Control Your Income And Outcomes: From Loan Officer To Real Estate Boss With Tracy Royce
We can only stay behind the scenes for so long. In our career journey, the time will come where we start to take control of our income and outcomes—deciding to succeed in the capacity that we see fit for the vision we have for our career. This is the story of Tracy Royce, and in this interview with Stefanie Peters, she shares with us the phenomenal pivot she took from being a loan officer to being mentored by some of the best of the best to finally taking that leap of faith to become the boss to be reckoned with. Tracy lets us in on how she finds deals and flips properties and what business model and strategy she follows through it all. Giving advice to those who want to get into the game of flipping, she then highlights the kind of mentality they need to have to become the boss that they also want to be.
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Control Your Income And Outcomes: From Loan Officer To Real Estate Boss With Tracy Royce
I am lit up and excited to talk with this flipping queen. I ran across her on Instagram where I make such phenomenal connections. When I started watching her Instagram Stories, I was like, “This girl is hitting on all cylinders.” She is flipping like a boss. This season of the show, we're talking all about real estate investing. She has made a phenomenal pivot from being a loan officer to being able to be mentored by some of the best of the best. She decided to jump out in faith, start her own thing, run teams, and she is making it happen. I want to introduce to you Tracy Royce. Thank you so much for jumping on.
I'm honored to be here. That was quite an introduction. Thank you so much.
You've been on some phenomenal shows, even BiggerPockets, and a lot of other shows where people have been inspired by your story. I was looking at your website and your handles and I want you to share those at the end. You are a boss to be reckoned with. I want to get into the story. Why don't we talk about the pivot from where you started as a loan officer knowing that your heart wasn't in it and then how you made the leap to being mentored to where you are now? Walk us through the behind the scenes on that.
Starting as a loan officer was more or less an opportunity that was presented to me. I went for it because it seemed like a great opportunity at the time. As you know that was the season of, “If you can fog a mirror, we're going to give you a loan.” I saw that happening all around me. I don't have a background in finance and I did not feel right about that. The writing was on the wall. You can't write these many types of loose loans and not expect some sort of consequence from it. Poignantly my heart wasn't in it.
I had a previous landlord reach out to me that knew that I was a loan officer and said, “Tracy, I have quite a big portfolio.” He had a full-time job as an architect and it was overwhelming to him to have to do all the property management on the side. For those of you that do property management, you know how intensive it can be sometimes. Especially at the time, he had a couple of dozen houses in his portfolio. He said, “If I can bring you on as an assistant and exchange your income for what you're making, would you be willing to come and work with me as an assistant?” That seems much more enjoyable to me and a good opportunity for my personality.
I started working for him. As that relationship grew, he started to introduce me to other investors and I worked privately for them as well and then those relationships built. Through the crash, I worked with one of the largest real estate investment firms here in the Phoenix area that was avant-garde about how they approach pre-foreclosures, short sales, and flipping. Anything distressed in that market during the last downturn, I got to witness it but not be exposed to it. That's where I cut my teeth. Everything about my background has been in distressed property, creative acquisition, creative disposition, fixing, flipping, and property management, how to fill in the blanks of systems from A to Z.
For the better part of a decade, I learned all that, and then I figured, “A decade is about long enough. I should probably go ahead and jump out on my own.” For the past years, everything that I did for them, I've been doing for myself. The transition was more organic than it wasn't. It took some time. In that, I felt like I had enough back of house experience to go branch out on my own. For those of you that run a business, it does not matter how long you've been in the back of the house, it does not prep you for what it's like to run your own business.
Was there that itch of saying, “I need to be doing this on my own,” when you jumped out from the investor? What was the catalyst for you? Were you like, “It's due time?”
I've never had anyone ask me that. I'll tell you what, in all honesty, I wanted to have more control of my income and I wanted to have more control of the outcomes. What I mean by that is, how do I succeed in the capacity that I see fit for the vision that I have for my career and that wasn't working behind the scenes anymore? I am blessed to have the mentorships and the relationships and those opportunities that I had. With anything in life, as you well know, it takes a certain amount of tension and frustration to say, “I've had enough of this.” Whether it's in a positive way or not a positive way, you have to be able to hit that wall of frustration or tension to say, “The fear of what it looks like on the other side versus letting go is more worth it.” That was the real catalyst. I have created more in the last several years than I did before that.
What would you say was one of your biggest struggles working with the mentors that you did and how did that affect you moving forward?
I don't think it was any challenge necessarily with them per se. It was my own self-limiting beliefs that I couldn't do what they were doing on my own. I have nothing but positive things to say about those relationships. If I reframe it and look at it as if it's not me and watch it, it was me that was holding myself back and saying, “That's too scary. What about the money? What if a contractor tries to rip me off?” It got to a point where I'm like, “How many times have you done this? Shut up and do it.” I don't know if I answered your question in full but it didn't have to do with them. It had to do with me.
Those self-limiting beliefs definitely can be that thing that holds us in the prison that we're building for ourselves. Sometimes when the pain of what you're going through is so much that you're like, “I need to take a bet on myself and I need to power forward. Whatever happens, happens but I can't continue to be in this spot.” Control for type A females is a massive thing that we're like, “I don't want anyone driving this boat. I want to drop my boat. I want to call the shots in my own life.” That can be a huge instigator to say, “I'm going to jump out and let the net appear.”
Paradoxically, because I do think it's important for your audience to know this, especially from and to people like us, there is a control thing. You have to have a vision for your life and frame that in a hard and fast enough way that when something comes in because you're going to get a lot of opportunities or you should be at least to say, “This fits and this doesn't.” I have been adamant and a lot more focused on attracting versus forcing, because for a long time it was like, “I'm going to make this stuff happen. If there's a will, there's a way.” That energy is good for a while as you're building your business but you can't run on all cylinders with that mindset forever. I want to hear your thoughts on this. There is a switch that you go from, “I'm going to make this happen and I'm going to control everything,” to “I'm going to be the leader and attract it in.”
Yes, 1,000% and I even remember in my previous business where I was hitting on all cylinders and forcing and being in my masculine energy. When I took a setback or I dialed into what my vision was moving forward and let those different opportunities be attracted by the person that I was becoming, you need to focus on the person that you need to become to attract those things. I'm right on that same page with you, Tracy. How do you find a lot of the properties that you personally flip? Tell me a little bit more about your vision for the future as well.
Real Estate Boss: It does not matter how long you've been in the back of the house of running a business. It does not really prep you for what it's like to run your own.
How I was finding deals, let's call it 99.9% of the time, was seller direct. What that looked like was direct mail, texting, calling, mailing, everything outside of pigeon carrier trying to get in front of sellers to say, “Something is going on with your house. You're in a sticky situation. I'm here in the capacity to be a resource.” A lot of that would come down to, “I want to buy your house.” My approach was also, “If I can't buy your house, at least let me educate you a little bit so you know your options.” That less defensive approach to people helped with our conversion. There would be times where people could do things and they didn't need our help but yet we left a good impression on the outside of what a lot of other investors did, which is, “You're in a bad situation. You didn't pay your bills. You need to sell your house. This is your only option.”
That helped me thrive in a competitive environment to show up as a resource and not shoving one option under their nose. That grew and grew. My cost per lead, my cost per acquisition kept climbing because of how competitive Phoenix is. Also, I stay in my lane with $300,000 and under. There was a point in time where I wanted to start to move up into higher-priced properties. I have found if I stay in my wheelhouse and my niche is taking entry-level and medium-priced houses and making them look more luxurious.
If you follow me on Instagram, you will see that I sourced the living bejesus out of stuff. I can make these little properties look much more designer because of the time and thoughtfulness that I can put into them. That is the lane that I stay in. Going back to what we were talking about. I have all but cut off all my marketing. I am out there teaching, showing, and requesting. If people have a deal that they want to send me that they can run it past me, I can either help them with it or I am a buyer but then also wanting to attract more deals that way because I am not a high volume flipper.
A lot of times people get intimidated by becoming a flipper because they see these celebrities or they see these people on Instagram that are like, “I flipped 1,000 houses this month.” It can be intimidating to think, “I haven't even done one flip. I'm doing one. How does that translate into a huge business?” I gravitated from volume is better, bigger is better, more is better, to getting better is better. What would that look like with the lane that I stay in and what I'm good at? That boiled down to the least amount of properties for the most amount of profit and trying to have the most amount of fun doing it at the same time. If I do 10 to 12 properties a year, that's good for me.
I'll be switching in the future, to the second part of your question, I'm looking to build up more cashflow. The name of the game, because we've been in such a seller's market, has been flip. Buy a few holds here and there along the way. The last couple of years I've laid off of that because prices have gone up phenomenally versus what rent prices are. I'm shifting back slowly into cash. My business model has always been buying flips, pluck off the ones that are juicy that have a lot of equity and great cashflow. I've been doing that and now, I'm moving back into cashflow mode where I'm like, “I want to acquire a lot more rentals.”
As far as your rental portfolio, what would you say your vision is in the future?
I'd love to be able to get to a point where that cashflow supports the lifestyle that I see for myself. What I want in my lifestyle might not look like anything like someone else wants and what someone else wants might not be the vision for my life. When you're looking at, what is financial freedom, what does financial independence look like for you? Shut off Instagram. I love social media but you have to keep in mind that sometimes what's posted is not what is happening in people's financial lives. You have to get quiet and say, “Is living on a remote farm and raising animals something that heals my heart and makes me happy or is it living in a beachside mansion in Malibu and driving a Lamborghini and having a house?” I don't care. I want everyone in your audience to win. I want them all to be as successful as they can envision. What that looks like for me is translating into, “I would love to have that cashflow.” Regardless of where the economy is at, where other legs of my business are at, I have those paychecks coming in and that's already happening. I see that being a little bit more exponential in terms of that mailbox money coming in.
You’re building it. I love that you touch on that because many people get disillusioned if they don't get quiet and listen to what their soul is calling for. I even have some people that have surrounded me lately that they're pushing hard and they're like, “I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to make you $1 billion.” I'm like, “That's not my goal.” If that's your goal, I will support you a 1,000% but that is not my goal. I feel like you give up too much of what my impact is to be chasing the dollar. By all means, I'm grateful for the money and I'm grateful for cashflow and I've made millions. I’m thankful for that but at the same time, you have to figure out what you want. Dial into that and make sure that you ground yourself in that. Otherwise, you can get disillusioned and frustrated and feel like you are running or even climbing the ladder, and then you're figuring out that it's leaned against the wrong wall.
Also as you start to build and have more success, sometimes that can leave an emptiness where you're like, “This isn't fulfilling.” You're getting pulled because people see you building and then you're going to get more opportunities. If you're not more structured and clear about, “I could do that. I could take that opportunity. I could build this other business. I could partner on this. What does that do for me in a way that is fulfilling for my soul and my vision and my giftedness?” That's maybe a poignant topic to bring up for most entrepreneurs to say, “What are you striving for?” I'll be honest. I still struggle with that sometimes. If I hone down and get quiet, what exactly lights me up? What exactly would be enough in terms of fulfillment? Sometimes it's a moving target. What it is right now doesn’t have to be the same in six months or six years.
Giving yourself that space to evolve as a human being is such an exciting place to be and be on that adventure. Even in the book that I published, I'm like, “Have the one-year goal. Have a five-year goal. Have the ten-year goal,” which is wonderful. It's important to have that. I remember waking up on my 30th birthday and I'm like, “What I wanted in the last ten years, I don't want that. I want a different vision.” It's crazy how on a dime things can shift. It's exciting when you're like, “That's not what I want anymore. Game on. Here we go. We're going in this direction.” It takes courage, even what you did, in being mentored by some of those great people. It sounds like you built great relationships. It was nothing against them. Your vision shifted to what you ultimately wanted in your life.
For thickheaded people like me, whatever you believe in, I feel like you get taps from the universe. However, you want to call that, whatever your religious or nonreligious beliefs are. For those of us that are a little bit more thickheaded, we got the tap, you got the double-tap, you got slapped on the booty, and sometimes some of us need the frying pan over the head. When you're headed in a direction that isn't in alignment with your highest good and what you feel like you should be striving for or maybe that you're holding yourself back, either of those two ends of the spectrum. You need to be able to get still enough to also see when things are showing up that you're paying attention to or not paying enough attention to because you're like, “Why does this keep happening?” Negatively or positively. I told you something that I keep seeing and I'm like, “Why does this keep happening?”
It's also to the negative to where it's like, “This pattern keeps happening in my life.” Guess who’s the common denominator in that? You are, my friend. If you see something that keeps happening, pay attention to that, but you have to get still and be able to listen and have that translated over time. What a gift this time has been. As uncertain as it is and as evolving as it is, what a gift that we have got space and time to be able to reconvene with each other and decide how important is a community to us. How important is resourcefulness in terms of changing how we look at things and coming together collectively to say, “What's important now? How do we approach this in a new way?”
I would love to know from the year one when you jumped out on your own and what your vision was then to what your vision is now. Has it shifted? Tell me what your vision was then and what your vision is now.
My vision was simply to kick ass and take names and grow. I saw about 20% year over year growth that was good. Knowing that we're in a seller's market, I wanted to hit certain targets and my benchmarks. What's odd in the flipping community, it's not like there are benchmarks in terms of industry standards. What standards do you set for yourself in terms of what's good and how do I see growth here? What that looked like to me is I compared it to the few investors that I had worked with in terms of gross revenue, gross production. Net income was different because I was in a group, not a solopreneur.
I was looking to hit benchmarks compared to that and then growth. I also started adding employees and more virtual assistants and seeing the growth there. It was from a place of ego or shego would be a better way to put it. I'm like, “Let's own this and control it and continue to move forward.” Those signs started coming like, “There's a different way to approach this.” I don't think that this trajectory is sustainable forever. If you're out there thinking that you can flip your way into a business, package that puppy nicely and sell it and live next to the beach with a Mai Tai in your hand, it isn’t happening. This is not a business that you can package and sell. If you know an investor that's done that, I would love to hear about it.
Real Estate Boss: It takes a certain amount of tension and frustration to say that the fear of what it looks like on the other side versus letting go is more worth it.
It is a business but it's not an easy one to step away from. It's near impossible unless you add many layers of people underneath you that your overhead explodes. I was looking to find that sweet spot of how many deals I can do by myself more or less or with maybe an assistant or two to be able to sustain where I'm at in any environment but also help a lot of people and also have a life. That was a big thing for me. To answer your question a little bit more directly, it went from grow, grow. I have something to prove. I'm on my own. I'm going to do this bad boy. I'm going to make it happen. I've proved that a little bit too much. How do I reset this in a way that is fulfilling, sustainable, but also leaves me room for growth and other capacities as well?
Where you're at right now, what does your team look like? In the future, where would you like to be?
Now, it is me. I went from having a full-time executive assistant, a bunch of VAs, behind the scenes people that would come in and help do direct mail letters. I went relatively large team for what I'm doing or not doing to just saying, “This all needs to change.”
You wanted to lean it out.
I wanted to lean it out financially and otherwise. That is where I'm at. Where I'm at is manageable. In the next couple of years, what I envision stuff happening is, there are going to be a lot of people that need help. There are going to be a lot of people that need the expertise that experienced investors like us have. I want to bring that to the table. I was thinking about this. For me to say, “I only want to do ten deals a year or dozen deals a year,” it's selfish. That could have looked like flips, which are intensive. That's going to translate to rentals. It's not going to be these intense projects that take months of my time and a lot of bandwidth and a lot of material sourcing and everything like that. I see in as much as I can, I see it becoming a little bit more mechanized and probably more volume and then adding in assistance as necessary to be able to take some of it off my plate.
I also see the business growing in other directions similar to what you're doing for more teaching and capacity to help others grow too. If I come from a place of, “Tracy wants to buy X amount of rentals,” it's selfish. A lot of people are going to need help. What I feel like as part of my giftedness is being able to communicate with other people so they can go out and do the same thing. If I can help instruct and encourage and teach other people to do what I'm doing in their communities, even more in the Phoenix market area, that's part of what I need to inject in my business as well and stop thinking of, “What do I want to produce? How much cashflow do I want?” That's all great and good. I should be compensated but it's a selfish, egocentric way of approaching my business.
I couldn't agree more because I am dialing into the wholesaling business that I am and scaling that and pushing down what I was doing with the Lady Boss Empire. My whole purpose on this planet is to help women to win and to get out of their way and get rid of those self-limiting beliefs. When I cut off that for a season, it was like my soul was suffocating. I love what I'm doing within the wholesale business, the investing, the buy and holds, and the Airbnbs but I'm like, “I need to do what I have been put on this planet to do and to pay that forward.” I get where you're coming from. Let's say someone wants to jump into the game of flipping. What would be your best advice on the first step to dive into if they don't know that much at all?
If someone is brand new and wants to get into flipping, one of the questions that a lot of folks would be asking is, “Is now a good time to get into real estate investing?” My advice and feedback are there hasn't been a better time. If you have not been in real estate investing, as the market is going up, there's a lot of forgiveness. If you’re budgeting is a little bit off of your rehab, if you bought maybe a tiny bit over budget on your acquisition costs but no things are going to shift to where you’ve got to dial in on your numbers. That can be intimidating and you can't make those mistakes. If someone wants to get into real estate investing, yes, it's a fantastic time.
What I like to exemplify it with is we're about to enter the Olympics. If you haven't done a cartwheel, if you don't know how to do a backflip, if you're thinking, “I'm going to wait until the market crashes and then I'm going to get in all up in this.” How are you going to know what to do? You need to practice. You need to do cartwheels. You need to learn how to do a backflip. You need to learn all of these motions so when we are at the Olympics, you're ready to go and you can help more people. What that looks like is learning to talk to people, anyone, and everyone. Especially as women, we like to connect with people in our community and find out what's happening in their lives. Find out what's going on in the tribe. That could look like having conversations. Everyone loves to talk about real estate and keeping your ears open for opportunities where people might need help.
If you don't know about pre-foreclosure or defaults or forbearance, find people in your community that does like you so you can say, “I was talking to this girlfriend at church the other day and she was saying that something's going on with their house. They're a few months behind. They're embarrassed but they're thinking that they want to downsize and they're going to move. They got a job opportunity somewhere else so we want to move. How would you handle this?” That's what that looks like. As you start to be able to talk to people about that and say, “I have a resource for you.” Learn the questions to ask these folks so you can become a resource yourself and then start putting contracts together, assigning contracts, making a fee from that, becoming a wholesaler like yourself.
Like I did when I first got started, participate in all this but not be exposed. If you want to get into flipping, that's a whole other animal. If someone is brand new, know that there is a way to participate in this, profit from it and help people and be a resource and be a flipper. Wholesaling is a way of flipping. It's a little bit different capacity but it's still a way to be a real estate investor. You have to start now because you have to get those motions and that fluidity down to be able to talk to people so you can be a resource.
It's talking about engaging the process versus marrying the process and diving in with both feet and being able to have those conversations. What has worked for you? What hasn't worked for you? You did a perfect job of dialing in by being able to be mentored by the best of the best and then you felt like, “I've been able to lift enough weight. I can do this on my own.” Mentorship is where it's at. Otherwise, you could lose your shirt in this industry. You can make a ton of money but you can lose a ton of money quick if you don't know what you're doing. That is wise. There are two different topics that I wanted to touch on since I know that you've done both. One of them is the BRRRR strategy. I want you to share with our readers what this strategy is and how you use that effectively in your business.
What's funny is it's become more popularized in the last few years. I'm like, “I was doing this before we even had an acronym for it.” The BRRRR strategy means you are buying a property way below market value, so much so that you can buy it with hard money, private money, something like that. You're going to renovate it to market value. You're then going to rent it out at market value to renters. You're going to refinance out of the money that you had for hard money and also all of your renovation costs and all of that put together should still be about 70% to 75% of full market value.
Why that number is important is because when you are buying an investment property, most of the time conventional lenders are going to say, “This is an investment property. You are less vested in it. We have a little bit more exposure. If you default on this, we need to make sure that you have a ton of equity in this bad boy so that way if we do have to take it back, we're made whole.” They want to see that you have at least, let's call it 25% equity in there. You need to buy so much below market value that you can purchase it, renovate it, and when you refinance, you're still at that cap of 75%. When you refinance out of all this money, how much money have you put in? Almost nothing.
That's the beauty of the BRRRR strategy to where you can get hard money or private money, put in your renovation costs, or bring a private money person to pay for the renovation cost. When you refinance, you get all of that back. You have an infinite return and infinite cash-on-cash return. The alternative to that would have been, is to identify a property as an investment. Put 20% to 25% down, plus the rehab cost and get that back at some future date when it made sense to refinance. That is why the BRRRR strategy is attractive. That is a strategy that I've used to buy several rentals as well because your cash-on-cash return is nearly infinite. You get that pop of money back.
Real Estate Boss: If you want to enter real estate, you have to start now because you have to get those motions and the fluidity down to be able to talk to people so you can be a resource.
It is a beautiful thing if you can find properties that fit that strategy, which is rare. If you can find them, then it is a beautiful way to execute them. That being said, make sure that you make all the calls to the lender. I've done this on at least several properties and I'm calling the conventional lender before I'm even closing on the first one to say, “Can I have it in this entity? How do I do it like this? If I do this amount of XYZ, can I still refinance? How much cash can I get at closing?” Everything is already set up to be on a schedule. How soon does this need to happen? What is my LTV limit? What can I do here? Make sure that it's well thought out and well-executed.
Who would you recommend being the go-to person? Would that be you or do you have someone in mind that can walk someone through that in mentoring them with that strategy? Would you say, “Google is going to be your best friend? Figure it out.”
There's so much information, especially as that strategy has become more popular. There's an article after article. It would be like you and I going out and googling how to run a business. We're resourceful and we'll figure it out but I'm telling you, when you have someone in front of you that can say, “This is how this applies to your situation. Let me tailor it to you.” That could be the difference of us googling for a year and saying, “I guess I'll stumble through this,” and you figure it out in a month or a week or an hour. I don't have an official mentorship program but I am on social media all the time and people reach out. I would say that if you want to connect and you do have a deal that you're stitching together, reach out to me and we'll go from there.
I have to say, Tracy, one of the Instagram Stories that you put out looked like it was a library of course after course in three-ring binders that you've studied. You have studied the ins and outs of this and you have been able to be mentored by some of the best of the best mentors in the industry. No wonder you're great at what you're doing. That's huge.
None of us succeed in a vacuum. For anyone out there that's like, “I'm self-made.” Are you? I always want to give credit where credit is due. In the Phoenix market, I'm proud of my investor community here because one of the things that I've seen evolve is it has gone from competition to more collaboration. For those of us that have been around for a hot minute, if you made it through the last crash, if you have thrived, if you're still around, we’re all friends. A lot of us are networking together and hanging out. It's because of relationships like that to where if I'm in a bottleneck with a deal or how I would approach it. I can pick up the phone and call a huge wholesaler here and say, “Have you run into this before? What would you do?” I’ll call one of my old mentors or reach out to people across the country that have done this a million times. In as much as I am executing and taking massive action is always important. Following your giftedness and staying in your lane and doing the work is important. The relationships are the sand in between all the rocks of that to help mesh it together.
Building your A-team and your tribe and your network around you, I truly feel is one of the biggest things. Even as far as my life goes, it has been the catalyst to that next level. Being able to do that same thing for them, it's much more fulfilling and rewarding when we're all helping each other and having that abundance mentality. I'm such a big advocate of even paying for speed. If someone has an answer to what you are looking for, by all means, they can cut off years to your learning curve, pay for it. If you've got the means to do it, invest in yourself. You are your biggest asset.
If I'm stitching a deal together and it's maybe something a little bit different. If I have to pay $300 to $350 an hour for my attorney or one of my attorneys to look at it in keeping the deal together or something else, pay the money. I'm paying for speed. I'm paying for information. I'm paying for assuredness and experience. There's a time for saving and I'm all about that. I live well below my means but there's a time for paying the money and investing in yourself.
If you would go back in time and tell yourself one thing or one piece of advice from day one, what would you tell yourself?
Part of my personality that I'm trying to work on but probably how much I worry about things and revisiting things over and over to where it's useful. I've always felt like worrying is useful to the point where you come up with a solution or you take massive action to figure it out. Beyond that, let it go. It’s not to worry as much, keep taking action but at a certain point, let it go.
How do you get yourself from a low vibe to a high vibe and let it go? What would you say would be one of your most effective strategies to get yourself in that right headspace? That's where we succeed is keeping yourself in that high vibe space.
It's huge and it's critical as well. One thing is noticing that you're doing it first and foremost and saying, “What could go wrong here?” Instead of, “How much could go right?’ It's one thing to say, “I have to watch everything that I'm thinking and saying.” We think tens of thousands of thoughts every day and the answer is yes, kind of. If you notice a pattern that you're focusing on, “I don't want to flip a house because what if I lose money?” What do you think that you're aiming towards? It’s not winning but not losing money.
As you start to notice that space and as you start to widen that gap of, “This is what I was thinking,” you need to inject a new positive thought in there. It doesn't have to be sunshine and rainbows but you need to stay away from, “Am I running into the cone by focusing on it so much on the side of the road? If I'm going through a construction zone and something new and changing in my life, am I focusing on the cone, or am I focusing on the new destination?” You need to focus on the new destination.
In the morning, I will put on something educational or inspiring or motivational. I can always use the same example, “I don't want to flip a house because I might lose money.” Turn on BiggerPockets. Turn on your podcast. Turn on something where you see other women that are doing it that have overcome things. It's replanting this idea so it's not a knee-jerk reaction to go to, “I'm going to lose money.” It starts to slowly meld towards, “What action do I need to take to hedge my bets so I can win? How do I need to do my numbers?” Make it a little bit more actionable.
Another big thing for me has been to get up and move. Whether it's listening to rap music or going for a run or putting on music or something like that and getting in your body a little bit more to release that anxiety and that tension of, “If I flip a house, I'm going to lose money.” Move around, let it go. Understand that there will be challenges, of course, and you need to recognize that there are things there that you need to be aware of. Staying in that space is not useful beyond taking action and figuring out what your next step is. Whether it's taking your dog for a walk, praying, listening to music, playing piano or gardening, get up and move. Fill your environment with things that are inspiring, motivational, and educational because your environment is as important as your inner mental environment. Both of those need to be supportive of a destination and the lifestyle that you're trying to build for yourself.
I was having a rough time and for whatever reason, I couldn't get out of my way and I said, “I'm going to the beach. I know that I have a lot to do but I'm going to the beach.” I had one of the best runs of the season. I remember calling up one of my girlfriends afterward and I'm like, “I was in such a terrible headspace but I got my body moving.” I looked at the ocean. I grounded myself. I was praying as I was running. I put on some amazing music and I crushed my workout. I came back and I'm like, “It's all about perspective.”
Real Estate Boss: If you want to get started, stop waiting for permission. If you want to be a boss, get up in the morning and get at it.
I realigned and I reframe what was going on and I'm like, “What if the worst thing happens?” If that happens, I'll deal with it when I get to that. I'm playing all these different stories in my head of what could be all across that bridge. I'm a massive problem solver. If you get to the point of like, “We are massive problem solvers.” That's what we get paid to do. It makes it so much easier to power forward because it’s like, “If the bottom falls out, great. If the bottom doesn't fall out, great. I'm going to keep moving forward either way.”
I'm glad you brought that up. I was talking with my friend, Rafael Cortez, on his podcast and we were talking about that centeredness. I’m like, “Think of the worst-case scenario.” You don't flip that house or you do lose money. You go bankrupt. You're afraid of that. It's a crappy situation. I don't wish that on anyone. I don't wish any of this on anyone, but yet here we are. If things do happen for the worst, you will live through it. You can recover. There are worse things than financial ruin. That is the biggest thing that people think about and care about so much.
I also think we're going through a time and evolution of reframing what it is about money that makes us obsessed with it. It used to be the prestige, the giant houses, the late model or new brand of which, if you want that stuff, I want that for you too. However, as people are experiencing what we're experiencing, I do think that there's going to be a shift of, “What does money does for my life and how can I achieve that? In what capacity am I willing to trade my life for my finances?” Sometimes even saying, “What if that stuff happens,” and getting up. I also like the other thing that you said about self-talk. How we talk to ourselves can be critical. You would never walk up to one of your girlfriends and say, “You are looking ratchet now. How come you didn't make those ten calls? You are not enough. You will never be it.” You would never, in your wildest dreams, think of saying that to one of your friends. Why would we say that to ourselves, and yet we do?
I share this so much in my coaching like, “You are your biggest villain.” To transition from being your biggest villain to your biggest superhero, be able to rescue yourself from this story. One of my favorite books is by Cindy Trimm, Commanding Your Morning. It gets your head in the right spot and it's affirming who you are. It's one of those things where I'm always pushing myself and my team and the people that I coach. We're playing to win. We're not playing to lose. There's so much freedom in saying, “If this whole thing falls out, it doesn't matter.” I'm always shedding those self-limiting beliefs or those things that are not serving my highest purpose and getting myself playing at your highest vibe state and then being able to share that with others. Are the thoughts that you're thinking propelling you forward to your greatness or pulling you down to your lowest place?
There is a slight but massive difference between playing not to lose and playing to win. Your energetic output thought processes, how much you hold back, and how much you give shifts massively between that slight differences.
I even have it on my mirror and I'm teaching my team all the time, we're playing to win. We're not playing to lose. #Winning all day, every day. I love that that's the way that you play. Let me ask you the last couple of questions. Let's say someone comes to you and says, “Tracy, I want to be able to be the boss of my own life and call the shots. What's my first step?”
You have made that decision is probably the first step. Also deciding, what is the boss of you look like? What does that look like in conjunction with the rest of your life? There's an ecosystem of what that looks like is you start to change too. Is it, I need more me-time? 6:00 to 6:30 is me-time and whatever it is that I do within that whether I'm doing a facial mask or going for a run or praying, that's me-time. Also, if that's in a business capacity, looking at things that people continuously tell you you're good at that feel like, “I'm not good at it. It's easy for me.” That's because you're good at it. Maybe there's something to that and you could monetize it and approach that in a way that you can start small and grow from there. Making the decision that you want to be more in control of your life is critical. What does that look like with the environment that you're in and in a business capacity as well?
What is your definition of a boss at this stage of the game for you?
For me, it would be setting boundaries around what works for me and what doesn't and who I want to work with and the opportunities that I want to take versus being pulled in different directions and thinking, “I could do this and I could do that.” We're multitalented people. We could do a lot of things. Focusing on, what is my giftedness? How does that fit into the type of work-life balance that I want to have if there is such a thing, and say no? That's powerful is being able to say no. Yes to the things that light me up and then no to the things that aren't a heck yes.
I always say, even to myself, “If it's not a yes, it’s an absolute no.”
Also, growth is going to be a big thing for me but it's relative to me. Growth could mean different things to different people. Progress means different things to different people. That's what a boss’s life looks like to me.
Any last words of wisdom, Tracy, to leave with our readers that are saying, “I want to dive into the real estate arena?”
We're approaching a time, for better or for worse, however, you want to frame it, that a lot of people are going to need help. If you want to be a resource within that, it is not going to be you acting as a sole person and separate from everything that's happening in the community. We are going to learn to be more of a community. It's odd that before any of this happened I changed the hashtag that I am promoting, which is #BuildMoreTogether. It's going to be through collaboration. It's going to be through the community. It's going to be through helping each other and partnering with people in some capacity or another to help build all of us and raise the tie that way from the bottom up. No one's coming to save us. We’ve got to pick up our bootstraps and do this together. My words of wisdom would be, if you want to get started, stop waiting for permission. If you want to be a badass, get your ass up in the morning and get at it.
Tracy, I know that you have been such a beautiful resource for the community at large. I would love for you to share your Instagram handle, your website, how people can get connected with you because I've been inspired and I want to share you with my tribe.
I'm glad we got connected. I'm easy to find online. My handle is everywhere, @RoyceOfRealEstate. I have re-faced for everything. I'm diving into a ton more content. I want to provide more value. If you want to follow along on my journey and we can be a part of each other's journey and build more together, then find me online wherever you're at. I'll be there too.
Thank you so much for your time, Tracy. It has been such a blessing getting to know you and being inspired. For all of you readers out there, this is my challenge every single time, it is to fire your fear, build your faith, and become the boss of your own life. Get after it, guys. Thanks, Tracy.
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