of real estate agents
going. But I will also bespeaking at Momentum Builder Sales
Mastery later this year, whichis the merger between Todd Duncan
(49:30):
and the Momentum Builderorganization. I'll be speaking of
that in Dallas. So really coolopportunities coming up for me. But
my favorite thing is whenpeople message me and say, hey, I
heard you on Bill show or, youknow, whatever, because then I get
to reach out to you, Bill, andsay, hey, look at the messages that
I've gotten. So, yeah, that'smy favorite, favorite thing to do.
So if you're hearing Bill andI tell us that you heard it, we heard
(49:51):
Michelle.
This has been great. I'mgetting so much good stuff out of
that Mastermind group. I loveit. I'll just keep working through
there. I think ultimatelythat's what I'll end up doing. So
thanks so much, really, forbeing so open for what you've shared
with us today and continuedsuccess because it's been really
fun to kind of see what you'vebeen doing. And as I was doing a
(50:12):
little research and I can'twait to see what comes next.
Oh, my gosh. Well, Iappreciate that so much, Bill, and
just more than I can say, justthank you for having me. I appreciate
the opportunity.
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