KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Become the CEO of Your Life

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Welcome to the Real Estate Fight Club, a podcast for agents where you'll witness a battle of opinions about topics affecting your real estate business. There are many ways for agents to achieve success. The secret is to find which approach will work for you. Now, always in your corner. Here are your hosts, Jen Mertland and Monica Weekly. Welcome to another episode of Real Estate Fight Club. What's up, Jennifer Mertland? What's up, Monica?

This is some good stuff today. This is kind of chartering into unique territory for us, and I like it. And I think it's time and I think it's past due, right? For us, for our listeners, for everybody. This is an everybody thing, guys. This is an everybody thing. So today, Jen and I are going to be duking it out over this question. How do you become the CEO of your life?

Is that possible in our industry? How necessary is it? There are all kinds of questions around that. And I'm super excited for our guest, Victoria, today. Go ahead and introduce her, Jen. Yes, it is time for all of us to level up. So Victoria McHooey is here with us today. She is a narcissist divorce coach.

Wait, hold on, stop right there. We all need this. should cover it. And also, yes, she'll tell us more about that. Also a motivational speaker and creator of the reclaim your power system. Yeah.

Wait. This is going to be good. Yeah. She works with those trapped in toxic, controlling and otherwise abusive marriages. And I would say clients as a. Correct. Toxic abusive clients also.

Yes. And she helps them stand up to their abuser and, regain control of their lives through her writing, speaking, private and group coaching sessions, social media following, and her YouTube channel, Victoria has helped thousands acquire the skills, mindset, shifts, and courage necessary to stand up to an abusive partner and to create a joyful new life for themselves and their children. Welcome, Victoria. We are excited to have you. Thanks so much for inviting me. I'm happy to be here. Yay. And guys, if you, heard the intro and you're like, well, I'm in a pretty good relationship and my partner or spouse is

not a narcissist per se. Listen, that's her area of expertise and we'll probably touch on some of that, but we're talking about a more broad topic here today, which is just kind of owning your life, taking charge of it and running it like you want instead of letting others control that, right? Victoria, tell us, give us a little bit. You're married to a realtor so you know who we are. talk to us about that a little bit. Oh, about being married to a realtor? Yeah. My husband and my son, and that is not his son, it's my son from a previous marriage,

are partners in their real estate group at Compass. So we pretty much live, breathe, eat. The rest of us need to leave the room sometimes because they're obsessed and all they do. All of us are annoying. What I like about that is that you can appreciate what this job, if done at any love, can do to a human, to a relationship, to everything. You know how demanding it is, right? It is because he's on the phone at 10, 11 o'clock at night

with would-be buyers talking them down off the ledge or somebody having a meltdown or an irate owner about whatever. And the stories about how he's camped out at somebody's house waiting for the plumber to come. Yeah, it's crazy what you guys have to go through. Well, Victoria, one of the reasons why we wanted to have you on was because of your reclaim, your power system. And I think that for us as agents, especially female agents, sometimes it's like, is this really a business or is it just a hobby? I'm here for everybody else. I put myself last.

Tell us, are you seeing that kind of across like, is it just a realtor thing or is it everybody? No, it's everybody because we have been groomed to be the camera. caregivers, nurturers, household person on call 100% of the time. For everybody, but ourselves. Everybody else. So when you decide to create a business for yourself, which is what this is, you have a choice to make. It can be a hobby or you can decide that you're going to grow a real business.

And nobody can get up with you. So I'm not disparaging people who decide they just want to play at it and have a hobby and they're not. I am, Victoria, I am disparaging them. Listen, that's what you can. I'm not judging. I'm just saying, expect a business to grow out of nothing, like out of you just treating it like a hobby. If that's all you want, fine, that's all you're going to get. But in any line of work, if you're going to make it, I know, I created this business that I'm in at age 57. I'm old. That's when it just gets started, right?

I mean, I left a corporate job. My husband was like, this is not a good time for you to leave your job. I'm like, it is never going to be a good time for me to leave. I'm doing it. You took it. All the benefits under my job, right, for everybody. They were still younger and some were still at home. And I was like, this is a toxic situation at work that I have to leave.

This is what I want to do. I was doing it as a hobby and as a volunteer. I'm like, I'm making this a business and I'm doing it. And let me tell you, it was not easy. It didn't just all of a sudden make money right out of the gate. It was a long, hard struggle and what's paying off now. And now he's so proud and like, oh, of course. I helped you.

And it was his idea. Yes. Yeah. And it was just, no, he's really, no, I'm supportive. But, Victoria, tell me. Yeah. Okay, we know what this looks like when it's happening. when we're putting everybody else in front of our needs.

We know what it looks like. What's the root cause of this? Where does this start? We're women. We have the biggest shoulders of anyone. We're supposed to be able to handle everything. Yeah. This is a challenge for men too sometimes or not just so much.

I don't know. You know, I've never been a man. So I don't really know how they feel. But for my observations, I feel like they get a bigger pass on taking care of everything else. So how do you, if you know it's a problem, and you already said, and we already know, change is hard.

And it's never a good time is what you said, which is true for anything that we're changing. It's never a good time. How do we get over that hump when we know that it needs to happen, but we're scared? Okay. How do you know it's time?

How do you know? This is what I show my clients all the time. This is my role of tape. Okay. This side here is your comfort zone. Even if it's uncomfortable, it's still your comfort zone. It's what you know. It's what you expect.

It's like you're familiar, right? All change happens out here. Outside of your comfort zone. Outside. We put this a thousand times, right? And it's still true. Nothing is going to change unless you do things differently. But it's scary.

Yeah. What's the first thing to do? Well, you know, my clients are people trying to leave a marriage that's toxic. and that's the biggest fear of all. Like, they're going to, if they were bullied in the marriage, can you imagine how bad it's going to be when they try to leave? It's going to escalate. So, yeah, it's powerful how scary this is.

But just like everything else, it's worth it if you can make it to the other side of outside of the tape. It's worth getting through. But this is also true for clients that we know we've been in relationship too long. We've shown them too many houses. We know they're not ready or whatever, right? It's true for if we know we're with the wrong brokerage and we know we need to move somewhere else.

I mean, it's even something simpler than that, but it's still the same tips, the same mindset. Well, not all women are sweet, but that's like what we were groomed to be. We're supposed to be nice. We're supposed to be sweet. We're supposed to be helpful right now. I've met a lot of women who are.

My mom failed on that. Is Becky going to listen to this? episode. I better apologize. But I think here's my trick. This is my personal trick for like sometimes I have to let go of a toxic client, right? Just like you do. I do it with as much love in my heart as I can. I gather up all the love I can possibly give. And I know that this is not good for that person either. This is not a good relationship for her either. So I lovingly with all the love I can muster say, I need to release this person back out into the world and let her figure out her own way without you because this is hurting me. If I'm if I'm drained from this one person now I can't

help all the other people who need things. And I think that's a key point we need to make sure that people here because it is it's like one it's good for them also because if you're feeling drained and you're feeling frustrated it's not like you're hiding it right like they're probably you're not showing up your best. Yeah. You're not showing. Yeah. And you're also, to your point, Monica, you're also like isolating everybody else you could be helping. There's no room for those people to come in. Right. So I think it's with us, with loving your heart and a smile on your face, with no apology, it's not an apology. It's like, it's time for our relationship to end. I've done as much as I can do and I wish you well.

How to break up with a bad seller by Victoria Macui. There you could do. go, gang, you heard it here first. But you know what? We all see dollar signs. We start seeing, I've invested X amount of hours. Yes. Person. And I'm going to cut off my nose despite my face now.

Now after I've invested all these. But if it's draining you, it's a business decision. And this is about being the CEO of your life, right? You don't want, you have to weigh everything like a business decision. Yes, I've invested X number of hours. hours, but do I want to continue investing X number? It's like firing about it. Never ending.

Some cost bias right there. Yeah. What if you want to be the CEO of your life, but you are in a marriage or a partnership, how does that show up? How do you become the CEO of your own life when you've got partners, whether they be kids, husband, wife, spouse partner? Whatever. How do you run that from that position?

It's a decision. You have to make and you set the tone and they will make fun and they will disparage and they will belittle all those things. But it's up to you to have the conviction that you're doing this. And it doesn't matter what anyone else says or does or thinks. You're doing it. And eventually they will fall in line. How do you keep up with the willpower? Because this is not like something that will you make the decision and it happens overnight, right? Because maybe you've been acting this way for 30 years or whatever. So what is your advice on that? Well, I did it first because I was working out of the home, right?

I was working at home. And I was still expected to do all the things that went on at the home. While you're working. I started leaving. And that's the best thing you can do. I went to the library. I blocked out four hours, five hours, whatever it was. It's like, I'm at work.

Right. It's my job now. And it says I used to commute from Long Island into the city. Nobody was asking me to do anything. I wasn't there. I wasn't right. So now all of a sudden it's like, oh, you're home. Can you run to the drugstore?

Can you do it? I'm gone. Yeah. That's actually such good advice for agents because a lot of us work from home and we don't realize the little interruptions and how hard it is to get back on track. And there are all kinds of stats about one interruption. You lose 20 minutes before you can get back in. and those add up. So I love that. I love that. Yeah, yeah. Well, now, I mean, that's what I love about

what I do is that I make my own hours, I make my own schedule, I put my availability into a calendar, I am the CEO of my, I, you come to me on my terms, on my time. Then it works for me. And I don't really, I'm not flexible. Because when you get to a level, you see yourself as important and people fall in line. Just like I said, they go, oh, well, now I have a higher value in their mind. Right. Yeah. What do you think is at the core of the, I'm going to call it fear, because I'm imagining it's fear. What are people most afraid of when facing that decision to take back their life and become the CEO? What is that fear? I think. Don't you think you're familiar? Or loss, I guess. Like, if I go do what I'm going to do, like these people that I love are not going to support and

fall behind. Like, I don't know. Very individual. They're not supporting you anyway. Right. I think there's a lot of imposter syndrome. Like, I really don't know what I'm doing. And I haven't really found out, people don't realize I don't know what I'm doing. Nobody knows what they're doing at first. That's true. That's true. Even later, I know some realtors, they've been in business for a long time. They still do not know what they're doing. Yeah, that's true. What do you think holds, I don't know how I want to ask this, but basically like what gets in people, way. So I've made the decision and I'm like, okay, I'm ready. But then I just like go back. Is it just

simply wanting to be like back comfortable, not willing to be in the uncomfortable for long enough? I think there's something else. So many things. I think it could be and it's probably a combination of a lot of things that this is harder than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. A higher learning curve than I thought there would be. It's like dieting and losing weight, right? Like it doesn't take that long to put it on and get the bad habits, but if you want to lose weight, it takes a lot longer. Right? Because, I mean, I've done it. I know that you can diet, diet, diet, diet, and nothing happened. So you give up. But you were just about to get to that place where all of a sudden pounds start ticking off, right? So yeah, you have to get to that sweet spot. And it's hard when you don't see a result at first.

So sorry, just like with starting a business, you're not seeing a result. You're not seeing money come in at first. It's really difficult to keep going. Yeah. So you are in essence a coach. I mean, at the core of what you do is you help. She's coach. Through there. Yep. What are some of the most effective maybe questions that you ask or that like what I love in a good coach is when you get poked in the eyes, like straight in the eyes, you know? Like that's what I value in a coach where they're like, I see right through you and I'm going to poke you right in the eyes. That to me is what I'm paying for. What do you think some of those

concepts are for you when you're really helping somebody through this. Is that a fair question to ask or something you can answer? I think what I like to do, I always say my work has two silos and we work on two silos at the same time. One is the business of doing what it is you're setting out to do. In my case, it's leaving a toxic marriage. In your case, it's starting a real estate business. And the other silo is about improving your self-esteem, your self-worth, and your self-confidence. And you can't- gap of who you are and who you need to be? So you can't complete one without the other. And you can't wait to the one's done to start the, right?

So you have to do them simultaneously. So that's what we do. We bounce back and forward. I like that visual because I think people complicate those two things or mix those two things often. Thank you. Yeah, I like that. That's a good visual for that.

Well, I think making things harder too than they, like keeping it simple, makes, forces you to recognize when you're the one that's being inconsistent, when you make it hard, you can create excuses. My very first coach, when I decided to start this business, my first business coach said, you know, I put these three things up on your wall. Keep it simple, stupid, right, kids? Less is more.

Yes. And do it now. Yes. Those are three. Let me tell you, those three indexed cards. Universal. That was what it took in the beginning to keep up the work and keep building and keep the momentum going,

because it's so easy to give up. Yeah, that less is more is really, I think, one of the biggest misunderstood concepts or not practiced concepts for whatever reason, I guess. Hank, Aving, hey, hang. He always says he's my coach and has been for a long time. He says addition is subtraction and subtraction is multiplication. And it's that same concept that less is more.

So that's good one. if you get rid of like the client that you know that you should get rid of, right? We all have at least one client that we know we should get rid of. If you get rid of that person, you will like multiply your business, right? It's just one person, but you'll get way more than if you kept that person and we're just grumpy all the time. And listen, you know, in the beginning, you have to kiss a lot of frogs. You get what you get in the beginning and you learn from it.

And just as long as you're learning. and practicing, fine. That's what I did. You know, in the beginning, I was taking clients on for like next to nothing so that I could get the momentum, the practice of doing it, and I didn't feel like a fraud.

So that's what it takes. Oh, what was I about to say? Something about the less is more, oh, a lot of times you fall into this perfectionist thing, like when you all yourself out and you like, oh, well, if it's not perfect, I can't, I can't do it. Like, I can't put it out there. I can't put that ad out because it could be better.

And that's where the less is more comes in, I think. Like, done is better than perfect. Yeah. Well, the good news is, is actually you can never reach perfect ever. No, no. So the good news is... It's a self-sabotage tool, right? Well, yeah, I think it's...

Monica always says, like, you can have results or reasons. You can't have both. And it's easy to have reasons or excuses if you're trying to be perfect, but all you're really doing is... just making excuses for yourself. Elimiting the results. That's for sure. Yeah. That's for sure. You know, Jen, you and I talk all the time about running your business like a business,

which is in essence you being the CEO of your business and thinking like that. But it's not something we talk about as it pertains to our personal life. And I think it almost has to go along with it. Like you said, Victoria, those are really important. So my question is, Victoria, when you see, I'm guessing you coach women in particular who succeed through your system. and get to the point where they are out of the toxic relationship or they are controlling their lives. And then I'm sure you see a lot of people that just never get there. I don't know. That doesn't mean

you're not a good coach. That just means you're coaching a lot of people probably. So what is the common thread, if that's a fair statement, what is the common thread amongst the people who succeed and get to that place in their life that they want to be? It is 100% all about self-worth. Self-worth. Absolutely. How do we gain that? Some people are, or have, have a tougher road to home, right? They have a lot of childhood trauma, damage, whatever. And yeah, we all do to some extent, but it's harder for some people to overcome than others.

And I don't judge. And I'm not a therapist. So the difference, let me just tell you, the difference for you coaching and therapy, right? So coaches look forward. We're trying to get you to the next thing that you want. Therapists are unpacking and figuring out what happened before. Good point.

I'm not unpacking. I'm not looking back at why the way you are. I'm just trying to, so if sometimes they aren't ready, they're just not ready to go. And I'm glad you also think it's not my fault, but I don't think it's my fault either. No, it's not your fault. Some people are just not in the place yet and they need to do some bigger work than I'm capable of doing with them. That's interesting. If they haven't unpacked, because it's programming, right? Self-worth is, comes from programming. Somewhere back in something. We can all improve.

Well, for sure. So if you have a reprogram. Can you move forward from, if you ignore the past? If you don't have the therapy, can you move forward? So since I'm not a therapist, I don't like to make suggestions about how, who needs therapy and what their best or any of that. For me personally, of course, I've got childhood trauma. I think everybody has some childhood childhood childhood.

Everybody does. There are things that I know could haunt me. I choose not to let them. Now, I don't know if that's healthy. I don't know if I've tried to go to therapy. I've never found a good fit with a therapist that worked for me. And I know there are tons of excellent therapists. My friends go to them.

But I've never been successful in therapy. So I choose to, yes, I understand, but I choose not to think about that or dwell on it. leave it back there and move forward. Yeah. Right. How do you, if you're working on, what are some of your suggestions or favorite resources or strategies to gain self-worth and to keep that in your head because we all have this negative self-talk.

So how do we keep that in the forefront? It sounds so silly and dumb, but it works, right? Saying affirmation. Mm-hmm. I love affirmation. So my clients are typically, women. I do have men, but for the most part, they're women who are married to controlling or abusive men. They are experiencing so much negative talk, disparaging, belittling, degrading, harassing,

you're stupid, you're ugly, nobody likes you, like all that. And even if you don't believe it, it seems to it. It sure does. Your brain is hearing it. Yeah, and processing that. Yeah. With affirmations. So we're undoing, we're trying to undo the negative talk, the negative, the messaging they're getting by putting in positive messaging. So it's, even if you don't believe it, it still seeps in. And eventually you start believing it. This is what happens with the negative messaging. So I always say like change your environment and change your life, right? So you're essentially saying that. So if you have this environment where you're trying, you want your life to be different, you have to change your environment, whether that means getting out of the

relationship, firing the client, changing brokerages, like, whatever it is. And then you get kind of like the second chance to create something different because you're in a new environment. That's true. And nobody's coming to rescue you. Go ahead. I'm sorry, but nobody's coming to rescue you. You got to do the work. Right. And it feels so good when you rescue yourself. It feels so much better. Then how you else rescue you. So true. I mean, the difference in how I feel about myself owning this business that I grew and made it a success versus working for a company. Well, you gain strength, right? And in strength, there's confidence, which propels you to the next more, like then the next thing is not as difficult. You know,

you can do it. So much more fulfilling, you know. Yeah. So that's awesome. Different type of person. So I have a male client that I was just on the phone with yesterday or on Zoom. And, you know, I've been telling him to do affirmations and he's been doing them. And, you know, I could tell they were really working, but he didn't really make the connection. And then he said, oh, I watched this documentary about Mike Tyson and his coach was always telling him, you're the best, you're the best, you're the strongest, you can do this, you can do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, and now that his coach died, he's like not doing as well because he's missing, like, dude, that's what I've been telling you to do all this. Right. There it is. That's so true. I've always been frustrated with people

that think that affirmations are not for them or they're cheesy or they're woo-wooey or whatever. But when you understand the brain, the science of it, I mean, the brain's job is to prove whatever it is that's in it. Like it goes to look for evidence. So if all that's going in is you suck, you're the worst, you're not worthy, whatever. The brain's like looking for evidence for that constant. That proves it. That proves it. Right. But when you replace that with the positive, now your brain's like, oh, you are awesome. Look at you did that. Oh, you are.

Yeah. Yeah. What's your favorite affirmation, Monica? Well, the one I've been saying for many, many years, I mean, I have several of them, but the one that's always consistent is money flows to me freely and frequently in great abundance increasing all the time. Money flows to me freely and frequently in great abundance increasing all the time. And you do it with that emotion where your body believes like it's actually happening

because your brain doesn't really know the difference between an affirmation. smacked with money. Wads of money. And it's happening, right? Yes. And so that's one. I mean, I don't do so many of the like, they're amazing kind of affirmations, but, um, you might not quite that way either. They're not as cheesy.

Like, one of my favorites is I'm the architect of my life. I built, I build its foundation and I choose its content. Oh, I like it. That's a good one. That's a good one down. Jim, what do you do them? What do you have gone? Of course.

I have. I am a powerful magnet for passive leverage and active income. Powerful magnet. Yes. I like that one. Oh my gosh. This is good. There's so many concepts here.

Victoria, do you have any parting thoughts that you want to share for us, fabulous realtors and in the space that you know so? Yeah, it's all within you. And it's all up to you to make the decision and make it non-negotiable. And then everybody else will have to abide by your new boundaries. Or your prospect.

for new people, you know? Right. That's right. Victoria, if people want to learn more about reclaim your power and they want to get into your world, what is the best way to do that? They can go to my website, which is just my name, Victoria Macui.com, no punctuation. Spell that for everybody, because it's not some of the street podcast, right? V-I-T-O-I-A-M-C-O-O-E-Y.com. And there is a free gift available on that website where you can get some information and some free coaching. And you can also sign up for a strategy session with me. Do you have an affiliate?

Because I could be referred. I probably could, Jen and I could refer you some people. Can we get paid for referring people? I'm just kidding. Time to level up, people. Level up. I think that's going to have to be the end of today's episode. I hope you got something from this.

It wasn't our traditional content, but I think it's so applicable because if you're not firing on all cylinders, how can your business be? So, Victoria, thank you so much for being with us today. It was really great. Thanks so much for having me. And if you are looking to partner with Monica and I

so we can help you grow your business and level up your life, feel free to give us a call or a text at 513-400-1691. All right. Thanks, Monica. Bye, Victoria. Thanks, guys. See you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Real Estate Fight Club podcast. Make sure to hit the subscribe button so you get updates when new episodes are available. And we truly love feedback and would appreciate all likes, reviews, and suggestions for future topics.