Chrissi Chapman Topoleski - Branch Vice President of Coldwell Banker Realty

Speaker 1: 0:31

do a lot of volunteer stuff, so I actually was just installed as the president of our local realtor association.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Congratulations, congratulations this week, thank you, that's amazing. Yeah, a lot more volunteer work, lots of volunteer work, so yeah. So every time I see something that says we need somebody, I go oh, that sounds like final volunteer for that, so I actually do a ton of stuff, do you say yes, and then afterwards you're like why did I think that I wasn't gonna be overwhelmed with all this other stuff?

Speaker 1: 1:01

Yes and no. I used to like. I used to do that a lot, like anytime somebody asked me something I would say yes, and then the regret would kick in like an hour later, or it'd kick in like a week later or whatever, and then I'd be I'd get really upset because I'd be like overly stressed out about it and whatever. And so as I've gotten older, I've realized that about myself. So I pause and then I think about I like what exactly am I saying yes to, and do I really have the time and kind of bandwidth is the word I use a lot Do I have the capacity to actually take it on where I can do it justice?

Speaker 1: 1:46

Because that's the problem. Like you know, you get asked to do a lot of things and if you're willing to step up and do it, then you have to give it your all. You know you have to maybe not a hundred percent, because we can't it's hard to give a hundred percent, but you have to fulfill what you agreed to do. So I went through a period about 10 years ago where I'd said yes to so many things. I kind of like literally was just falling apart and I had to call people and go. I can do this right now, like I don't know why I agreed to this, and so that was a good learning experience.

Speaker 2: 2:23

You know you take a pause like how long of a pause before saying yes or say no, I mean it just depends.

Speaker 1: 2:28

I think it depends what the opportunity is and where it fits into my life and what the purpose of it is. So you know, there's some things that feed me personally, you know feed my soul, that I need, and so that might take more of a priority than something that may, you know, only suit me professionally but it's not necessarily going to get me towards the goal that I'm working towards.

Speaker 2: 2:59

So it really just depends yeah, yeah, no, and I totally agree with you on that point. That's something that I've recently started doing, about two years ago, where I was like yes, yes, yes, and then it'd come up to like time for me to actually like do the thing that I said yes to and I'm like, oh, now I can't be there for my kids game, now I can't be around to help my team grow or work on this thing, because I had said yes to, like a volunteer opportunity, which I still say yes to, but I give myself pause. Usually I'll say at least like, let me sleep on it, let me make sure I can commit to it, and then I'll get back to you.

Speaker 1: 3:33

You have to. Yeah, and it's funny you said that because I think for me, one of the defining moments where was I had signed up to help make meals for, you know, moms after they had babies? It was part of a women's group that I was in at church and so I'm like frantically making dinner for this family because they just had a baby and my kids were like what's for dinner? And I'm like I don't know. I'm trying to make dinner for this family.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Just give me a second, Let me see if there's some leftovers over here, Seriously Like and I realized like I don't even have food for my own family yet, Like I'm freaking out about making dinner for a bunch of people I really don't know, and then I had to go out and deliver it to them. And I got home and like I had nothing to eat for our kids Down onto this kid I was like what am I doing Like that?

Speaker 1: 4:28

for me, that was when I went okay, this is like I am saying yes to somebody and something else, but now I'm saying no to the people that are actually the most important to me.

Speaker 2: 4:40

And, depending on you, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Yeah, and dependent on me, my own family, my children, and so I'm not really modeling, you know, that sort of servant leadership and modeling, helping other people in a very good way, because I've substituted the priority to as a with a stranger and that was like that first, you know, kind of like a red flag for me that I was taking on too much and that I needed to stop.

Speaker 2: 5:12

That's great, though I mean those opportunities are great that we are able to see it and be like okay pause Eventually.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Yes, it takes. I guess that's age and experience and yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yeah, and that's funny because I feel like we're kind of programmed in a way to do that as a working, especially if you have your own business but a mother it's like you want to show up for the community, you've got to give back, you've got to do all these things, and so we're constantly like those, you know the little hamsters and a hamster wheel just spinning, spinning spinning all the time and it's so easy to lose sight of the things that are the most important things to us. It really is.

Speaker 1: 5:57

And I think women you know, one of the things I'm so passionate about really is, I think, women we have a tendency to do it so much more than other people, because we really feel like we have to be everything to everybody and if we're working especially or running a business, we have to be like Wonder Woman at that. We have to be, you know, wonder Woman with our family. We have to with our children. We have to be perfect at everything that we do. We have to be there for our friends and we always. I feel like we just have a lot that maybe, if it's not been thrust on us, we think it has.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah, we internalize a lot of things and then we feel like we need to deliver on it and it becomes hard to say no. And that's something going back to that, like 10 years ago, I was just saying yes to a lot of things, because some of them were things that I thought some of fun, some were things I wanted to do, some were things I felt like I needed to do for my children. You know some of it. I felt like I needed to do it from a volunteer perspective for the community or my church. And then there was business too, and I was just completely stretching myself then but I felt like I couldn't say no, and I felt like I also couldn't say no because I just needed time for me. And so I do remember being stretched then, kind of feeling like a little bit of a martyr and wearing it like a little bit of a badge of honor, like you know. Oh, I do all these things and I can read that night.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I do all this stuff and I'm here and I'm there and I never have a moment to myself and I never get to sit down, and a lot of my friends would say the same thing, and so it was like we were in this big club.

Speaker 2: 7:49

We were in this big club, you know like where we weren't taking care of ourselves.

Speaker 1: 7:54

And when I look back at that now I'm like that was stupid, like why did we think that was so great? Because, at the end of the day, hindsight has taught me like that was the absolutely worst thing that we could have done for our spouses, for our children, but, more importantly, for ourselves.

Speaker 2: 8:15

Well, you know, and I feel like it might be, and I might be wrong on this, but it might also be the social validation that we get Right, like random strangers, like wow, that's great, thank you so much, you're the best. Wow Versus. Like our kid at least my kids I give them dinner after, like I'm like hello, thank you.

Speaker 2: 8:34

You know, like, like the appreciate, like you don't get that same necessarily like validation Right, and in certain phase of our life that's maybe something that we're looking for or is more easy to receive. But then we finally realized, like no, no, we actually don't need that validation. Like, yeah, it's our kids and our spouse and our family that.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Yeah, and you know I was a stay at home mom for many years and even when I worked I still I ran my own business as a realtor and so I always concerned myself a stay at home mom first and foremost, and and it and I say now because I've got 15, 22 and 24 year old children it's a little bit of a thankless job, quite honestly, like I'm so happy that I was home with them. Obviously I love my kids, I'm proud of my children. I'm really happy I had the time with them that I did. But when you're in the middle of, you know the drama and the issues and you know the you not sleeping and them not sleeping and dealing with homework and all of these juggling things that we do, you do.

Speaker 1: 9:47

You do need the validation that, first of all, you're a good mom, because it's so easy to feel like you're not and the moment they get mad at you you're like you know my soul is crushed. But you, you need somebody to tell you that you as a person and you as a woman are still doing a good job, because I think that a lot of us end up losing our identities a bit and with hindsight, you know that's one of the things that ultimately, I started becoming very, I guess, interested and invested in being able to talk to other women about that. You know your kids are amazing and awesome, like everybody else's kids are amazing and awesome and you have to love them and you owe them so many things. But at the end of the day that adage if you don't put on your oxygen mask first, you can't help other people.

Speaker 2: 10:48

There is no shame in taking care of yourself and no shame and not always loving being a mom or not having the best day and needing to find things outside of your family to help feed you, and for one time somebody asked me to do an event as a, because I said you know, get to me when it's closer to that time and I'll let you know what my schedule looks like essentially a non-paid volunteer event. Everybody was volunteering, and so I remember I was. So it was like around the holidays I was so busy just at work at home, just things were a mess, and I was like unfortunately I can't. But here's like five other people to reach out to. They might be interested and I just can't. And they're like oh well, what are you doing?

Speaker 2: 11:40

Mm-hmm, you know, you told me that you didn't have, you don't schedule shoots on that day. And I'm like you know what? Actually I'm doing nothing. Yeah, I'm actually just gonna like give myself a day. And they're like oh yeah, yeah, that's very important during the holiday, though, but it's just like no, like I actually gave myself permission to say no, actually, this day I need a break, because come Monday I'm gonna be like slammed again. It's hard, it is hard. So tell me about work, though. Like, how did you get into building your brokerage?

Speaker 1: 12:14

So well. So I got licensed as a realtor in 2007. And you know so how old were the kids. So 2007,. So actually when I got licensed I timed it just right because I got my license and like six weeks later I found out I was pregnant with my third.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Okay. And then, unfortunately, a year later her father and I went through a separation. But so I had, you know, relatively young kids I guess at that time there were nine, eight, nine, seven, eight, six when I got licensed. And then I was pregnant and the first year I was in real estate I got lucky, like I got, had a lot of business and I don't know where it came from, I couldn't tell you right now. So I thought, well, this is great, like this is a nice way to get me out of the house once in a while and I love what I'm doing.

Speaker 1: 13:06

And then the market crashed and, you know, business dried up and I was in the middle of a separation and the divorce and a single mom with three kids. So the real estate really started as a hobby for me when I got my license. It was never really meant to support me and then through the years that evolved and changed. But about four years ago I decided you know as much as I love working with clients, I really love working with other agents and I love helping. I love to help people. That is just me. I love to be able to help people grow their business, you know, achieve the goals that they have, and so I made that shift from selling real estate into managing, which is what I've been doing now for three years, and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2: 13:58

It's completely different, right, or is it similar?

Speaker 1: 14:02

It's different because my client is not somebody necessarily buying and selling real estate. It's my agent who's helping the person buy and sell real estate. So it is a different role. But ultimately the client is still my client too. So you know I jump in if I need to. I help agents when they're putting offers together if they're trying to make them competitive, help them if they need to negotiate contracts and try to keep deals together.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Sometimes too, she went from like salesperson to now managing all the salespeople. So, it is. It's a completely different role that you kind of stepped into.

Speaker 1: 14:39

It's different in agents. You know they're independent contractors and they're each running their own business, so managing is a very loose way of kind of describing sort of what I do, motivating.

Speaker 1: 14:56

You know I say like I'm their business partner. Yeah, so I'm there to help coach them, mentor them, cheer them on, provide education, you know, skill building tools, the things that they need to run a successful business and to ultimately grow their business, if that's what they want. Like that's kind of what I'm there for. So you know, if they're having a bad day or they're having a bad transaction, they can call me. You know they can come in and talk to me and we can, you know, work through it so we can get to the other side and move on. Or, you know it's the same. Like the other side of that is helping celebrate their successes, because those are really important. In my office I call that celebrating the small wins and like everything should be a small win. If it gets you a little closer to your goal, that's right.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah, and sometimes it's hard to celebrate the small wins and you've got a lot of like stuff going on, you know.

Speaker 1: 16:01

And I think it's hard when you're in business for yourself too. You're ultimately you're focused on making money, and so sometimes it's really hard to see that the win is not necessarily the end where you get the paycheck. The win can be making the connection. It can be if you're brand new, going on the first appointment, just talking to somebody for the first time. There's so many small things that we can do throughout the day or in our lives, in our business, that we should celebrate because they got us closer to where we wanted to be, or we helped somebody, or we helped ourselves, or we learned something that we can take to use the next time that will get us closer to where we wanna be.

Speaker 2: 16:48

Is there anything that you've done in the last three, four years Maybe it's been a practice or a daily ritual, or just something that you've consistently been working on that helped you attain the success that you have today?

Speaker 1: 17:04

I think a lot of it just goes back to, for me, like having developing self-awareness of myself has been completely life-changing. So, going back to being that martyr, you know who I was the room mom, the cookie mom, the brownie leader, the this, the that, like I did all of it and some of it was driven by the desire to help. I mean, most of it was but at the same time there was also that desire to, you know, be the cookie mom and to be the room mom and to be that person. But when I started really developing that awareness that I was in doing all of those things, I wasn't really happy because I felt very stretched. Sometimes I felt very taken advantage of, I didn't feel appreciated and then, of course, I wasn't really doing the things that were really important for me or for the people that I said I was supposed to help. So I um, kind of started going like it's not you, it's me. I realized I was doing a lot of judging. Sometimes I was criticizing people for how they were running their lives or what they were doing or not doing, and I felt like I could kind of sit back and go. Well, if that were me, I would be doing it this way, and then I realized I was not doing it a better way and I wasn't getting better results than they were. And so I took this sort of like it's not you, it's me approach.

Speaker 1: 18:47

When people would get, when I would get upset by something, and I wanted to point a finger that somebody or something had made me upset, I started going why am I actually upset about this?

Speaker 1: 18:59

It's my reaction to what is happening that's getting me upset. Not necessarily what they said, because there may not have been a motivation that was negative behind it at all, but I'm taking it and putting a lot of stuff behind it that may not have been there. And that was the life-changing moment for me, when I realized I'm the one in control of everything. I control how I react to things. I control whether I say yes to something or no. I'm responsible for my own actions and for the things that I do and the things that I choose to do or choose not to do. And every once in a while, something will kind of come up in a motion or whatever will come up and I have to check myself again and go okay, why are you having such this strong reaction to something or to this person or to what they said to you, and sometimes you're triggering something that happened a long time ago, or a negative or a positive experience, but that is. I wish I had learned that a long time ago.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Yeah, how did you not therapists reading where did you like kind of?

Speaker 1: 20:18

A lot of therapy. You know I probably put a lot of therapists like sent them on vacations throughout my life, but I'm sure I have and there's so much value in that because your girlfriends could only get you so far.

Speaker 2: 20:36

You either have a tight knit group of girlfriends that do this you're an avid reader, that's where I learned a lot of these things yeah or therapists. Those are the three.

Speaker 1: 20:45

Yeah, and all of that is great. Like I've read, I've always read too, and so I've got gazillion books lots of self-health books too, and magazines and I have lots of really great girlfriends and I've always had a tight knit and I think what is beautiful about friendships and especially female friendships, I think is that you can have some that are so close to you at certain times in your life and they really help get you through certain things, and maybe they I don't wanna say that you put them off to the side or that they disappear but there are people that are where you need them in your life more than sometimes at other points in your life.

Speaker 2: 21:32

There's that quote here for a season I hear for a read something like that yeah it is.

Speaker 1: 21:36

They are there for certain seasons of your life, and so I've been so blessed sometimes at various seasons in my life, like going through a separation and going through a divorce and having to deal with addiction in a marriage where it was like they were brought to me. Those were the right people that came to me at that time because they were going through the same thing or they had experience with it. And then, in turn, I've come into other people's lives when they've been going through those same things where I've really been able to help them as well. But I think ultimately, like it was just going through a lot of stuff, dealing with a lot of stuff. Finally, one day I turned 50 last year and finally one day I was just realized like I'm gonna be 50 and I'm still gonna be dealing with all this same old kind of baggage and crap that's always rearing its head again. And I don't wanna keep being this person. And I've got three daughters and I don't want them always going oh my gosh, like we always seem to be going crisis to crisis or dealing with whatever. I want them to just always be like okay, my mom is just a strong badass and that's who I wanna be like.

Speaker 1: 23:00

And so I ended up meeting somebody on Facebook and we started coaching and he's a mindset coach and it was that peace that really for me, beyond therapy, beyond everything else, that I went.

Speaker 1: 23:17

This is literally what they've been telling me in therapy forever. You just said it a different way and I'm paying you to tell me like to stop talking negatively about myself and to stop thinking so much and caring so much about what other people think about me and at the end of the day, I have to get everything right with me Once you do that like, that is the life-changing part, cause if you're not happy with yourself and you're not content where you are in your life and you're not accepting of yourself and really loving yourself like accepting that my body doesn't look the way that I want it to look, accepting that my life didn't work out quite the way I expected it to, but that you can start wherever you are and you can keep moving on and you can create the life that you want, that's the life-changing, beautiful part about getting older. You know, that's what I love, that I want everybody to know that, especially women, because we do beat ourselves up so much.

Speaker 2: 24:33

We really do I agree? Yeah, sounds like we're on the same wavelength, exactly A lot of it yeah. Okay, so kind of looking into the future. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

Speaker 1: 24:44

Oh gosh. So I became a broker in 2020 and when that happened because I had just sort of really shed off, like shed off all of the kind of the stuff that I felt like had held me back for so many years where I was always caring or always thinking about like well, what if this happens? I was always like focused on the what ifs, on all these bizarro scenarios that possibly could happen. That had never happened. I was so worried about the future that I had a really hard time living today and my now 15 year old said a couple years ago to me she said you know, you just need to start living in the moment. And I was like that's bizarre and profound and I don't know why she said that to me, but I was always kind of going well, when we move, when we buy a house, we're gonna do this. And she's like we just need to start living.

Speaker 1: 25:44

So, like three years ago, that was the mantra I accepted I'm just going to start living. So in three years, I have done more almost professionally, and a little bit a lot of it is personal too but more professionally than I have in all of the years I've ever been working. So, to answer that it's like you know, I don't even know, because I just keep seeing opportunities and taking them, and so leadership opportunities come up and I accept them and I take them, and one of the things I wanted to do when I was much younger was get into public speaking and traveling the country and doing that, and so that's something I'm kind of working towards right now. So I've been writing a book for like 30 years For how many?

Speaker 2: 26:45

years Like 30 years. You know it's not the same book.

Speaker 1: 26:50

It's a lot of books. So every once in a while I kind of go back and I start writing again. And so recently I keep thinking all right, like, stop talking about writing the book, just sit down and write the book, because it's not writing itself. And I think too, you know, there's something about milestone birthdays. Like a milestone birthday, you do a lot of like, you think of regret and then you think forward and I remember turning 30, going oh my gosh, I am like so old.

Speaker 1: 27:27

You know, I was thinking like it was the end of the world and my 30s were pretty, they were very defining. You know, there was a lot that was going on, but especially having my kids growing up because I had my oldest, or my oldest I was 26 when she was born but really being in the thick of raising children in my 30s and then divorcing in my late 30s. And then my 40s were very much about finding myself again and redefining who I was as a person and who I wanted to be and figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. And so turning 50 was not traumatic the way I always expected it to be. 40 was a little bit traumatizing.

Speaker 1: 28:17

But 50, I was like, you know, I'm just embracing it because had I not gotten to this point, you know, I probably would be really upset about my age and about getting older and looking back and saying, well, I never did all of these things that I wish I had done. But now I'm like, well, all right, I haven't done it, so let's go do it. You know, so my kids know like we'll do some really ridiculous things because I just don't, I don't care anymore. Like if I want to do it, I'm going to do it. I don't care how old I am, I don't care how ridiculous I look.

Speaker 2: 28:57

What are some of the crazy things that you've done or that you want to do?

Speaker 1: 29:01

Oh my gosh, what are some of the things that my kids are? I don't know. That's such a great question Like you're putting me on the spot. I honestly can't even.

Speaker 2: 29:10

You like one of those TikTok like silly dances or no.

Speaker 1: 29:13

my kids, like totally, were like you are not allowed to go on TikTok. Like they told me that in 2020, when I had nothing better to do in the house. I was looking at the window one day and I saw my daughter and her friend filming themselves dancing in the cul-de-sac.

Speaker 1: 29:31

They caught them. I was watching out the window and I was just I thought it was just so cute they, because they've known each other literally since they were born and the two of them are out there dancing and filming themselves. And they came in and I said, oh, you need to teach me how to do those TikTok dances so I can go on there too. And they were like no, absolutely not, you're not allowed on TikTok. If you do, we will never talk to you again. And I thought, all right.

Speaker 2: 29:58

I'll just do a stitch with your dance.

Speaker 1: 30:00

Yeah Well, the more I look at the TikTok things, the more I'm like okay, I don't know there's, I just don't get it. I'm like why are you so fascinated watching people dance in their kitchen.

Speaker 2: 30:12

It's almost like a psychological experiment, or what is that Like? An experiment to see how can we like get these people to do exactly like that, that Tide Pod Challenge.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Yes, like the challenges, all of the social media challenges. Yes, yeah, like people start, like I, will I. For the longest time, I fought watching them even, and then I made the mistake of watching one, and then they just keep going.

Speaker 2: 30:42

So you can't leave it's the most interesting, weirdest, crazy things where you're like I don't know what's going to happen next, because it shows you like the three seconds, yeah, and I and like I when I started, so I started watching them and it almost for me it was more like a sociological experiment there we go. That's the right word, yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:02

I'm like okay, why is? Why are people doing this, but why are people watching it?

Speaker 2: 31:07

Like more importantly, why am I continuing to scroll?

Speaker 1: 31:11

Yeah, and then I found myself like an hour had gone by and I was like what have I watched? Yeah, I'm watching these people like dancing in the kitchen or they're. They're in the bathroom like talking and lip syncing and they're doing really stupid, ridiculous things.

Speaker 2: 31:31

But yeah, I can, but I can't, I can't look away.

Speaker 1: 31:35

I can't stop. And so when that happens now I try to, I try to catch myself and go I why am I even watching a reaction video? Yeah, oh, my gosh. When I started watching those I was like so now I'm watching a video of somebody watching a video and reacting, just to see what they do.

Speaker 2: 31:55

Yeah, like. I feel, stupid Playing video games. Yeah, just playing a video game. And my daughter used to do that and I didn't watch. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:07

And she used to. My daughter used to watch people on YouTube make slime, yeah, and then play with slime and I'd go. Did she end up making her own slime? Oh, we had it. Like everywhere. Yeah, oh yeah, like everywhere. Like all my Tupperware's got ruined, we had it everywhere.

Speaker 2: 32:19

I had it in the carpet.

Speaker 1: 32:20

Yes, on the carpet, yes, oh my gosh. But I feel like and this definitely is not to insult anybody because a lot of people have made a lot of money out of making videos, you know, either to promote themselves or their influencers, and they're getting paid, but some of it I feel like it almost contributes to, like almost we're being dumbed down.

Speaker 2: 32:43

I was going to say dumbing it down our society, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:47

Because now I will get, I'll get tired and I'll go sit on the couch with my phone. The next thing, I know, I watched an hour of videos and I couldn't even tell you what I watched. Instead of reading a book, yes, or you know, I'm sitting there and my kid is upstairs or on the couch watching videos and we're not talking, and I think that is where there's a problem, like that's an unfortunate side effect of it and that's really.

Speaker 1: 33:20

that's the sociological experiment. Like you know, if I were in college today, that's probably what I would write a thesis on.

Speaker 2: 33:27

How do you break down the nucleus of a family? Introduce to talk yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:32

And the phone. I mean, the phone is just terrible and you know, and I'm just as bad because I've got my phone on me for if Asians are reaching out to me, but you have to turn it off. You know, I have to turn it off. I find the hardest part is that I turn it off and I set it down and then I start going like where's my phone? Like it's not in my hand. I feel like I need to go over and look for it.

Speaker 2: 33:59

So it's just like a detox, though you got to give it time.

Speaker 1: 34:01

It is.

Speaker 2: 34:01

And get used to it.

Speaker 1: 34:03

It is, yeah, well, and the more and I've started kind of researching, like you know, brain activity too and so much of that like that need to have your phone in front of you and the need to be going online and looking at Facebook, which I'm just terrible about. Like you know, my kids are, like you're, addicted and I kind of am, but it's not, it's not for the validation that I I'm looking for on Facebook. It's more like I need this dopamine rush of going in and opening up the lights and seeing the stuff on the screen. That's actually what's grabbing me, yeah, yeah, and it's. There is like a dopamine detox, like people actually have to disconnect from electronics and stuff to kind of get their brains back in the right stasis. Yeah, and because you do, your brain just starts lighting up like crazy. It's like a drug, I agree, but you're right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:06

I mean I said adults too. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 35:09

Absolutely. I mean we unplug.

Speaker 1: 35:11

we go on vacation and there's no like screen time or and I've done that a lot more now Like I used to just feel when I was selling real estate you know at any time like a client could call or a lead and you don't want to miss it, so you want to have your phone on. And when we went on vacation a number of years ago and I got on my phone because I was in the middle of a deal and everybody in the family was like you know, you better not be doing that the whole vacation. You're like scuba diving or like any of the water case for the.

Speaker 1: 35:45

Yeah, I mean, that's it. Like the phone went to the pool. You know, the phone went everywhere. It went on the beach. I always had it on me and that was just really hard. It was hard to disconnect, but it was also hard to try to get my family to understand it. But now, as a broker and I'm talking to agents now I'm preaching to them you need to disconnect from your phone once in a while, because while I was trying to, I was trying to justify why my phone was always on and why I was looking at my phone instead of listening to my child. At the end of the day, that was it was an excuse that again I had some control over that.

Speaker 1: 36:30

So now I tell people, if you're running a business, you always have to have a backup, like somebody has to help you, because you cannot be expected to work 24 seven and at the end of the day, like your life will go by so much faster than you think, you'll look back and you'll be like you know I missed opportunities with my kids. I didn't go to things because I put my business over it and I'm definitely not discounting the need to make money and that that happens, but I think, if business is first and the money is first and the family is second and relationships are second, it will always come around and that's what you'll regret. You'll never regret not doing a. You know, going to an event like you might. It might be a temporary regret, but over your lifetime you'll forget that it even happened. But you will definitely regret Not spending more time with your family, your friends, your children. You know totally agree.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:41

I love and agree with a lot of what you said. Thank, you. Just to kind of wrap things up. Yeah, there is one message that you could give to the world or to an agent, whichever demographic, you kind of want to focus in on. What would that message be?

Speaker 1: 37:58

Oh gosh, I have so many of them. You know, I think for me, when I look back, you know I look back at like so many years that I was really unhappy and you know it starts when you're in high school or it starts probably before before that. Now for girls, but I think in my generation it was more around high school, where you just are, you're always comparing yourself to other people and you're always, you know, looking in the mirror, wishing that you looked a certain way or you had something that you don't have, or you're comparing yourself to celebrities or the popular person in school or whatever, and we just have a tendency to do that, I think, throughout our entire lives in many respects. But at the end of it all, I think the reason that we end up not being happy is because we're really there's something inside of us that we need to figure out and at the end of it, I think what they call that really is self love and self acceptance. You just have to and you can accept.

Speaker 1: 39:15

You know you can accept who you are and you cannot like things that happen to you and you can reject things that have happened to you and circumstances and people in your life. You have to shed that stuff and you have to get rid of, you know, relationships that are not good for you and circumstances that are not good for you. Try to figure out your way out of it. But we are our worst critics and we also should be our best cheerleaders. And once that clicks and when I see it with other people that's where your business takes off, it's where professionally you take off, it's where your family life, all the things that you want like, start falling into place and think everybody has to come to that place at some point, or I hope that they do.

Speaker 2: 40:07

So not only are you their broker, you're also their therapist. They're your mindset, I do.

Speaker 1: 40:12

I do a lot of that Like yeah, and people, you know, some of my agents will come in sometimes and and when they start talking I realize it's not about the business and it's not about it's. It has nothing to do with real estate, it's about other things. And I try to walk that line because it's not really necessarily my business. But in my, in my office, like I'll have agents say something and then they'll go oh, wait a minute, we're not allowed to use that word in the office. Yeah, you know, I'm like we don't use the word you know, can or wish or whatever. Like you have to speak positively and speak the word authoritatively and talk about things as if they're happening for you.

Speaker 1: 41:00

Not that you wish they'll happen. Yeah, if you want it, make it happen. So it's gratifying when I have an agent come in and we'll have a conversation and I'll just say you know, it sounds like this is nothing to do with the deal or the relationship or the transaction. It sounds like there's more to it and sometimes they'll just start talking and and I'm always honored that anybody would choose to share something with me but if I can give advice or just give them an ear, and it's what they need in that moment, like I'm honored to be that person for them. That's amazing, yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:40

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing pieces of your story your journey and all the amazing things that you do now how can people get a hold of you?

Speaker 1: 41:49

You can find me on Facebook, you can find me on rubyslippersathomecom and I'm at Coldwell Banker in Woodbridge and Fairfax Awesome.

Speaker 2: 42:01

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Thank you.