KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Your Roadmap to Silencing the Inner Critic

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Welcome to Real Estate Real World, where we talk to the movers, shakers, and leaders that are getting it done right now in the real estate industry and beyond. I'm your host, Marguerite Chris Billow, and I started this podcast simply dedicated to calling people about what's really happening in this crazy roller coaster ride of real estate. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes and stay up to date on the newest stuff by adding yourself to the list at www.orgatrealworld.com. Now let's dive into the world of real estate. Hello, everybody. It is time. It is time for real estate, real world, where we get to talk to all the cool people. And when we talk to really cool people, we actually bring them back for a second round two episodes.

So today we have a very special guest who I've known for many, many years. I'm trying to think how long I've even known her, but I know we had her on the podcast many years ago, but I've known her for most of my career, so quite a while. But let me tell you about Kelly Resendez. Kelly, in addition to being a mom, business executive at Goodleap, a multi-billion dollar fine tech company, bestselling author and influencer, Kelly Resendis is a true leader in empowering women to live a life full of abundance. As a co-owner of Gobundance Women, a membership organization for women dedicated to

achieving greatness and abundance. Kelly is passionate about helping others adopt an abundance mindset and overcome self-sabotage to achieve their goals. She believes that joy and success go hand in hand and has dedicated her life to helping women find both. Through her popular book, Big Voices and her women-empowered network, Kelly shares her strategies and tools to inspire and empower women to think differently and achieve all they desire.

So welcome, welcome, Kelly. So I'm great to be here. I know. I'm so excited. I was telling you that a few months back, we were rebroadcasting some episodes and we found your episode that we did years ago. And so I was like, we got to get her back on the show and get an update because a lot has changed in your life. Yeah.

Definitely, definitely a lot. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what you've been doing, what's going on in your life and what have you been working on and creating. Absolutely. So the last several years, we've really shifted things at Good leap. We were formerly a mortgage company and then had a solar sales division, but we have become the largest solar fire. financing company. And I know people in real estate a lot of times are like solar. I don't want it to mess things up. But we have a great product. It's really great for consumers to easily be able to

put energy efficient items into their home, including solar and HVAC, roofs, all other things. So that's been a lot of fun. Definitely scaling and focusing on that. And while we're doing that, making a big impact in the world too through our nonprofit give power.org, about 950.5,000.org, 50,000 people today have clean water because of our efforts there. So that's been really exciting. Yeah. And then in addition to that, just became a co-owner of GoBundance Women, which has been a lot of fun growing and connecting with other women across the nation and across the world even to really just create an environment where they can scale their businesses or investment portfolios or wealth or whatever areas of their life that they're looking to scale in.

It's interesting because when we're recording this episode, it's the beginning of women's history month. And I love that so much because obviously there's so many women that inspire me. And a couple interesting things. So I just turned 60 in November. And I think about all the changes that have happened not only in my lifetime, but in the lifetime of my mother, who was a strong woman and raised me, as a single mom. And then my grandmother and my great grandmother, Daisy, lived to be 102.

And I always think about she was born in 1888. And then she died in 19. Imagine what she saw in her lifetime. Wow. How much of life, not just for women, but just in general. I mean, she saw cars. She saw telephone. She saw electricity. She saw so much in her lifetime. Thankfully, women have come so far during my generation, at least. And I just love to see more things centered around women and leadership and what they can do to build the life that they dream of, right? Yeah, absolutely. And as things have evolved, and we look at the workforce today, right? It's representative of just women in the workforce, but you look at leadership, most importantly, executive leadership or ownership of high-scale businesses. And we just haven't made a dent. We've made progress. So I love just focusing

on what's great. And that is a tremendous thing to celebrate is there have been so many amazing women that have gone into high-level leadership positions. But I think it's up to us to continue to educate and empower future leaders that you can have it all. Like so many people think I'm not going to do it because that would sacrifice my family or my friendships or my health or whatever that might be. And I just think that as women, we're so influential and we're so powerful that we can just create a new way of really leading in the future. I love that. I don't know about the mortgage industry, but I do know that the real estate industry, 65% of the real estate agents are women. Yeah. Less than 5% have leadership positions in the top

companies, you know. So you're right. We've got a long ways to go with that. And I had a, I did another podcast this morning with Cody Gilkinson, who is the senior manager for diversity at EXB. And we're talking about that. We're talking about how there just needs to be more, as far as we've come, we still have so far to go. Yeah. It's so valuable to be able to surround yourself with people who are doing some amazing things that I know you are. So tell me a bit more about GoBundance. Tell our audience like what, how did that even come about? Yeah. What does it look like? Yeah. So there was a men's organization. So anybody listening that, you know, can check that out as well. It's just gobundance.com. There was a men's organization.

And I was sharing with a friend years ago when I had just published my book, Big Voices, that one of the challenges that I faced was some loneliness. I had a lot of friends. I had a lot of connections, but just this sense of loneliness that I didn't have as many like-minded women that I was able to connect with. And that's how they turned me on to go abundance. And the men's group was they had so many women that were reaching out asking if what they could do and they didn't have an option. And so that's when the conversation started flowing. I believe that was back in 2017 and we all kind of came together. They just brought all the women that they knew that were also interested together. And we started moving forward from there.

And the one thing that all of us had that was really mutually shared is that we had a longing for deeper connections with like-minded women that wanted to really take their career into an area of impact that they hadn't been in before. And so it's come a long way since then. We have about 130 members now across the world that are all, they're just women that are passionate, about growth. And so we have that mutual interest of like that could mean scaling your business. That could mean growing in your career or maybe trying to visualize a future where they leave their W-2 and just do real estate investing full-time. But people that are ambitious and excited about really building and needing that support system, you know, most of us don't have a board

of directors. If you're a solo prenear or running a team, everyone is always feeding off of your energy and your wisdom and your ideas and having a sacred space where you can actually get that and feel supported is just priceless, honestly. I think it's so valuable because what I do know is that it's a different dynamic for women as than men in what they deal with on a daily basis, right? Like for those of us that are moms, we have all our mom guilt and trying to raise kids, maintain a household, keep a significant other happy, if that's the case, on top of building some sort of business or some sort of dream for yourselves. It's a lot. And I've brought this up

before on the podcast is when it comes to men and women in leadership, there's two different dynamics, right? Yes. And not always, there's always exceptions to the rule. But when a man rises to leadership and becomes a powerful leader or runs a company, he typically, most of time, has a wife at home. And he has a wife at home who's taking care of the kids and taking care of the household and doing all of these things to make doing the grocery shopping, making sure there's toilet paper, like doing all these things to make sure that he can go and build this, this vision or dream or be a leader, whatever it is. When women rise to leadership, it's typically, again, a different dynamic.

They are doing all those things that the at-home mom was doing plus running a company. Yeah. Because while we love our men, they don't think the same way many times. And men don't randomly think to make a dentist appointment for kids. They just don't, they don't think of those things.

And again, this is not a diss on men. There are some great dads out there. Don't get me wrong. But it's a whole different, it's a whole different ball of wax. Would you not agree? I completely agree. So it is factual that men and women are different. And I don't want to be a man. And I hope man doesn't want to be me. And so we've got to understand that we use our brains differently. We think differently. One of my favorite analogies I heard from a pastor that described men like waffles where they compartmentalize and they described women like a bowl of spaghetti. Like if you touch one, all of the other noodles are affected, right? I love that. So that is the way that we have to appreciate things.

Now, who is, and this is what I look at, as powerful women who are influential, we have to do something about it. Because I will tell you, one of the major ways that we sabotage ourselves is not asking for help or clearly articulating what we need. And so if we are going to step into these leadership roles, then we need to ask for help and we need to articulate what we need. And I can tell you, being a mom, I've launched both my kids into the world. which I miss them terribly every single day. But I have. And when I look at some of the things that I did, I had to recognize my own human capacity for certain things. And then hire people to do some of the other things that I couldn't do and or I didn't love to do so that I didn't sacrifice time in my career or with my kids.

And then I was just extremely honest with them. I had to be extremely honest. Listen, I'm not going to do guilt. mom's going to go to the grocery store when you need to bring food. I know other moms are going to bake stuff at home. That's just you got a store-bought baked mom. That's it. That's who I am.

All the other kids' moms might pick them up. Your mom isn't going to pick them up. Now, there's no right or wrong. You may have appreciation for either at some point in your life, but just being an acceptance of who I am and knowing what my limits are and then being able to set boundaries because the third thing that we do that really can sabotage our own success as we look to scale is not saying no often enough, not giving space between a question like, hey, Marguerite, can you this? Now, the answer is you really can because you're good at it.

But if you say yes to that, it means you say no to something else. And so we have to start giving pause before we answer, before we commit, and really look at. our human capacity so that we can really spend the time on what we should be focused on, which is our vision, our goals. Like, you and I could spend a lifetime helping other people achieve their goals. Or we can, and maybe your goal is to help other people, but just be really abundantly clear about that so that you stay on that path to, like, I know what I really want to create in my life.

And it is possible if I ask for help, articulate my needs and say no a lot more regularly. That's funny because this year I have really spent a lot of time sitting down, figuring out what more to say no to. I'm trying to say no to more things than I say yes to. And not because I obviously don't want to. It's not because I don't want to help people or do what's needed. But you're absolutely right. Like you have to figure out what those boundaries are. And I see so many, especially younger women, struggle with that ability to say no, they want to please everybody and be happy and do all these things.

And especially when you have kids and everything else at home, like you're trying to juggle a million balls. And I see so much, especially on social media, I see so many burned out women, exhausted women, high divorce rate, high health issues. mostly because they haven't learned how to say no or they haven't learned how to create those boundaries that allow them to be and do what they want to do. To kind of go deeper on one of the things that you've said is you use the word please, right? When we make a firm decision that I am no longer here to please other people, it will change your life. I'm a recovering people pleaser. I relapse regularly. I could also call it a recovering perfectionist, but when you make that decision that I am not here for that reason. And when I

notice myself drifting into the pleasing or the whatnot, I have to have a system to come back. I have to have the awareness to be able to come back because that is not where we're going to remain in our genius. That is not where we're going to feel fulfilled. So that would be like the fourth thing that I would say that we just covered that women can sabotage their own success. The fifth one you also touched on, which is I'm sacrificing my health. I'm sacrificing my health and my well-being for something external. And that has to come first. Like, that is a major decision. If you want to make a big impact in the world, you have to put yourself first. Like, it's non-negotiable. I think that sadly, too many people figure that out too late, right? They don't figure it out.

I say frequently that life happens by choice or by force, right? And you can either choose the direction that you want to go and choose what you want your life to look like or you'll be forced to. Yeah. One way or the other. And in 2020, when we not only had COVID year, I got diagnosed breast cancer. And luckily, I'm all clear and that's all behind me. But a big part of that was learning to say no, putting my health first, figuring out what those boundaries looked like and how I could take care of. myself and make sure that I can stick around for a few more years. And a lot of that came from

doing all of the opposite for way too long. I look at the five years previous to me being diagnosed with breast cancer and the amount of stress I had going on in my life and the guilt and all those things. And what's interestingly is I went into a Facebook group, a women's cancer, breast cancer Facebook group. And I did a poll. And I asked how many of you prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer had significant stress in your life. Like did you go through a divorce? Did you like what happened? And literally like almost 100% said they had significant things happening prior to being diagnosed with breast cancer. So you can choose. You get a choice. Choose by life happens by choice or by force. And I'm not saying you people choose to have cancer.

So I don't want to get any hate mail from anybody. But the truth is that there are things that contribute to it. And if you can change that path and if you can clean up that stress and that stuff that's going on in your life, the odds of you developing cancer drop significantly. Yeah. I think you touch on a great point. You must take personal responsibility for your health journey. No one's going to sit down and talk to you about what happens in your body when stress spikes. I see all these women wearing glucose monitors. And you know what? The aha for them isn't about food. It's about stress. They can eat. eat a chocolate cake and it's going to spike a little bit. They have stress and it's going to really

spike. And when you look at the highest and I'm not going to go down into, I'm super passionate about physical health and whatnot. I practice functional medicine and do things a lot different than most people. But when you really look at what happens to our body when we are in stress, it is just so toxic. Our body can't get rid of all that cortisol. And most of, Most women, because energy is a requirement for them to achieve all their goals and try to keep it all together, a lot of women run on adrenaline, which is not the proper hormone. One of the things that I would say is that we need to come back into balance when it comes to our brain.

We have a left and a right hemisphere, getting back into balance where we're not just doing and we can spend a little bit more time being and present. We also need to balance our hormones. and we need to recognize that you can create a life where you have massive success while you're still in joy and gratitude and other things. And so just knowing that's possible, as we celebrate Women's History Month and March and other things, it's just we need more role models. We need more people to be sharing. And that's why I love that you have this podcast and this platform for people to share. It is success is something that we can start to replicate and come up with our own things around.

But for the women out there listening, nobody's going to help you with prevention. You might hear some tips here and there, but you have to take full responsibility for your own journey, whether it's heart disease, Alzheimer and dementia, mental health challenges, any of our hormonal cancers like breast cancer, ovarian cancer, like this should be a constant practice that when you wake up in the morning, you think about how do I take care of my brain today? How do I take care of my hormones today? How can I make sure that I feed and fuel my body with proper energy so that I can go out into the world and make a bigger impact? So powerful because I know that the majority of women struggle with weight and hormones and health issues. And I'm reading the book right now, worthy. Have you got a book yet? I have

definitely checked it out. I have not had a check. chance to read it. I got it on audio because I didn't want to wait for the book to come. And I love her that wrote the book. I can only think of her last name right now. Jamie. Jamie Lima. That's and I love she goes through this whole thing where she does talk about that. She's like, yeah, how many pictures did you not have taken because you didn't want to look fat on the beach? And so you missed out on such a big part of your kids' lives because you were hiding behind the camera or not even just kids. People care about in their life. You don't. you're embarrassed to be seen a certain way or you're uncomfortable.

And it's, things are changing for sure, but I mean, we have a lot of work to do. But when you talk about people getting, bringing more people, women, especially into leadership, what does that look like for some of the younger generation? What types of things are you guys doing in go abundance to help with that or to teach that? Because I feel like a lot of women don't really have a lot of role models, like you said absolutely so i'm going to start with the absolute top of the belief system that i and you touched on a book on worthiness if i wrote a book on worthiness it would be one page and it would say you are worthy it's your birthright i love that if you are out of that it should just be something every single day

that you practice you say you do you look at i always see confidence is different confidence is something that you develop, you create by doing things outside of your comfort zone. Same with skills. And a lot of the leadership skills that one must possess are just things that you got to, you just have to have a starting point, right? And so within Go Abundance Women, what I'll tell you is that we want to make sure that our members have an abundance mindset. So that's the first thing. And what does that mindset believe? It believes you're the creator of your own success. like you are the creator. It also is challenges are just an opportunity to grow.

The adage of life happens for you. Byron Katie, super impactful in my life, bringing a lot of those messages forth. Believe in infinite possibilities. If you would have told me, I've been with the leadership team here now for 13 years, that we would have taken a company from being a small Roseville-based company. We had a couple of branches to be in a multi-billion, dollar company. I would have like you just you have to believe in infinite possibilities. And then other aspects of it are just that you can literally create again, whatever you choose.

And so knowing that you get to choose the way that you live, like you get to choose that is really important. And so if you choose to scale your business, what I would say is we just need to show people a system in which to do that. I had the opportunity to coach real estate agents for about 20 years through my speaking and books and other things. And that's how you and I met a long time ago. And the challenge that most real estate agents have is they don't have a system that's sustainable that creates success. They dabble. What's the next new shiny thing instead of if you for the last 20 years had been calling your database week in, week out, and ask for referrals, in a way that was thoughtful, your business would explode.

But we just get trapped in working on deals and doing the things. And then we get away from this foundation that is just timeless. And it's not sexy, right? It's not sexy to do some of these things. But that's what creates massive success. And the other thing I would say when it comes to scaling is just teaching people that you can never stop. solving problems. Like you have to be committed that solving problems is a part of your business model. That's how you scale. That's how you start to see new opportunities in different places.

In abundance, I look at what problems am I trying to solve within our membership community? I'm trying to solve a lot of women feel lonely on this journey and they don't have like-minded people that are going to say when you tell them, I've got a new idea. I'm sure you had friends when you said, I'm going to launch a podcast. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. They're like, how are you going to do that? Like, you already have so much on your plate instead of, how can I support you? Who can I connect you with that might make this journey faster? Who do you really know? And so that's a big piece of it is just making sure that we help them create a system that scales. And while not sacrificing, they're different aspects of their life.

Today I'm leaving for Napa with 23 other women from Gobundance. And we're going to go play. And we're going to adventure. And we're going to hear a great branding coach. My girlfriend, Heidi Cortez, if you want to check out a great PR branding person, she's an amazing strategist because we're all committed to just constantly growing, connecting, and also holding one another accountable. It's funny that you brought up the consistency,

because I do a thing called Tuesday Tuneups, so I've been doing it for years. I'm sure you've heard of it. And next Tuesday we talked about, I think we need to do an episode on consistency. And that's what we're actually doing next week. And the other thing I wanted to say is, I love that you brought up Byron Katie, because that is probably one of the first books I read that was more like a self-help oriented book. And I remember sending it to my mom.

And my mom passed in 2009, but before that, I remember sending it to her. because my mom, we all struggle with that drunk monkey in our head, right, that goes down that rabbit hole that says that I'm not good enough, I'm not this, or, oh, she looked at me funny, she must not like me, or all those things. And I love, she has, I think, a series of five questions, but the one that I love the most is, is it true? Is it true? Is it true? We tell ourselves stories all the time. It's so fascinating. One of the things in my life with Byron Katie, I had actually created some strategies on managing overthinking and overcoming self-sabotage and emotional triggers. And then I found Byron Katie. And it was just broke it down into a way that, but asked the most thought-provoking

question like you said, is it true? Because our brain is constantly trying to figure things out. It wants to paint a story. So we have to learn how to stop it. That's the biggest thing. And it's just having the self-awareness to just stop when you notice yourself thinking more than you need to. And what I always say is like the greatest abundance attractors, the people that are really going to just massively attract abundance are the ones that just really focus on what's great instead of what's not. That is really the secret and then trying to remove a lot of judgment along the way too. Yeah, it's that radio station that's playing in your head, right? And I know I've said this story before. If you're driving down the road with some gal named Sally in the passenger seat and all Sally is doing is complaining and telling you you suck and you're a horrible human being and I can't believe you wore that blouse today.

And have you even looked at your makeup and your hair? Do you know how bad you look? My goodness. I mean, and that person is just going on and on and on. Like how long would you ride in the car with that chick? You wouldn't. Yeah. be like, how fast can I pull over and get you out of the car? Yet we play that radio station in our

head over and over and over and over again. Absolutely. Well, my neuroscience coach is what I would call her. Ellen Lenz is awesome because she actually invites you to like find a different voice in your head, like the one that's like, who would be your most powerful warrior, you know, voice of whatever it is. And so like mine is, we named it like my daring diva. And it's like, what would the daring deva? And it's like, What would the daring diva say right now? Like she wouldn't be worried about that. Like, I mean, we get these choices and people don't even realize, like, learn how to quiet the voice.

Now, I love the little voices. That's what I call them in my head. I love them because I know that they were probably created during a season that things weren't going as well for me. Or I had some pain or something else. And it just wants to protect me. So I just say, thank you. You know, thank you.

But no, thank you. Like, I got this. I'm moving forward. My highest, most consciousness. is going to take the wheel right now. So I love that you've said a few times now, it sounds like you have a variety of coaches in your life. Yes, I do. Well, let me ask you this. Let's go all the way back because we don't have a whole lot of time left, but I'm curious, when do you remember a time in your life when you made the switch to going? Because you haven't always been this way,

would you agree? You haven't always had the positive and the abundance mindset. So somewhere in your life, something said, that's not working for me anymore. I need to look at things differently. Yeah. So I will tell you, I was always an achiever. I was always hyperproductive. There was never a shortage of that. I got into the business coaching aspect of things in the late 90s.

And so found Brian Buffini's, Exigler, others. So I was always into performance coaching, I would say. And then I kind of call my awakening in about 2004. And that came after my mom got diagnosed with dementia. I had my daughter. I had some other things that were going on in my life. And it was really when I awakened to this idea that I didn't even know what being present meant. Like I didn't have a present thought.

I was constantly just doing. I was really left in my left brain. And so over time, I would say I still work on it today. I want to be in my feminine power. I want to be making that impact in a loving and compassionate way. But it's taken a long time and it's been, it never ends. Once you dip your toe in personal growth and development, I would say it became an obsession for me.

So I've had many coaches along the way and many people that have influenced my journey and continue to. I would say my greatest teachers have been those closest to me. My children have really taught me the most, especially. about radical acceptance and non-judgment. And then my sweetheart Kent has taught me a lot about just like when you have another person that's right there that's a reflection back of what's going on and how you're being. It's a great opportunity to constantly just look at, okay, like, maybe I was above my human capacity today. So I was a little shorter or maybe this or maybe that.

It's great to have somebody in your life or people around you, not just somebody in your life, that are honest with you. Those are my favorite people. Sometimes, right? Sometimes they can be too honest. But I love having people around me that call me out. Help me to see things. I don't know if calling out is a right word,

but help me see things from a different perspective to be able to see how things could look from a different angle. If they're like-minded and also on the spiritual and growth journey with you. Agreed. Because that power. of proximity. This one of my favorite lessons from Tony Robbins is just it's really easy because we're such connected people that if we aren't surrounding ourselves with people that have the right voices, then we are going to get off track. So I always just say like your highest and

most authentic self should start with a vision for how you want to feel in your life and then what goals you need to accomplish. And you should have partners and connections that are actually really committed to very similar things and value the same things, or else, like you said, like they're going to get off track. When you have a bad day, they're going to be like, yeah, I'm going to go ride shotgun with you at the Mexican restaurant and drink a pitcher of margaritas where somebody that's like-minded is going to say, you know what, why don't we go for a walk? Why don't we work through this and see what opportunities we have to maybe do something different or to improve, that kind of thing?

Well, I will tell you, Kelly, that we could probably talk for hours and hours. Yes, we could. Well, I'm excited. I'm so impressed and proud of you and how far you've come and what you're doing. I love that you are forging a path for the next generation of leaders. And I really admire that and all you've done. So thank you, thank you so much for being here today. Absolutely.

Thank you so much for having me. And congrats on all your success. Thank you. Thank you. All right, everybody, once again, we get to talk to all the cool people. And most definitely, this was a fantastic conversation today with Kelly Resendez. So be sure to share on all your social media channels. Be sure to like us and subscribe on our channels.

And if you have a particular guest, you would love for us to interview. Please reach out. Send us a DM. We would love to see more people on the show. Thank you again for joining us today, everyone. Go out and make it a great day. Thank you for joining us today on Real Estate Real World, where we talk with masters and leaders in the real estate industry and beyond on how we can raise the bar in our industry.

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