020225- Home Solutions Podcast

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, and welcome to the Home Solutions Show. This
is your host Andy Keel with the Win three team
powered by Epic Realty, and I am joined today with
Jerry Sunt Cross Country Mortgage and a very special guest,
Sharon Lecter. Sharen has quite the pedigree. She is the

(00:21):
co author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and the entire
Rich Dad series, and she has gone on to some
other things. She's been a CPA for I believe thirty
five years, and so many other things. Sharon, I can't
even probably touch on this. Tell us a little bit
more about your background and let our audience know who

(00:44):
you are and what you're about.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, thank you so much. I appreciate being with you
guys today. I really started at a very young age,
lived in a house. My parents were lower middle class,
but we were very entrepreneurial. With living a old tiny house,
my mom's beauty shop and my dad's used car lot.
We had real estate properties, the rental properties that I
had to help scrub out the bathrooms between tenants. At

(01:08):
the age of ten, I said, I've been a real
estate investor since I was ten. We owned orange brows.
My dad said the oranges provide the cash flow. So
each year and so I learned about this stuff, and
I didn't realize how unusual that was. We talked about
money at the dinner table, we talked about assets, we
talked about cash flow. But yet my parents' friends, my

(01:31):
friends' parents were CEOs and military officers. You know, I
compared them to my parents and what we were doing.
I thought, you know, I want to be that. I
don't want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be
a professional. So I set my sights on college. First generation,
go to college, got my degree in accounting, the only
woman in my business classes, certainly the only woman in

(01:52):
my accounting classes, and one of the very first women
in public accounting. And so I definitely was a trailblazer
when it comes to at the rifle age of twenty five,
was very successful, but not in control of my life.
I was working incredibly long hours, and all of a sudden,
at twenty five, my parents started looking a whole lot
smarter because they had continued to succeed. And so I

(02:16):
realized the importance of being an entrepreneur. And I had
a client invite me to join him, to leave public
accounting and go into a company that he was buying
out of bankruptcy. I still remember going back to my
condo doing the old pros and cons. This would before PC,
before cell phones, the old yellow legal pad if you

(02:37):
remember those, and it didn't help me a bit, the
pros and cons. I could argue both sides, but my
hand kind of took off across the top of the
page and said, why not? And that is still my
mantra today. Why not? Why not take the path less troubled?
Why not do what no one else has done? Why
not solve a problem or serve a need? So I
made the decision to leave public accounting, and I really

(03:00):
have never looked back. That particular decision was probably the
worst business decision of my life. But had I not
made that decision, I wouldn't have met a young attorney
named Michael Lecter, and we are on our forty fourth
year together. So, as Napoleon Hill says, out of every
adversity comes the seat of an eco greater benefits. My
worst business decision gave me my best life decision.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
I love it. And so when did as you grew
into did you and Michael, did you start investing and
buying in real estate? At that stage or how did
that all evolve?

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well, my family was maintain real estate investments, and when
we got married, we pretty much were completely self grown,
so we didn't have a lot of extra money, but
as we continued to grow in our career, we would
invest in real estate. It was through businesses that I
first was investing with. My kids didn'ld like to read,

(03:55):
so I helped grow the chalking children's book industry and business.
We grew that around the world back when kids didn't
have any electronics or screen time. It's hard to imagine
that time Dinosaur dayes, but we built the talking book
industry around the world by understanding the power of association.

(04:16):
So we parents didn't trust us because they didn't know
who we were. So we did deals with little companies
like Disney, Warner brother Sesame Street, and that allowed us
that brand of association to explode around the globe. And
that was such a great learning opportunity. But all along
that time I continued working in educating people about money,

(04:37):
just from personal contacts and my own firm. But it
was really understanding how little people knew about money. When
I was involved accounting, I saw how businesses were successful,
probably more importantly, I saw how they failed and that
was an incredible learning opportunity for me. And my goal

(04:59):
and passion is all aways meant to help people. My
dad would ask me every night, Sharon, if you had
a value to somebody's life today. So throughout the time
I was, you know, real estate was never my number
one focus, but it was always my number one investment.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's funny because I look at the financial literacy, especially
when you go back twenty thirty forty years, you really
had to seek it out. It was almost kind of
like the old I want to say, the old men
of old Women's club. You know, it's like you had
to break in to get into to learn it. Now

(05:32):
it's we fast forward to today, and even with as
much information that's out there on the Internet and so forth,
it still amazes me how lack of or lack thereof
of financial literacy we have in our country. And it's
not taught in school. You still have to seek it
out to be able to get that knowledge.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, you're right, Jerry, and this really is like, is
criminal that we're not teaching our kids about money in school.
If we truly want to level the playing field to
make sure every child has an equal opportunity. We would
be teaching them about money in school. So it's really
a tragedy. And you know the problem we have is
that we've grown up with scarcity mindset. Growing up in

(06:15):
our parents would say things like pinch your penny, save
her rainy day, we can't afford it, and all those things.
You grow up you hear money negative, money negative, money negative,
no wonder. You end up with a scarcity mindset. So
we're afraid we're never going to have enough money. And
then we actually start creating some success, we're afraid we're
going to lose it. So it's really important to understand it. Start.

(06:36):
We can control three things. Jury our thoughts, are words,
are actions. As starts with our thoughts, and that scarcity
mindset comes in our subconsciously. We have to attack that first.
And instead of saying we can't afford it, which is
kind of negative and it closes your mind, change your
words to how can we afford it? You feel the difference.

(06:58):
When you say how can we afford it? You are
triggering your entrepreneurial mindset. You're open, your subconscious goes to
work looking for ways to afford what you want. As
a completely different mindset, and so little little things like
that I help people change the way they think, which
starts moving their scarcity mindset into one more of abundance.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
It's a I find most people with money are very reactionary. Right,
It's something happens, then they react, and they reacting. It
becomes very it becomes emotional and they take severe actions.
And you know, when you take emotion out of money,
you're right, it's part. We should all talk about it
at the dinner table. That is such an empowering statement

(07:43):
that you mentioned that your parents would have that conversation
around the dinner table because they just don't think it
happens very often, and it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
And to your point, I always say high emotional, low intelligence,
you know, and that's because of that scarcity mindset. There's
a tremendous amount of fear about money. And I think
that fear is what you're talking about. That fear causes
people to react and knee your reaction. That's why you
always heard that don't make any big decisions six months
after death or a divorce because we're so emotional and

(08:14):
we are very reactive.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
I think that in many American household at finances are
the taboo subject. We should be talking about it at
the dinner table, but we're not allowed to talk about
it at all in many aspects of our culture.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
It's true. And when I start, you know, when I
in December of nineteen ninety two, my oldest son had
gone to college and came home, left in September, came
home in December and credit card debt, and I was devastated.
I was mad at him, but as a moment of myself,
we didn't even know he had a credit card. He
went to Arizona State University and there were tables there

(08:49):
saying free pizza, free money, free t shirt, free money.
And he had a really good time as first semester
in college because he had all this free money. And
then he realized it wasn't so free. In December, he
came home and asked us to bail him out, which
we did not do. But that was December nineteen ninety
two is when I dedicated the rest of my career

(09:11):
to financial literacy and financial education. And you're right, Jerrea,
it's still not there. It is. That's why my hair
is white. It used to be read. But if you
ever worked with school districts. My hair has turned solid
white because of the frustration. But when I started, there
were only four or five states in the Union that
required personal finance education for high school graduation. We are

(09:34):
up to twenty six. It's not enough. Arizona is still
not there. I got the law past in Arizona in
twenty twelve that requires personal finance to be taught in
as part of the economics semester that is required for
high school graduation. But it's absolutely woefully inadequate because literally

(09:56):
they cover it in the last few days and so
it's just not enough. And I have gone back to
the well several times, and I absolutely if you agree
with what we're talking about, please reach out to the
Arizona State Board of Education and demand because we did
get the law pass that this is not something we
have to go through the legislature anymore. The state Board

(10:18):
of Education has the authority to require it. And they're
just there. They're sticks in the mud, they're whole, you know,
they're they're set in their ways, and I've been in
front of them multiple times, and so I need all
the help I can get. Anybody that believes in it,
reach out to them. You can go to azspe dot

(10:38):
a z dot gov and let them know that you
think we need financial education in Arizona and needs to
be required a full semester course for high school graduation.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
It would be such a different world if people were
more familiar and comfortable with money, and it's all about
understanding it. It's still a taboo subject.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
If it's done in the right way and not to
be judge or disrespectful. If we can have those open,
honest conversations with people that we trust and are willing
to take advice from. It's such a wonderful thing to
do to be able to talk about finances. And it
really still blows my mind to this day that it's

(11:21):
such a taboo subject.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Well, and we're taught in school to be employees or
self employed, and that means to exchange your time for money.
The problem is there's only so many hours in the
day in the so many days in the week, and
so you're limited, you're finite by how much money. So
I try to get people. My superpower is getting them
to think as business owners and investors, where your money's
working for you. Because when you have businesses or investments

(11:48):
working for you, your income potential is unlimited. But the
way you do that is through assets. Happens to be
my favorite word on Earth. Guys. Assets and I say
sets are sexy. They are the economic engines. People focus
on income, Let's focus on the economic engine like real

(12:09):
estate that creates the income. Because if you focus there,
it becomes like an employee with no personality problems. So
focus on creating the economic engines called assets, and that's
how you get multiple streams of income.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
And with that, we are coming up on a break.
We will be right back with the Home Solutions Show
on k ANDST. Welcome back to the show. This is
Andy Keel with the Home Solutions Show on KNST. I
am joined by Jerry Sunt with Cross Country Mortgage and
our special guest today, Sharon Lecter. Before the break, we
were talking about financial literacy and a couple of other items.

(12:47):
I wanted to just mention that I'm actually a mentor
for a local not for profit here called Third Decade.
It was actually founded in Tucson, and Third Decade actually
refers to helping folks up to their third decade in
life to become financially literate and actually help mentor them.
And it's a completely no cost program Third decade dot

(13:11):
org if anyone's interested, that's the number three rd Decade
dot org. And again another not for profit that is
very focuses on financial literacy. So we're talking a little
bit about the Financial Literacy Task Force before the break,
which is something we really really we could use all
the support from our audience there. If you could just

(13:34):
share that one more time, Sharon, I would really appreciate
that because we've I think this is so desperately needed.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Well, you mentioned the Arizona Financial Literacy Task Force that
is sponsored by our Treasurer, Kimberlee. I've been one of
the founding members of that, and I am chairman of
the k through twelve initiative, which is to get financial
literacy into our school system. And it has been an
uphill battle. And so anyone who believes in and agrees

(14:00):
with us and the importance of teaching our young people
about money, please reach out to the Arizona School Board.
You can do that by going to their website AZSB
dot az dot gov or call them six two five
four two five five seven and just start demanding it.
They need to hear from people that this is something

(14:22):
you know, they are dragging their feet. I've been in
schools all over the state. The teachers want it, the
students want it. It's just we have got this. The
administrators just don't want to change anything. And so if
I can get a ground swell of support to demand it,
I think we might be able to get them to
wake up and do something. Because Arizona was just ranked

(14:44):
number fifty in education. Now I understand why. Because they're
so frustrating, they won't do what they need to do
for our kids. So I'm asking for call to arms
to get to them, to yell at them and tell
them we need to have personal finance wonderful.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
And before the earlier segment, you mentioned about your son
with the credit cards in college, and I'm cheating a
little bit because I know a bit about the outcome
of that. But you mentioned you didn't help him, and
I wanted to expand on the power of that. And
you know, sometimes the best thing we can do to
teach our kids is to let them fall down and

(15:23):
take their bruise. Could you expand on that a little bit?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Well, I couldn't agree with that more. We haven't always
made the right parenting decisions, believe me, but that one,
you know, we became mentors, not enablers, So we did
not buy him out. He had to move back, had
to give up his apartment and go back into living
at home and making the money to pay down his debt.
And it took him a long time to get out
a debt and to repair his credit. But it was

(15:46):
a very good lesson because he's a big advocate for
financial literacy too. But it also ignited a spark. So
it really, as I said, made me dedicate the rest
of my career. And after I left Rich, I was
asked to be on the first president Advisory Council for
Financial Literacy. I served book President Bush and President Obama,

(16:07):
and during that term, we passed the Credit Card Act
two thousand and nine, and that bill is what prevents
credit card companies from soliciting students on college campuses. I'm
very proud of it. I can't take credit necessarily for
the bill, but I was a very squeaky wheel on
the present's Advisory Council. So the credit card companies our

(16:28):
kids still get solicited, but they're not upfront and center
on college campus trying to get them to sign up
for credit cards. So that was a big win for me,
and I think all of us need to be cognizant
of what our kids are being enticed with now. I
mean back then there wasn't social media. Now there's just
so many ways for kids to get led us straight

(16:50):
when it comes to spending money inappropriately or just over
too much and not focusing on investment in themselves.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
And going back to you know, when we talk about
financial literacy, there's so many arms of that. One is,
of course, investing and how does one invest. The other
arm is having a budget, and I don't know, I
don't believe families have a go back to balancing a
checkbook or having a personal P and L profit and
loss where you look at where your expenditures are and

(17:23):
your income and then you take a certain amount. I'm
a believer of twenty percent goes to savings every month.
But it's is knowing where your money is and how
much is there to be able to spend. Today's social media,
you know, you go on well any app that it is,
and but they you know you'll find something that, oh

(17:43):
I want to buy this, and it's a click of
a button. Now it's not even you have to fill
in your information. It's it's it's already all there and
you just click a button and you can spend one
hundred bucks without even a blink of an eye.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
It's so true. And you know, I think, let's if
we take it to a higher level. I think is habits.
You know, we either create good habits or we create
bad habits. Growing up, that father of mine I told
you about. You know, when I got my first part
time job, fifty percent of everything I made went to
the bank. He literally got in the car with me,
drove me to the bank, and I put it in

(18:16):
my savings account. So it was like instilled this habit
of saving and investing for my future. And so I
think it's really important for people that we is so
easy to get into bad habits. Yeah, we can start
creating better habits and good habits. And when you talk
about budgeting, you know, I actually don't like the word budget.
I like the word spending plan because mindset's so important

(18:39):
that people don't like the word budget. So let's have
a spending plan. So where you're looking, And my dad
also told me a map doesn't do any good if
you don't know where you are and where you want
to go. So you're right. You have to first determine
where you are, and even if the picture is bleak,
you're going to feel empowered because you took the step
to figure it out. And then, you know, I teach

(19:00):
people through my programs and my mentorship take a little
step or I have a little win, because sometimes you
look at it and the mountain of debt is so
huge you're paralyzed. Well, let's start one little step at
a time, because when you have a little win, then
it gives you that motivation and that encouragement to do
them tackle the next one. And it's so important to

(19:22):
understand and sometimes when you figure out where you are,
it is motivation to do something about it. But too
many people put their their head in the sand and
allow themselves to stay stuck and dig deeper. I go.
You know, if you're in a hole with credit card debt,
the first thing is to stop digging charging more, and
let's deal with where you are and how you can

(19:43):
reverse that.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Well, but now let's going back to investing. You started
in real estate. Did you ever get invested in you know,
did you get involved with stocks or were you buying
shares of businesses or what was your path like your
journey there?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Well, great question, Jerry. Yes, I the first segment I
talked about my favorite word assets. Well, personal financial planners
when they talk about diversification of assets talk about stocks, bonds,
mutual funds, right, focusing on going across that. When I
talk about asset diversification, I talk about true asset diverstication,

(20:18):
real estate, businesses, paper assets, stocks, bonds, mutual ones, intellectual property, commodities,
now digital currency. Those are all assets. And so if
you diversify across asset categories, then you will be less
impacted when there's a downturn in one industry. And so, yes,
I look at all industries and I have a diversification

(20:41):
across asset categories. We have real estate holdings, we have stocks,
we have investment accounts, we have businesses that we own
and operate, we have businesses that we're investors in, and
so all of those things compile our estate.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
So you've been associated with, authored, co authored, or been
involved with I don't even know the number of.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Books I just released my twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Twenty twenty eight. I guess one of my questions of
that entire group, is there any one in particular, that's
your personal favorite.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, it depends on the individual reader. I mean, it's
kind of like asking somebody who their favorite child is.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
But I was going to say, that's the reality, right.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Obviously. Rich daff Portet is probably the most success is
by far the most successful book I've been involved in.
But they've all been bestsellers, They've all been very successful.
One of my more recent books Outwinning the Double, I
believe is the absolute number one contender for people that
are stuck what they want. Their impact Bio and Negativity

(21:46):
in the World is an incredible book. Napolean Hill actually
wrote it in nineteen thirty eight. It was hidden for
seventy three years. They finally sent it to me to
get my opinion and I read it in a couple hours.
And this has got to get out because he took
on every taboo of our time, sex, politics, religion, education,
alcohol and even cigarettes before the world new cigarettes were

(22:09):
bad for us. And so it's an incredible book. I
had the pleasure of bringing it out, and so my
goal was to bring the Poling Hills wisdom to the
younger generation and it was a home run. It's an
incredible story of an interrogation of the devil, and he says,
you can believe I'm talking to the real devil or
the devil inside your brain your negative thinking. Will you

(22:31):
derive any benefit from it? And it truly has made
a huge difference and impacted hundreds of thousands, if not millions,
of people around the world. It's now in multiple multiple
languages and countries, and it really talks about finding that
way to overcome the fear, because as we started this
talking about the fear of money well, fear of success,

(22:53):
fear of being different, fear of standing out right. I
want people to embrace being unique and understand that the
elements of the book outwinning the Double helps people make
those steps. Definiteness of purpose, figuring out what your purpose is.
Too many people are drifting. It talks about drifting, drifting
your life, saying, letting life just roll you around, going

(23:16):
with the flow whatever. In it, he talks about only
two percent of the population you have the control of
their own brain make decisions to move forward, and that,
unfortunately is so true. The rest people are just reactive.
They're not proactive in their life. And I want to
shake people up and get them to understand that they
are the CEO of your life, and he talks about

(23:38):
the importance of environment. Who are you hanging out with?
An environment is going to nurture you and maybe kick
you in the internet when you know what, when you
need it, or you in an environment where people are
holding you back and they see your success as a threat,
so they try and pull you back. And then they're
talking about the control of your time. Are you investing

(24:01):
your time for your future or are you spending time?
And we can make money, lose money, and make it back,
but when time's gone, it's gone. It's our most precious resource.
So Outwitting the Devil is an incredible work. The audiobook
is particularly exciting because I had them hire two different actors.

(24:21):
I wanted the Devil's voice to be low and gravelly,
and I get all kinds of feedback from people and
feel how impactful it is. But I would invite anybody
that wants to copy about Winning the Devil to go
to my website share lecture dot com. I'd be happy
to autograph it for you. Just put it in the notes,
love it.

Speaker 1 (24:40):
And with that, we are coming up on a break.
This is Andy Keele with the Home Solutions Show. And
we will be back in just a moment. Hi, and
welcome back to the show. This is Andy Keel with
the Home Solutions Show. I am with Win three team
powered by Epic Realty and I am joined back with
Sharon Lecter and Jerry Sun with Cross Country Mortgage. And

(25:03):
before the break we were talking about the book Outwitting
the Devil. Sharon, I understand you also have another book
that's out that you'd like to talk a little bit about.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Well, certainly, yeah, I could talk about all of them,
but all of the folks. After Outwitting the Devil, I
did Think and Grow Rich for Women, which was taking
the concepts of the original Thinking Grow Rich was released
in nineteen thirty seven that was male focused because women
weren't in business back then. So I had the pleasure
in honor of doing Thinking, Growriche for Women. And then

(25:35):
a few years later I was contacted by Ink magazine
and I did a book called exer Riches really helps
people understand how the importance of building the structure of
successful businesses so that your successful business can become sustainable, scalable,
and saleable. Too many people focus on the profits and
the product and they don't build the structure of the business,

(25:57):
and so it can't scale, doesn't have the strength within
the foundation of the business. So I talk about that
in Exit Rich. And then my most recent book that
you and I spoke about quickly is called How Money
Works for Women, and I'm very proud of it because
it's almost a graphic novel. We use avatars of women
from every decade of life from nineteen to eighty six

(26:20):
and the various things that happened to women that they
have to figure out how to work through financially. It's
an easy read. This was very important to me because
women are even more intimidated about money than men, and
it really talks about, you know, in addition to the
normal things like going to college, getting married, starting a business.

(26:41):
There's a chapter about a young woman who is a
real estate agent. She has to start her life over
again because she's escaping an abusive marriage with two kids
looking at you know, when you're in that abusive relationship,
one of those abuses is almost always financial, so how
to recover and how to get out of that. There's
another one that is a woman whose father has to

(27:03):
move in with her and her adult son moves in
so that Sandwich generation on how to deal with those issues.
There's another one where somebody's been married twenty five years.
She's looking forward to a golden retirement. Husband comes home
and wants to trade around on a younger model, and
so she's thinking of retirement and then all of a sudden,
she's thrown into divorce. And the worst thing is she

(27:24):
does not have any credit in her own name. Everything's
in the husband's name. She's thrown into the dire desperation
of poverty because she hasn't taken care of herself. And
the other one, my eighty six year old, beautiful life, happy,
lots of assets. Her husband dies and she has no
access to anything because she didn't get set up that way.

(27:47):
Wonderful marriage but unintended consequences of not doing appropriate financial planning.
And so it's so important. I mean, there's a stat
that just astounds me, and you think i'd be past it,
but percent of men die married, eighty percent of women
die single. And it is so important for women. I mean,

(28:09):
part of that is, you know, quote unquote, the good
news women tend to outlive their husbands by seven years.
The bad news is they tend to outlive their husbands
by seven years educated themselves. So it's really and women
continue to have more financial wealth. Women right now control
sixty percent of personal wealth in the United States. But
that comes a responsibility to not only understand how to

(28:33):
manage it, but how to invest in, how to grow it,
and how to preserve it for future generations. And on
top of that, we're going to be inheriting trillions of
dollars of money from the older generation and we need
to be prepared on how to manage it.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
So Sharon I got a question, So, if you have
a young person, you know, in college or just out
of college, and what's your advice for them As far
as establishing credit. We were talking about credit cards and
how easy it is to you know, you seem to
get one offer for a credit card in the mail,
you sign up, and then you got twenty come in
the next week. You know, again, it's such an easy

(29:12):
trap for all of us to fall into. What's the
right step? What would you recommend?

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Well, that's a great question, Jerry, and the answer is
it depends. It depends on your ability to have a
credit card and not use it. You know, it's not
the credit card's fault. It's the person holding the credit card.
It's the problem. And you need credit. You need to
establish credit. You need you know, you pay for your
own cell phone, pay for your own electricity, and those

(29:41):
kinds of things you can get reported so that you
can establish some credit. If you have a car loan,
you're going to have credit. But the other thing is
don't miss a payment because it can hurt you indefinitely.
And have a credit card, and there are I recommend
parents let their teenagers have a credit card that is
a funded credit card. So for instance, it's got a

(30:03):
three hundred dollars limit balance with it, so the student
can't spend more than that, and it gets replenished each month,
so that you limit the amount of extraordinary problems they
can come from credit cards. But again, getting them into
the habit of using it and paying it off each
month is a way for them to establish credit. If

(30:24):
you give them your card, you're not helping them establish credit.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
It's funny the short time I've gotten to know you, Sharon,
you've mentioned habits, and that's such a key thing with
money is just you know, good habits versus bad habits.
And if you have good habits and whether it's you know,
you save x amount, you know twenty percent or fifteen
percent of your paycheck every month or and no matter

(30:49):
what you stick to those these habits, money will grow.
If you spend a certain amount of time time blocking
learning about money and what to invest in, not just
what people tell you to invest in, money will grow.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
It comes back to what you originally talked about in
the per section, was with anxiety and stress about money
and fear, and that comes from having bad habits. So
when you start establishing better habits, it helps you deal
with that fear. And I talk about you know, high emotion,
low intelligence, And so as you start establishing habits, you

(31:27):
start decreasing that gap. Because all of a sudden, you
are in control. When it comes to money, guys, you're
either in control of your money or your money is
in control of you. There's nothing in between. Everybody listening
right now immediately knows which one they are. Are you
in control of your money or is your money in

(31:50):
control of you? And I happen to be a control freak,
So if I'm in a position where my money is
in control of my life, I will go crazy, just
like I was as an employee, I wasn't in control
of my schedule or my life. So focus on producing assets.

(32:10):
And you talked about again when you're emotional about money
and habits. I am an aggressive investor, but if you
are not a good investor, start by having an automatic
deposit into a stock fund so that every month the
piece is going in, all right. And when you have
your portfolio, maybe you're adding a reit into that so

(32:33):
that it's a real estate investment trust, so you're getting
into real estate through the back door. But understand, by
establishing that habit, you're going to start seeing that dollar
amount go up and all of a sudden, it's going
to give you pride, and that pride is going to
give you motivation to become a more aggressive and better investor.

(32:54):
But you have sometimes you have to start by making
it as painless as possible. It's just automatic coming out
of your say, out of your paycheck, and you're not
even touching it. But it's going to somewhere where you're
going to have a balance in the asset column.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Love it, I love it.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
I had a question from actually my office manager. He
has a thirteen year old daughter and he wanted to
get your advice on what's the best financial advice you
could give for a teenager or someone even in those
high school years with quoting him now with a very
short attention span.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
I love it well. I actually it's going to be
a commercial message, but it truly I've had. I'm seventy one,
so I have many, many years of knowing what works
and what doesn't work. And I created the game Thrive
Time for teens. It's on my website sharonelectu dot com,
and it teaches young people thirteen is a perfect age
anywhere from a to twenty that every decision they make,

(33:57):
not only with how they spend their money, but how
they spend their time either drives them towards success or not.
And there's got a lot of humor in it. And
the game is based on real life things that face teenagers,
not a million dollar monopoly plays. These are if you
drop your cell phone in the toilet, it costs you

(34:18):
four hundred dollars. There's every card, but there's a ton
of humor in it. And it teaches them about stocks,
it teaches them about businesses, it teaches them about real estate,
it teaches them about the time involved in an active business,
versus a passive business, and so it is an incredible
learning tool that will help open the teenager's eyes. I

(34:41):
go into schools and play this with them, and they go,
my parents need to play this game. Why aren't they
teaching me this in school? This is the stuff I
need to know, and it's so true. But in addition,
for a thirteen year old, I go back to when
I first started in the first segment talking about you
can control your thoughts, your words, your actions. When your
thirteen year old wants something and you say we can't

(35:03):
afford it, you are instilling a scarcity mindset. So catch
your own words and say what. Let's say her name
is Wendy. Okay, Wendy, you want this? How are you
going to earn the money to make it? And all
of a sudden, she her subconscious goes to work. And
I can tell you young people get very creative about

(35:24):
how they can earn money, and allow them to do
it as long as it's legal. But allow them to
do it, allow them to secure the money, let them
to buy what they want, and celebrate with them. But
the greatest award and benefit is their self confidence. You
see it grow right in front of your eyes. And
once a young person knows how to make money on

(35:46):
their own, there's no stopping them. The issue is we
keep be as a parent, be a mentor not an enabler.
My greatest example is the fourth grade science fear walk
in and you immediately know which projects mom and dad
did not the kid. And you think, I'm such a

(36:06):
great parent. Look at how gorgeous this is. I'm so
proud of my kid. Well, you kids sitting there not
thinking Mom's a great person. He's thinking Mom didn't think
I could do it on my own. So the next
year when it comes around, he goes forget it, Mom
will do it for me. And so you're building in
this enabler attitude versus being there mentoring them, supporting them,

(36:32):
but letting them actually get it accomplished so that they
feel proud of themselves. It's more important for your child
to be proud of themselves than for you to be
proud of the child.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
I think that is just some wonderful, wonderful advice. With that,
we are coming up on one more break. This is
Andy Keel with the Home Solution Show on KNST and
we will be right back, Hi, and welcome back to
the show. This is Andy Keel with the Home Solution
Show on KNST and I'm with the Win three Team

(37:03):
powered by Epic Realty. You can reach me at five
two zero five three nine nine five nine one, and
I'm joined again by Jerry Sunt with Cross Country Mortgage. Jerry,
if you'd share your number for the audience please.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
Of course, five two zero three seven zero nine five
seven six.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
And we are joined again by Sharon Lecter. I wanted
to offer kind of a special gift to the listening
audience today. If you go to our website, the Win
three Team dot com, that's the win the Number three
Team dot com. We're going to have a tab on
there for free books. If you would like either a

(37:46):
copy of Three Feet from Gold or Outwitting the Devil,
which we talked about on the show, We're going to
offer a free copy of that. You just need to
go on the website and it'll be an actual not
an ebook, but we will actually send a hard copybook
out to you. Just need to sign up on the
website and the first one hundred people that go on
the website and sign up we'll get a free copy

(38:07):
of the book. So please come to the website and
we'd be happy to send you out a copy with that, Sharon,
would you like to share a little bit more about
your website again and some of the things that you
have to offer.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Absolutely well, thank you so much. I appreciate that Andy
and Jerry has been a great experience today. My website
is Sharon Lecter dot com, s h A R O
N L E C H T E R dot com
and there you can find lots of my programs that
are available. But we also have something called the Personal

(38:41):
Success Equation, which is my gift to all of you listening.
To go to Personal Success Equation dot com or you
can also find a link on my website you'll get
a free workbook that helps you identify your own personal
success journey. And the Personal Success Equation is in my
book Three Feet from Gold. It talks about combining your

(39:03):
passion and your talent. Now, my passion was anger because
we weren't teaching kids about school, and my talent was
years in publishing and years as a CPA, but most
of us stopped there. We think we have to do
everything on our own, but true success comes by passion
plus talent times the power of association. You're seeing that
at work today, you're seeing the three of us come

(39:25):
together to talk about financial literacy, power of association. Do
you have the right people on your team? Do you
have the right mentor do you have the right associations
that help you do what you have? People doing what
you shouldn't be doing. And then also times a taking action?
How many times do you know what you're supposed to
do you just don't do it? I get busted every

(39:47):
time I share.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
That right good point.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
I think power of association, times taking action, and all
of it wrapped with a big plus f faith, having
faith yourself, having faith in what you're doing, having faith
that is needed, necessary, and having faith that it will succeed. Now,
most of us that f is there, but it's called fear,

(40:12):
and fear is keeping us from achieving the success we deserve.
We are self sabotaging because of our fear. Fear, ear
that paralyzes us or motivates us, and the beast majority
of us, let fear paralyze us. I want people to
turn that paralyze into fuel, into moving and passion, and

(40:32):
turn it into action. Because you have you are the
CEO of your life, and so download the Personal Success Equation,
I talk about how you can find your definite purpose,
how you can find what you need to do, finding
the right association, how you can improve the power of
confidence that you have in yourself. So Personal Success Equation

(40:53):
dot com great.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
One are the things, especially in our business that is
all we has been a challenge is how do we
keep each other motivated? How do we keep each other energized?
And you have a daily motivation plan on your website
as well if you'd like to share that.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Well, thank you, Andy Ye. Well, when I get mad
about something, I usually start a new company because successful
businesses solve the problems, serve a need. And when COVID hit,
I was just bombarded with the negativity and the fear
in the world. So I started a daily motivational tip
which is called ATM as a play on going to

(41:32):
the bank. ATM stands for Abundance Tips and Mentorship and
it literally talks about ways to keep an abundance mindset
or to grow an abundance mindset and to counterbalance all
the negativity in the world. And you can find out
more about it at ATM, dot sharonelector dot com. But

(41:52):
eight dollars a month is very inexpensive. It just covers
our expenses. But atm dot Sharonlector dot com and I
have had people from all around the world talk about
how it's helped them. We talk about law of attraction.
We need to get rid of the negativity in our subconsciousness,
start filling our subconscious mind with positive action. And then

(42:14):
I think the other thing you asked me to talk
about is every month I have a membership called Let's
Talk Money, or every month I have a session where
I am sharing what's happening in the world of money.
I'm sharing the things that I'm paying attention to, things
that I'm making adjustments in my own portfolio about. And
it's all education based. It's not financial advice. It's all education,

(42:38):
but it's really to keep people aware of what's happening
in the world of finance globally, locally in your own wallet,
and it's so important to stay on top of that.
And for more on that, you can go to Sharon
Lecture dot com board slash money Talk and I'd love
to have all of you join us on that because

(42:59):
it really is we have to take action, but sometimes
we don't have the time to really study everything. Well,
let me do the studying and inform you quickly about
what I see happening so you can take the moves
before you get abused by them.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Right. One of the questions I had, just going back
to your roots as a CPA, if you have any
tax tips that you'd like to talk to the audience about.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
Well, certainly, I mean, you want to make sure you
have a good financial advisor, but you also want to
make sure you have a good tax advisor that understands
what's happening in the world of taxation. And you know,
if you are at the beginning of the year, is
a good thing to start looking at what tax moves
you should have made that you didn't and what you
need to prepare for for this year, making sure you

(43:47):
take advantage of all tax credits, and certainly if you're
in the world of real estate, making sure you're maximizing
the tax benefits of the real estate you're investing in,
and don't try to do it on your own. Find
the xor that can help you maximize your benefits, because
the tax law is written to support people who provide
housing for others, and so set it up so that

(44:09):
you're taking advantage of every opportunity you have might be
cost segregation, it might be accelerated depreciation, it might be
Section one seventy nine deduction. All of those things allow
you to accelerate the benefit to your taxes. And that
is all about. Everything I've talked about today is about
momentum of money. And your momentum of money means how

(44:33):
much you keep, how fast it works for you, and
how fast it grows. And too many of us are
getting further into debt and the momentum is going in reverse.
I want to stop that. I want to take you
out of reverse and put you into forward. So the
momentum of money helps you not create a better life today,
but also create generational wealth for you.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
I have what might be a vague but a little
tougher question. I want to see what your thoughts there.
Either how do you define success or how do you
define a successful life?

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Love that I don't look at success as it relates
two dollars and cents. My definition of success is how
you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror.
My definition of legacy is not what happens when you leave.
Your legacy is created every single day with every heart

(45:27):
you touch, and that's why I have my Play Big
Movement Facebook group. It's about being number one in your field,
living your legacy again every single day, and creating maximum impact.
So success is how you feel about yourself in the
mirror and the lasting impact that you make on the world.
Always stay curious. And you know that's one of the

(45:48):
things that happens in our school system. Our kids lose
their creativity and curiosity as are being taught to be
taught conformity, and we end up getting a career, we
get comfortable, and then we have a crisis. That why,
a crisis throws us into chaos. How do we get
out of chaos by becoming curious and creative again. So again,
keep yourself curious, creative, and keep your children curious and creative.

(46:12):
Always challenge people and ask them when was the last
time you did something for the first time. I challenged
myself with that all the time, When was the last
time I did something for the first time? Because it
keeps me younger, it keeps me curious, it keeps me experienced,
and it keeps me establishing new powers of association.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Wow, that's good. You talked a little bit before about
every time you get angry to start a new business.
I'd like to talk a little bit about channeling negative
emotion towards a goal, if you'd like to expand on
that a little bit, because I think that in many
cases can be far more powerful than anything.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Well, as I said, my passion for financial literacy came
from the anger that we were teaching kids about money
in school. My anger towards all the negativity was creating ATMs.
If you're familiar with the law of attraction, which actually
started by with Napoleon Hill and then Ronda bird Burne
made it very popular with the book Secret, when you

(47:15):
think positive things, you attract positive results. When you think negatively,
you attract negative results. Well, there's a definition that I've
used for many, many years, over fifteen years ago, and
that's the definition of to worry. And I happened to
be a champion worrier. I came from the best. My
mother was the Queen of warrior. When you worry, you're
filling your brain with negativity. And so this definition I

(47:38):
found was to worry is to pray for what you
do not want. I repeat that, to worry is to
pray for what you do not want, and it is
so true. And when I really internalize that definition, I
still worry, but I catch myself and I go, okay, Sharon,

(47:59):
I saidocusing on what I do not want, Let's change
my thoughts. Remember your thoughts, your words, your actions, change
the thought from what I don't want to what I
do want. And it's actually magical. And I hear from
people all over the world that they've changed their life
by just adopting that one definition. Catch yourself, adjust what

(48:20):
you don't want into thinking about what you do want,
and you'll see miracles.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
That is so incredibly powerful. I think that's a wonderful
way to come to a close on this show. Again, Sharon,
thank you so much for joining us. Really really appreciate it.
Thanks for the listening audience on this one again. This
is Andy Keel with the Win three team powered by
Epic Realty. Listening audience. I hope you have a wonderful Sunday.

(48:46):
Thanks so much,