KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Hostage No Longer with Michelle Renee

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Legend podcast. You guys today, I'm extremely stoked to share this powerful woman's story with you all. Literally, you guys are in for a treat. Michelle Renee, CEO of Verb Media Group, a video and podcast production company, published author, and Total Travel Zellet. Welcome, girl. Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. I'm, like I said, I am super stoked. And, you know, it's cool. It's like we connected through Deanna Rogers, who's, you know, she has her event company and she's works deep with digital marketer and all those great brands. We got connected in the Women Elevation Group, which was like, I don't know, it was like, I was immediately, like, hooked on you because

of your story, just your personality, just everything you've got going on. You've been through so much. And it's funny, like, you know, like, it's funny because people say, like, your story, your life sounds like it should be a movie. No, like, Literally, you have a movie based on a major event that had changed the trajectory of your life. So let's start there. Yeah. So it's interesting because a lot of people, and I think this goes back, it goes a little bit further back. So I'm going to go a little further back because it all sort of ties together in the end and

I'll keep it pretty quick and brief. But I grew up in a really difficult household and my childhood was really difficult. and I ended up leaving home when I was 15. I ended up having lots of various kinds of jobs, including, I mean, I went to CNA school. I went just trying to be a dental assistant. I was a stripper. I did all these things. And I really think that that grit of the way that I was raised once you look back on it,

and this is just for your listeners to understand, kind of to take a step back and look at all of the connected dots, if you will, of your life, to what led you up to where you sort of are now. And in my case, it really started at birth or childhood or whatever. And so I ended up deciding that I was going to go into banking because I didn't like being a CNA. I'm too emotional. I would take everybody else's pain home with me. It was not great.

I'm one of those people. Like, I feel everything. I'm a raw nerve all the time. And so I thought that wasn't it. So I decided to try to be a dental assistant because obviously I'm not going to be a exotic dancer for the rest of my life, right? That was just a fun, crazy phase. And so I decided I'm going to go and I'm going to be a dental assistant. Worst job ever. It was just suction and drilling noises all day long and I was like, I can't do this eight hours a day. I'm out of here. So I ended up

going into banking and I found out that I really love the structure of it. And it also, this is a psychological part of it. It also gave me a way to sort of hide behind this very corporate job and a very corporate suit and a very corporate persona every day. It was almost like my alter ego. I didn't have to identify sort of with my past or deal with my past or my childhood or anything like that. I could wear the banker executive banker mask, right? So 13 years later, I'm in banking, loving it actually really enjoying it and we ended up being cased the branch that I was was managing and I was an assistant VP case my bank followed me home and discovered that I was a single mom living in a rural area fast forward two months they broke the door down they held us hostage all

night long they had guns on us they duct taped us they put what they told us were dynamite sticks on our back and in the morning they took my daughter, put her in the closet, duct taped her up, and forced me to rob the bank or they said that they were going to murder her. And so that's what happened. I obviously, one of them, the ringleader, drove me down to the bank and I cleaned out the vault, robbed the bank, and started really two and a half years of rebuilding my life and coming out of so much trauma, not only from that event, but because of that event, all of the trauma I had sort of never dealt with that I just talked about with my childhood. Everything came to the surface that night, everything. And it kind of does when you feel like you're preparing to die. And that's

what happened. And so I spent the next two and a half years in the criminal trial and being in Alaska for a year. I drove from San Diego to Alaska by myself in my car and camped and really started this incredible, really just an incredible healing journey because of this catalytic traumatic event that did change my life. And I had a choice to make. I could let it change my life for for good or for bad. And I chose to heal my life and let it change my life in every possible positive way I could, I could think of. It's so crazy. Like what I love to you, I think like, why we jive so well. We have so many similarities, Scorpio's. Shout out to Scorpio babies. But also, it's funny. It's like, I didn't know that about you when it comes to the CMA and stuff.

I didn't go that direction, but similar background in the point of I grew up with a single, you know, mom, household, low-income housing, and, you know, when you become an adult, I already had a child. I had a child when I was a child, so, you know, going through that, having been grown up quickly. But then it's like in the area that I grew up in, it's like there's two, there's two ways to, like, really, like, get money without going to school in a sense of, when I say school, like the college, the whole four-year plan, I didn't have four years. It was either medical field in some sort or real estate slash banking type area. And I went, I started college for nursing. I couldn't get through an episode of Dr. Nano 210.

And I'm like, this is not for me. Like, I can't, I can't see people paying. I can't do it. So that's the Scorpio and us. We feel everything. So that's why I went to baking. And what's crazy is, I remember one night, we were locking up. I mean, I was making $6.55 an hour as a bank teller.

And we were locking up. I mean, you just think about, like, I'm just looking back on like six, like, it's just not worth that money. I mean, obviously gained a bunch of professional experience. It was great, you know, to be connected with people. But during that time, it was like, you know, whenever it starts getting darker earlier, the time change, we were locking up. It was me and this new girl. And we were locking up.

And I thought I saw somebody go by like the drive-thru. And I turned around and right about it. And I turned around. I saw a gun pointed at me. It was a cop, thankfully. It wasn't just some random person, but it was a cop with his gun at me. And he said, get down. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I got down.

And what happened was, and this girl's, poor thing. She was like crying. I'm like, hey, like, we're in here safe. Like, we're locked there. I don't know what's going on, but it's out there, not here. We'll come to find out there's a little creek that ran between me, or us, our bank and another bank. And the other bank had just gotten robbed as we were about to leave. So like, fortunate for us, it wasn't us having to go through that experience and it ended up everything, you know, I guess they ended up catching them later on or whatever. I don't know how that all worked out. But I got scared enough just seeing that side of the protection side. I can only imagine like actually handle, you know,

experiencing what you experience. Like, girl, like, who does to you? So like, you know, when you go through all that, like, and you literally pivoted, like you just changed the whole. You went from like corporate job to like super creative power woman that's like making a name for herself. So what would you say for people who go through like traumatic experiences like that? And, you know, you could have allowed that traumatic experience to find who you are. you could have fell victim to it and you could have literally just, you know, went under the radar for the rest of your life. Like, what would you suggest to people who go through traumatic experiences like that to kind of pull themselves together and then really just, you know, make the best out of it? I mean, I think the number one thing for me was being with the absolute best therapist that I could have ever had for me and the absolute best therapist that my daughter could have ever had for her.

that was one of the greatest decisions I've ever made in our life. And I think it's not only about finding the right therapist, but being committed to doing what your therapist says to do. I mean, you can go to therapy and let it go in one ear and out the other. Or you can go into therapy and you can be committed to healing. And that's exactly what I was because for me, I had to figure out some way, somehow in the middle of my own trauma,

four in the morning crying, freaking out, still hearing their voices, still smelling the duct tape, still, every little thing you can imagine, it sounds, it sights, it smells, it's all of that that is involved in PTSD. And when you're in the throes of post-trauma, and you have a child who's also in major, major trauma. I became the parent of a child I had never known before. Like my child completely changed overnight from an independent, fun, loving child to really barely speaking and clinging to me and afraid of the entire world, including Santa

clocks. That Christmas was really difficult. We usually had Santa, you know, we usually pretended Santa would come and, you know, have the jingle bells and throw rocks up on the roof to make it sound like, you know, the deer were landing on the roof, like the whole night, right? I went all out. And again, a Scorpio thing. Like, I'm all out, right? So that year, she wouldn't come out of her room. She said, I can't go out there, Mommy. What if Santa's one of them? So I had to figure out a way to not only heal from my trauma,

but parent a child in trauma at the same time and put my own trauma aside so that I could help her and put her first. And when she maybe finally asleep or whatever at 9 o'clock at night in the bed next to me, that's when my trauma would hit and I would be up all night. and that's when I could cry and that's when I could. So I had to just navigate all of that as a parent and someone in the throes of PTSD and make a firm decision that I was committed to healing and ask myself the question, what is this really about?

You know, instead of why me, and that's number two. So one is therapy, number two, and not just therapy, but committed to healing. Number two is ask yourself the right questions. Stop asking why me. That is like, it's a pet peeve for me that people just dwell on why me. And that's what keeps people stuck in victim mode. So if you're committed to breaking free of being a victim, because yes, we were a victim that night, but how long you remain a victim is a choice.

In my opinion, this is just my opinion. You get to choose how long you stay a victim. Yes, we were victims that night, 150%. but choosing to stay a victim for the rest of my life has nothing to do with them and it has everything to do with me and my mindset and the choices that I'm making for my life and my daughter's life, right? And so I started deciding to ask myself and ask if you believe in God or the universe or energy, which I'm a believer in all of that.

I'm super spiritual. I would ask, what am I meant to gain from this? Not what I lost, stop focusing on what you lost, but what can you? you gain from this? And that was the question I continue to even today, to ask myself, even today with the whole corona thing going on, what am I meant to gain from this? I never take on the mindset or think that I'm defeated or take on that defeated attitude, right? So just continue to ask yourself the right questions that are going to propel you forward instead of keep you stuck. So I would say those are my top. And then and then the third thing, I would say the number

three thing, this might sound silly or whatever, but the number three thing for me is to begin to write down everything, everything that you used to love about life, everything that I loved about life when I was a kid, right? Even though I grew up in a really traumatic environment, when I would escape that environment by going out into nature, by riding a bike, by running, by whatever it is, by playing softball. It was huge into softball, right? Anything that was sort of my escape. So I started remembering who I really was and how long it had been since I really did

the things that made me truly, deeply, deeply happy and made me truly experience a sense of peace and satisfaction and, you know, all of those things. So that would be the third thing to really start to tap. into who you really are and the things that really, really make you happy and stop putting those on the back burner and get out there and start doing them. That's amazing, amazing advice. I mean, like, literally, it's not just like some idea that you're sitting there like, oh, I think people through Trump should do this. No, like, you lived it, you breathed it, you went through that. So, like, that's just amazing advice. So another cool story, I mean, girl, you're just full of

like, interesting stories, like to say the little. I call it a colorful. life. It's been very colorful. After all of that, like that's not, like, as if that's not enough already, now you take on the task of after you're pulling yourself together, you're starting to like, you know, obviously you see how you can utilize this to help other people and to help other people to share your story, right? I mean, there's all these stories. Everyone has a story and if we just share it in our way, we all can all help somebody. So now you're going on this mission from, okay, obviously banking is not for you anymore.

Now you're going to on a mission to share your story, inspire other people, and just reach out and let people know that, hey, you know, I've been to this. I've healed and you can too. So now let's talk about the story of how you got it to PR. That's an interesting one as well. Yeah, because I, after the kidnapping thing, we were told that there were some retaliation issues happening and that it would probably be better if we left town kind of thing.

And so we decided to go, my mother-in-law at the time, my ex-mother-in-law at the time, lived in Alaska. And so I flew up there with my daughter, got her settled in and said, just spent four days up there getting her settled in. And I was going to come back and I had no idea what I was going to do. Give away her stuff. I didn't know where I just wanted to get her out of harm's way. So I ended up coming back. But before I left Alaska, I really got this really kind of a divine message to just come back. get rid of everything I had and drive back to Alaska and stay in Alaska and live in Alaska.

So that was the fly. I just listened to that inner calling. And I came back and I got rid of absolutely everything. I had a Kia Sportage with 108,000 miles on it and a tiny blue and white cooler. You know, the little plastic blue and white coolers, the old fashioned ones. Yeah. Yeah, one of those. I have one of those and packed up my little tiny Kia Sportage and with some cans of tuna.

And literally like the little boxes of cereal, you peel open the top and it becomes the bowl. Like I'm not joking you. This really, this is for real. I'm like, I'm listening to the inner calling. I don't know how this is really going to come together and happen because I have no money. I have nothing, but I'm going to listen and I'm going to do this, right?

So I get in my car and I decide I'm going to drive from San Diego to Alaska by myself and I'm going to camp a whole way. And that's what happened. And the miracles that continue to show up and the people and the situations that happened all the way to Alaska that led me to Alaska. And when I finally got there, I was living with my mother-in-law. I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do for the rest. What am I going to do for the rest of my life?

And she said, and I said, I really want to go back to school and get my GED because I dropped out of high school when I ran away at 15, 16. And so that's a whole other story. And so I went back to school, got my GED, and she said, you're really good at connecting with people. Like, you were so great in banking because you were, kind of a connector. You're good at customer service. Why don't you do PR? So I decide I'm going to do PR. Go back to school, finally in a college in Anchorage, Alaska, taking communication and

PR classes, come back down here and I decide I'm going to start an organization, but I have no money to do PR. So I start doing my own PR and someone goes, Michelle, you can't do your own PR. That looks bad. Like you need somebody to represent you because that looks better. I'm like, I can't afford for somebody to represent me. So I decided. to make up a PR person's name. And the name is my alter ego, Melissa, and the last name of a boyfriend that I felt really bad about how I treated him. He was kind of the one that got away. And his last name just happened to be rich, which I thought was amazing. So I'm going to name my PR person, Melissa Rich. And I got a cheap burner phone that was a completely different phone number than

mine and I made up an email that was Melissa Rich and I started doing PR for myself under an assumed name and it worked. It was amazing. We got so depressed. It was ridiculous and everyone kept asking, who's doing your PR? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So I started doing other people's PR too and that's literally how I fell into PR and yeah, it's kind of a cool funny story but that's that's how it all I love it. But now, I mean, like, you are knocking out of the park because you are, you know, not only are you into this like just PR, but you're also like a major, like a mega connector. You're, you know, connecting influencers with podcasters. And you're really doing like the next level podcasting. And for those to know me, they know I'm all DIY podcasting, like do it yourself. But there comes a point in time whenever it's like, okay, you're, you can only do it yourself for so long to where when you're wanting to branch out to that next level. I mean, we all seeing the deal that Joe Rogan got that. hundred dollar the hundred million dollar deal with Spotify he didn't get all that doing DIY himself he went through production companies and you know i see his studio right he's got like multiple cameras yeah yeah so it's like you know obviously getting started doing it yourself you know like you said

no resources be resourceful type i mean no money be resourceful type thing but let's kind of talk about what you're doing right now with the visual storytelling and then how you're helping other podcasters right now really kind of take it up that that next level through visual storytelling and then also top-notch production. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is to make sure that you're focused on a story, right? I mean, the biggest thing is that you go in with a plan. You go in that you're going to tell a story, whether it's a story of a person's, you know,

life or the influencer story or the brand story or even the product has a story. Like, you have to remember that the reason people buy, the reason people click is because of some sort of story that it is, that you're relaying. that's triggering something in them. So you're not, you always have to remember, you're marketing and you're talking to other humans or people, even if it isn't face-to-face, and they're just listening to you on a podcast,

you have to remember it's still that human-to-human connection. And humans throughout time have loved what? Stories in music, in theater, in anything. They love stories. So always keep the story in mind and keep the end of that story in mind at all times. and I again, podcasting just kind of fell into my lap.

I knew that that PR, traditional PR, was on its way out. So I started video, ended up again being resourceful. I learned Premiere Pro on my own. I learned Final Cut Pro. I learned everything to do with video, everything on my own,

never took a class, and it ended up falling into my lap. And I'm a constant student. Like for me, I am a constant student, right? And so I ended up launching a podcast a couple years ago, and now it's getting to the point where we just booked Grant Cardone, we're booking Tom Ferry, Mike Ferry, Billy Gina's marketing, you know, Mikey Taylor, so many people, like Jesse Hitzler, like so many people.

And so for me, I want to help other people by saying, I learn this, I learn these things. These are 14 ways that you can start your podcast, how to be great. Here's how you set up kind of your Trello in order to make a really successful podcast. Believe it or not, there's 14 things to launch it to get it started. And then there's 64 steps that every episode that goes out is a 64 step process to make sure you're dotting every eye and crossing every T. And so I want to share that with other people. I want other people to be successful.

I don't have a scarcity mindset at all. It's abundance mindset and I believe 150% reciprocity that what you put out eventually comes back around. I even had somebody the other day yesterday, as a matter of fact, say, I really want you to teach this class, blah, blah, blah, but I don't really know. what's in it for you, I don't operate that way. What's in it for me is that I'm giving to you. And to me, that is my absolute secret, is that no one can outwork me. No one can outwork me. I have an amazing work ethic. But I also never go around just thinking about what's in it

for me. I'm thinking about it is as much as I can give, eventually I'm going to get back. So for me, those are the ways that I kind of operate and how I want to help other people and how I want to show up on the planet. I mean, and that's why I love about you. Like, you are such an amazing human being, but you're also like amazing quality of production, amazing PR, amazing everything. So, I mean, Michelle, thank you so much for share your story and then just being just an amazing human being and just kick ass. So where? I'm so happy we connected on Luminow. and shout out to Deanna Rogers.

Love you. Thanks for connecting us. This has been a really, this has been a really beautiful connection that I really appreciate. I really appreciate it, Holly. Really does. Well, I'm all over social media.

So I'm a big social media person. I really believe in that tool as a connection, you know, as a business connection type of tool. I really love it. So you can find me on Instagram, Michelle Renee. You can also visit verbmediagroup.com. I love it. But yeah, definitely, you guys, you are in for a treat, Michelle, as you just heard in this short amount of time.

She just showed how an amazing being she is. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. You too. Bye.