Welcome to the Women Starting Over Podcast where you will be inspired, motivated, and energized to get that income that you are needing whether you lost your job, ended up in divorce, maybe your husband lost his job or became ill and now you’re the main breadwinner of the family. Maybe you’re re-entering the workforce or lost your business. You could be retiring and just don’t have enough to live on. For some, your occupation or industry has become obsolete because of technology. Acronyms now like AI, IT or you could be starting over by choice. Which is more my story at this time in my life, I’m restarting over.
Hello I’m Nora Ellen, your host on this Women Starting Over Podcast. We are going to go together on new beginnings! I will have different guests on the show to help you learn new ways of thinking, give you some new ideas, give you the courage and confidence you need to believe in yourself which is one of the main aspects of earning more income.
I’m going to share my story and we will have other guests on the show that will be sharing their stories this way you will get some different thoughts that you’ve never had before when it comes to making income in this day and age. I had actually shared my story in an earlier podcast and decided that as I was listening, there is probably going to be some women that are thinking “Wow, I can’t do that!” or “I don’t want to do that” or “I can’t do that where I live, it’s too gutsy….risky. Our minds can often shut off if we’re listening to something that we think “Oh, that doesn’t pertain to me” even though we keep listening. We tune out….we go into what I call….the zone. What I want to encourage you to do is believe and expect that in each episode you will get some golden nuggets from each woman. There is going to be something that you can gain for your journey that you are going on with new beginnings. Your mind is the best asset that you have and it can be the worst asset too as we know we often have self limiting beliefs. I want you to release those self limiting beliefs.
I decided that it is better to talk in this episode about preparing for this journey. Did you ever go on a road trip or climb a mountain without some kind of preparation? If you’re going to climb a mountain you’re going to go straight up because if you hit a big giant boulder you’re going to quit and that’s what we want to help you avoid on this show. Say you’re going to go cross country on a road trip, you’re going to make sure you check the tires, make sure there is enough gas in the car to get where you’re going. That is part of this podcast, your mind is very important. There are going to be some things that you need to “unlearn”. There are going to be some new habits that you need or habits to break. There’s only two kinds of habits….those we’re doing and those we’re not doing.
We’re also going to be talking about your money thermostat. How were you raised when it came to money? There is a programming that many of us have when it comes to money. I know that for myself, I realized that I hit a ceiling when I kept making the same amount of money and I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t push past that. I started learning what it was…what my money earning blocks were that I needed to break through. Some that came as I was being raised as a child, or some that I experienced when I was older, the things that we hear. We have terms like…..filthy rich or dirty money or money doesn’t grow on trees, maybe you had a parent that said “What do think I’m made of money?” With a term like “filthy rich” our subconscious could probably sabotage us because who wants to be considered “filthy” in the first place? I don’t know where that term came from but it did not help our culture. We have often judged people who are rich without really knowing their journey or who they are. In my opinion Hollywood sometimes tend to portray the rich as greedy or corrupt and as people who are cold and ruthless. And that’s just not true. Rich people are some of the most giving philanthropists in the world.
I’m going to share my story and my background. I was raised in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain State. I love Colorado, it’s beautiful there. As I was growing up, I was pretty much raised to be a wife, a mother and serve in the community. That’s what my mom did and that was great! My dad also served in the community. He was an entrepreneur, he owned his own real estate company and he did some development. As a little girl, I loved hearing about his business dealings over the phone. I would kind of hang out and listen to what he was talking about. In those days there was no call waiting or caller ID. We as children were told to stay off the phone if dad had an important call coming in for business that he did not want to miss.
I did go to college because I wanted to be a PE teacher and change the world. I remember in school it seemed the most influential teachers were PE teachers. And PE class. Everybody seemed to adore our PE teachers. I did not like when the PE teachers would divide us into teams and they would have Johnny who was the high school hero on the football team or Joey who everybody loved because he was so good at Basketball pick the teams. Of course who were they going to pick? The most athletic. I was in the middle of who they chose so it wasn’t too bad ….I wasn’t the best but I wasn’t the worst and I always felt bad for the kids who were the worst. That was going to be my mission….I was going to go change the world of physical education. I went to two years of college at Look Out Mountain, Tennessee then I decided I wanted to go to a big university so that’s what I did. I went to the University of Northern CO which was at the time one of the top three colleges in the nation for teachers. I did not graduate because I chose to get married to someone who was in the military and I knew that we were going to be moving around to much for me to wait and I figured I’ll just finish my education later which didn’t happen because of all of the moving around and then I had children. During that time I volunteered quite a bit. I was the coordinator for a club of girls called “The Pioneer Girls Club” We had 70 girls in the club. I was on a curriculum task force for schools, I helped with a mission to Mexico, I sold AVON in the days that we had territories, and I did some other things to to help the poor and needy. Sadly I’m going to fast forward and I ended up in divorce. Here I am, not a career woman. I was home with my kids and I am so glad for those years that I was home with my children and I don’t regret any of that but now, what do I do? I don’t have a degree that I can fall back on, I didn’t have some kind of career, I was thinking that I didn’t want to have to go get a job and work for someone because it wasn’t in me ….. being more entrepreneurial but I had to do something to take care of myself. One of the first things that I did was take a little time off to recover. I was fortunate enough to be able to do that but not for very long at all. I did follow the advice of a friend and hired a career coach whose name is George. I paid $150 to meet with George and he helped me put a resume together and was very encouraging, very uplifting. That may sound like a lot of money but that was one of the best investments I ever spent. He also had a group of us that met together where we would help network with people who needed a job….maybe I knew something that I could help one of the group members or they could help me. We processed our lives together and we were very encouraging. There was a time when I was talking with one of the gentlemen in the group about what I grew up with. What did I know to do and he mentioned real estate. Which with my dad having a company I did things for him. I worked as a teenager I worked at the office and I’m very thankful for that in between my college years and for my sophomore and junior years I worked part time for Kelly Girls. It was always good to know, what is my experience, what have I done, kind of like…..what’s in my hand? What are my skills and talents?
I decided at the time to go ahead and get my license to sell real estate and also to invest. Here’s where I and here’s where I want you to stay tuned in to what I did. There are some gold nuggets that I want you to get out of this. I did buy a house for sale by owner. I got qualified to buy a home to buy the home as an investment property. This was in 2003 and 2004 when the kind of loans didn’t require any documentation, you just gave them information about your background, maybe what you had. I bought a For Sale by Owner from a guy from Nebraska. I figured he’s from Nebraska, he’s probably going to be honest. I bought the house on a hand shake, we agreed on the terms and the next thing I knew the person whose name is Jim called me and said “hey Nora I just can’t sell the house now” so I just let that go and looked for another one. What I decided on that one was that I would buy it at auction. In Arizona we don’t have foreclosures because it is a Trustee state so you can buy houses at the Trustee sale. I worked with a company that did the bidding because the way it is now with most Trustee states, where the auctions are at the Court House, it can be dominated by just a few bidders and they try to bid everybody out. It is a bit of a monopoly but not an impossible situation. I paid a company $1500 to bid for me which I believe I needed at the time if I won the bid. I looked at several houses and I was very careful when I bid. It was a newer home, I won the bid and it needed a lot of work. Unfortunately I had to make the residents leave. I helped them out a little bit to help them to be able to move out and it just needed some light cosmetic work so I fixed that one up then I ended up getting Jim’s house too so I had two houses then I decided to do lease options on the houses which is where you have a tenant who is a prospective buyer sign a contract. We decided on the price of the home for one of them and the other one that when they were ready to buy it was going to be at market value. Now in the meantime, houses started going up and up and up so the one that signed the contract with the actual price of the home built in got a good deal. I didn’t lose any money, I still made some money….about $11,000 on that one because I built in to the price of the home what I thought it would appreciate at 6% a year then on the other home I didn’t have anything built in and it went up and up and up. The people were to inconsistent in paying their rent so finally unfortunately we ended up in a court situation and I got the house back, it went up and up and up and I made tens of thousands of dollars on that particular house because of the timing. There is timing in all different kinds of markets, all different kinds of industries and fortunately I hit the right timing and there will be something for you that now is the right timing!
I’ve been started using my real estate license and here’s the thing about selling because people can be turned off because the car salesmen, “I can’t sell”. Again, don’t ever let yourself thing that you can’t do anything because yes you can. Other people did it and you can too! It’s a matter of learning how to think or act. You’re either going to sell your time, your talents or your skills to a boss, to a company, or you can actually sell products yourself and everybody needs a home. I did not look at it as I am selling, I looked at it as I’m helping people find their home or helping them sell their home so they can go live where they want to go. Really, real estate is almost finding your next client. It’s not like hair dressing where they return to you every few years. The thing about getting a license is it only cost me $300 and 90 hours of school to sell one of the most expensive commodity. It’s not even something you need a college degree with and there is a lot of support that you can get. There are other industries …. Insurance is a little different. If I had to do it again I might have sold insurance because I did not know at the time but there is a residual that you get from your clients that stay with you where with real estate it’s a one time thing.
At this point in my life I’ve been doing real estate for 11 years, I’ve made in the six figures, I’ve done really well and I am deciding that I am also going to be doing podcasting and going in a little bit of a direction which I’ll share in future episodes. Right now I want to share my story and what I did. It took a lot of rethinking and seeing myself in a different way. I am no longer a wife but I was still a mother and my kids were older …. I was a single mom and they were in college. I helped them out a little with that then they got married so I knew what it was like as a woman working as a single mom or being married. This podcast is more for the single mom. Part of the reason I’m doing it for single moms is because we have a different kind of journey. If you’re married, you usually have that support at home, you have that person who is also bringing in income, they’re helping with the chores, with the kids, you have that built in support. If you’re single, you don’t have that at home. You do everything yourself. If there’s something a single mom can do most likely a woman who is married is likely to have support partner who can do that also.
I’m going to give you a fun assignment to do between now and our next episode and I hope it is what you are already doing in your life. That is in the morning, before you open your eyes when you realize your awake is to start being thankful for everything you have. Thank God or for you if it’s the universe but thank. I thank God every morning for all kinds of things, my kids, my granddaughters, my pillow, my little fluffy dog, that I can see, obviously you can hear, because you’re listening to this podcast
Gratitude is so strengthening. It lifts your mood, it does great physiological things in your body it helps you emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually and we know that we are four part people, we’re not just a single dimension. Practice being grateful. Even if there are times that I lost a real estate deal I thought, ok I’m still going to find something to be grateful for because this is just one and tomorrow is a new day. In fact, the next hour is new. It goes back to your mind being your best asset in this journey that you’re one. We have your conscious mind, and your subconscious mind. We are learning more and more about the differences. Our conscious mind tends to be the part that wants to keep us safe, don’t take any risks….but it also holds knowledge and education. Then there’s our subconscious mind. That’s the programming that’s as we say “in the back of our mind” that can be running like I said, giving you that money thermostat that can hold you back or move you forward.
Thank you for reading Episode 1 of Women Starting Over. There will be more great stories coming soon.
Thank you very much!
~ Nora Ellen
