Michelle Spalding - Having Success In Real Estate & All Areas Of Life

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Success in one area of your life does not have to come at the expense of other areas of your life. Too many times people in real estate are so focused on numbers for the sake of bragging that they leave other areas of their life a mess. Michelle Spalding has committed to helping people create businesses that suit the lifestyle that they desire. With over 26 years of experience in the real estate industry, she's been a transaction coordinator, started a transaction coordinator training academy, and now helps people start and launch their own businesses. She's focused on helping people reclaim their own version of success in whatever they do. With this episode coming at the end of the year, listen and think about what you want your next year to look like, and orchestrate a plan to get you there with Michelle's help and advise.

 

In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:

• Michelle's important exercise to take a holistic assessment of your life:
  • Take a piece of paper and draw a circle.
  • List out the things like health, home, relationships, finances, business and all the stuff that happened in your life.
  • Slice it up into a pie. (Look on how big is the slice of spirituality, business and relationship with family and friends)
  • Assess and set goals in each area of your life.
• Selling more and doing more is not a bad thing, yet make sure you're focusing on the other areas of your life as well.
• The beauty of building and growing your own businesses is you can dictate the terms.
• Leave what you don't want and create what works well for you. 
• A popular action people take is to choose a word for the year to really focus on what’s important to you.
• Encourage your clients to create a celebration.
• Don't just make business goals.

• Make goals for other areas of your life.
• Prioritize what you really want to achieve.
• You need to realize that it takes time to achieve your goals.

• Give yourself grace when you fail.
• Print your goals, make them accessible, and re-evaluate your progress every week
• How you can still earn a good income on the admin side of real estate.
• It’s all about passion, skills, and abilities in carving out your success in Real Estate.

 

Timestamps

0:00 - Intro to Michelle’s Career
1:39 - Passion In Real Estate
4:25 - Business Success
8:27 - Helping People
17:22 - Goals
23:04 - Building Your Own Business
27:32 - Michelle's Books
30:11- How to find Michelle

 

FOLLOW MICHELLE 👇
https://michellespalding.com/ 
https://www.facebook.com/MichelleSpal... 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelles... 
https://transactioncoordinatoracademy... 
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Contract-... 
https://www.amazon.com/Glitter-Duct-T... 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...

 

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Full transcript here:

Mike Swenson 

Hey everybody, to another episode of The REL Freedom Podcast where we talk about building time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And as we approach the new year, a lot of you guys are thinking about goals you're reflecting on your life. What did 2022 look like? Was it better or worse than you thought? Was it different than how you thought? And as you think about 2023, what are some things that you want to change, improve on add, subtract, multiply whatever that might look like.

 

Mike Swenson 

And so today, we're going to talk about that. So we're talking with Michelle Spalding. And so the first part of the episode, we're going to talk kind of about goals and your life and planning out holistically how that looks, because I know it's a very timely topic. And then because she's a wealth of information, she's covered a lot of things in real estate, coach, author, TC, TC is really where you spent a lot of time building and growing your business coaching and helping other people grow theirs. We'll we'll chat about some of that other stuff that you do as well. And then just want to highlight, you did have a new book that just came out called Nathaniel's journey. And so we'll we'll get into that a little bit later, as well. So welcome, Michelle, we're so excited to have you on the show.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Thank you so much for having me, Mike.

 

Mike Swenson 

It's a pleasure. Why don't we just get started and just kind of share a little bit, you know, cliffnotes version of your journey to where you're at today. Obviously, your your time in real estate, again, kind of your passions within that and how that's evolved over time.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Oh, I'm gonna date myself here, I started back in 1995. Probably some people listening were, well, I don't even need to get into that. But I started back in 1995. And I went from working in a doctor's office to working in a law firm. And in this law firm, all we did was real estate closings. And I spent 10 years there, and I met a lot of real estate agents over the top over that time. But what I learned from real estate agents at the time was I would see them for a little while, and we would have a deal or two or three. And then it would kind of be not be around. And then same thing would happen. That was like the cycle.

 

Michelle Spalding 

So I started noticing and started asking questions. And what I heard from them was the up and downs that happen, right, I get a couple of deals, I get to spend so much time on it, I lose sight of marketing, all of the the things that we know happened in this industry. And around that time, I was asking those questions, I was also looking for a solution to our problem, we had paper files, it was impossible to find anything. And I stumbled upon this word called transaction coordinator, this title, called transaction coordinator was very popular in California. But in 2004 2005, East Coast wasn't in existence.

 

Michelle Spalding 

So I put together this business plan and really just thought this is going to change things in my state, I'm going to sell them and talk to my attorney, you know, we're gonna go into business together, because I didn't think I could do it. And I did. I worked on a business plan, I presented it to him. And he said, what's the dumbest idea ever? So I did it. And spent 16 years as a TC started out, you know, just me and then over time built that up to 20 people, and, you know, learned a lot about agents and a lot about success and a lot about what they needed help with. And that's been my journey. Yeah.

 

Mike Swenson 

So talking about agents and success. You know, so many times, we're at that spot in the year where, okay, what are my goals for 2023. And it comes down to units volume, GCI, you name it. And there's so much more to that than just what happens inside the walls of your real estate business, you know, quality of life time with family traveling. And so there's this holistic piece. And so from a from a business standpoint, there's so many people in the business that we've encountered where they have success based on the awards that they're getting, the number of units that they're putting up, but their life is a disaster, at what cost does success in terms of business success come. And so one of the things that you really do is help people to take a more holistic approach to that. And so, kind of walk through that process, how you help people out and how you kind of coach them through, how do I have a successful 2023. And it's not just about what are my units, what's my volume and what's my GCI

 

Michelle Spalding 

That could take hours, but let me just give you a brief exercise that I think is something really important that anybody could do. You take a piece of paper and you draw a circle on that piece of paper. And on that piece of paper, you're going to list out out the things like health and home, and relationships and finances and business, all the stuff, right that that happens in life. And then you're going to slice that pot, slice that up into a pie. And you're going to put on there, you know, how much time how big is the slice of pie for, you know, my spirituality? How big is this pie slice of pie for my business? How much is the slice of pie for, you know, my relationships with my family, or my friends, all of the other things? And you're gonna have a look at that.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And I sort of recommend people doing it in two phases. What was the pie that what did the pie look like this year? And what would you like the pie to look like next year. So before you even set any goals, you know, you decide what you want your your pie to look like, and then begin to set goals that are going to support you in having the pie that you're wanting to have, right? If we just create like, okay, you know, I sold 100 units this year, I want to sell 120 Next year, right? But why? You know, because you're gonna get an award in the office. But why? Because, you know, like, all of that.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And it's not that like, selling more or doing more is not is a bad thing. That's not what I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say is, you know, question, is it going to take me closer to, you know, the way that I want my pie to look like the way that I want my life to look like? Or is it going to take me further away from it.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And you know, we all have different seasons in our life, there's time where, you know, we might have more space on our pie for business or for other things where other times in our lives we we have children and, you know, family members that need us or our community. So our pie might look a little different. So when I talk about the holistic approach to it, it's like your own individual, you know, pie, and like, encompassing all of it, not just the number of units sold.

 

Mike Swenson 

Because yeah, you don't want to have I hit my goal at all costs. And all this collateral damage is the relationships, the spirituality, the health, you know, I know for me personally, like that was where I was at three years ago, like, I felt like, I didn't have time because I wanted to have success in business. I didn't have time for my personal health. And then it was because of COVID that actually got me outside because I was restless in the house during the shutdowns. And it's like, I need something to do well, then I got into running. And so you know, it was kind of that that's the type of stuff where I got to that point where I realized I had to make a change. And so the goal here is, yeah, you don't want to have my be hag right, my big, hairy, audacious goal. And then everything in my life is in shambles, because I put all my eggs in that basket to hit my my unit count goal for the year. And I took my goal and I doubled it, it was this aggressive goal. And now everything else is in shambles.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, you know, your health is is irreplaceable, you know, relationships are often irreplaceable. But there's. So I think we can have both, you know, but we have to just be really mindful of making sure that we can you know, that that circle is only so big. So we have to allow for, you know, a little bit of movement, a little bit of flexibility. And just being really mindful of what we allow what we give ourselves permission to spend time doing. Yeah

 

Mike Swenson 

How do you help people? Because they're, there's all those slices of the pie that you talked about, you know, how do I feel like instead of chasing, you know, 567 different things, like I'm setting goals and all these areas? Like how do I keep things simple enough? Versus having three goals in each area of my life? And how do you help them to kind of work through that where it's not like, I feel like I'm being pulled in different directions, but these actually fit together? Well.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, so I like to tell people to choose a word for the year and I shared with you earlier, my word for the euro space, so anytime, my word for the year this year with simplicity or symbol. So anytime I create a goal or, you know, say yes to something or even consider saying yes to something, like, I kind of want to run it back through that filter. So for instance, if my goal this year was to lose a certain amount of weight, right, and so I know I needed to create a different eating plan. If it's not simple, I'm not going to stick with it. Like I just know that right? That's got to be the focus that's part of like what was important to me. So that might mean getting you know some support around meal prep by somebody you know, finding a company locally, that makes meals right so as I'm creating those goals, there's there's like other layers to it in order to up our success, right.

 

Michelle Spalding 

So we don't want to forget about like it's really easy to make 100 phone calls, or it's sometimes really easy, but you know, to park your button and cheer and just keep making phone calls, but Sometimes it's really hard to, to do the things that you need to do for your body. And you know, for your, you know, your, your happiness and and if we don't make sure that we prioritize those things, making all those phone calls and generating all that business is, is, you know, we we lose things, we lose ourself.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Back to your question, I apologize, I got a little sidetrack there, how do I help people with that? You know, we take a look at what's going on. And there's a lot of places where we can automate delegate and even sometimes eliminate things. So I mentioned you know, the meal prep, right? That would be an delegate, that would be an automated thing, right? You would set it up, you would have meals delivered, or, or have a pickup, right. So it's, it's looking for like little ways to change things to really simplify it. I had a client once who was really struggling with just being so overwhelmed that bills were late getting paid not because she didn't have the money, she didn't make the time to take care of those. So her finances and taking care of those was a huge priority to her.

 

Michelle Spalding 

So we automated minimum monthly payments every single month for a set amount to all of her credit cards. And then once a month, she can go in and pay more, she can pay them off, she can do whatever. But it was like a little thing to prevent her from having those late payments, but to also have a win there, right? So it just helped her feel good. So instead of like, oh crap, I got that late payment and and beating herself up for it. Well, now there was a success. And all that time spent fussing at herself about it is now spent doing other things.

 

Mike Swenson 

And it takes time to you have to have an understanding of yourself in those things. Like what what am I good at what I'm not, what am I not good at? I mean, for me, I have a pile of mail that sometimes builds up to and sometimes I forget to go through it. And usually I make a first run of, you know, what do I need to make sure that I tackle but notices or you know, business related things, whatever. So you kind of have to have those checks and balances and enough of a self understanding to know like, what am I good at?

 

Mike Swenson 

And yeah, where can I put just something simple like that, just having an automated payment can create a mini win there for you. And you know, now you don't have the possibility of having no payment and have late fees charged and that sort of thing. So yeah, it's how do you I love it, finding ways to just automate little things that might take things off your plate, and yeah, even just hiring somebody to help make meals, that's a huge win for you. Because now you don't have to take the brain space to figure that out. It's just hey, now my meals show up. So I love that.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah. And you're able to back to that whole slice of the pie, you know, you're able to have the energy that you want to pour into, like making that, if that's your goal, the health thing a little bit larger, but without it taking away from so many other things, right? Like without it being exhausting, because none of us want that.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah. And I know for me personally having, you know, depending on the day, either I'm listening to podcasts, or listening to music while I'm working out, right. And so I can multitask those things. And if it's a day where I feel like I'm just fried, that's a Music Day, and depending on my mood, it's the certain type of music, whether it's, you know, something energizing or something relaxing, or if it's like, I feel like I just need to learn something, then it's a podcast, you know, usually I'm more excited to listen to podcasts on the weekends when my brains not as moving as quickly with workweek stuff. So it might be music during the week podcasts on the weekend. But

 

Mike Swenson 

But yeah, even to like for me, it was a way where now I'm knocking down two dominoes at the same time. And it's not overwhelming because it, you know, I can do working out and I can do a podcast at the same time. And they're not pulling from each other where, you know, if I'm working out that's time that I'm not spending lead generating. And so I feel like those are things where it's hard to do both at the same time. Unless you had the the treadmill desk, right, you could do a treadmill desk in and work at the same time, which is another benefit. I've thought about that too. So

 

Michelle Spalding 

I am not that coordinated. My third grade teacher said I was an accident waiting for place to happen. And that has stuck with me. So good luck to you on that treadmill desk. I'm not going to tackle that one myself. But you know, one of the things too, that you were mentioning podcast and listening to them while you're working out. One of my friends used to there was a television show that she liked. And she would only watch it when she was on the treadmill. And so it was sort of her reward. You know, like I get to watch this, but I only get to watch it. If I'm doing this other thing that I know is good for me. So sort of another way to stack it.

 

Mike Swenson 

I had a an example when I was working on trying to get up early in the morning to go work out. I had given myself the reward of if I got up at this time and worked out that I had got to go get Starbucks, right. So like I tied, the thing you like motivate yourself positively for doing something well that you want to do. Versus sometimes I feel like we have negative connotations with getting up and working out. To try to build that habit, I decide, well, I'm gonna reward myself, when I do that, I'm gonna go get Starbucks, well, then when the morning comes, I'm a lot more likely to get up and hop out of bed. Because I know if I go do these things, well, boom, then it means I can get Starbucks and so. So that's a way that I positively rewarded myself to get in the habit and build up the muscle memory of getting up earlier and going and working out.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Well. And if we gamify it in a way that makes it fun, we're more likely to do it. But if we shame ourselves for not doing something, how many I mean, we can't stick with that, that doesn't work. If it did, we'd all be our ideal weight and and all the other things that we're with that we're striving for, it's impossible. I like that you get did it or anchored it to Starbucks.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And I encourage clients often to create a celebration. So when they're working toward a goal, rather than just focusing on the work that they have to do, it's much like what you were saying, it's like, what's the reward? What's the thing that I'm, I'm going to celebrate with and speaking of Starbucks, one of my clients, I love her dearly, she said to me, my reward is I'm gonna go be that single woman at Starbucks. And I'm like, explain yourself. And she said, I told my husband, I'm going to Starbucks, I'm getting a coffee, he has the kids, I'm turning off my phone, he knows which one I'm at, he has to call there. If he needs me, I'm taking a book and I'm checking out for an hour like that was her celebration for something really difficult that she had been working on in her business. So it's making it fun, as well.

 

Mike Swenson 

Awesome. I hope for those of you listening that this helps give you some ideas, as you're thinking about goals. Don't just make business goals. Number one, make other goals for other key areas of your life. kind of find those, prioritize the ones that you really want to hit. And then realizing too, it takes time to build momentum to hit those goals, right. Just like working your muscles. You can't necessarily have this super strict rigid goal in a certain area, if you've never done anything to tackle that. And then giving yourself grace when you fail, that it's a process to be able to get where you're going. So any other advice that you have for people as they're kind of thinking about goals,

 

Michelle Spalding 

Whatever your goals are, print them out, keep them handy. And each and every week, look at those as you're planning your schedule, and look at them first, like look at your week that you just had, you know, how how how well I did at you know that slice of pie at making time for health and making time for relationships, whatever it was, that was important to you, when you created that pie. And then look ahead to the next week, how can I help myself get closer to that. So often we have this like list of goals, and then we put them on the on a bulletin board or somewhere in our office or our workspace. And we forget to use them each and every week as we're planning. So that would be my final advice around that keep those handy and, and adjust them as the year goes on.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Sometimes, you know, we accomplish something and you know, great, but sometimes are like things changed for us. So you don't have to be super rigid about like, well, this is the goal. This is what I have to do. Just reevaluate them and reevaluate your your progress each and every

 

Mike Swenson 

week. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing about the holistic goal approach. And yeah, it's it's really important because longevity is important. Being able to do something, you know, for real estate, there's a lot of people that burnout in real estate. And so being able to find something that you can do, and stick with it and sustain it, and be able to build knowledge year over year, if you burn out and go to another industry, you've lost the opportunity. I think real estate is a fantastic opportunity.

 

Mike Swenson 

There's so many different things you can do. Which is why I love this podcast highlighting different skills and abilities and passions that people have and building their life within real estate. That's really important. So we want you to stick around in the real estate space and be able to sustain it if if you can find a way to make it work. So switching gears now talking about TC, TC, so you spent a long time as a TC, helping train T C's help them build and grow their business. And so I'd love for you to just share a little bit more about that piece of your pie and what you've done there.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, that was a that was interesting. In 2015. I wrote a book called The road from contract to close. And I wrote that book with the intention of showing real estate agents hey, look, see all these pages. This is all that we do. This is all that it takes that kind of thing. Please come do business with us. We'll take care of everything in this book for you. And what ended up happening was I started getting real estate I mean TCS reaching out to me. Hey, I saw you wrote this book. Can you help me? Can you teach me can you mentor me? Can you coach me So in 2009 18, I created an academy, where I teach people to do exactly what I did for all those years, and how to do it in a way that is sustainable, right that the doesn't burn them out.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Because it's really easy in this side of the business to also fall into that, but how to do it without burning themselves out how to, you know, market and find the clients that they're most in alignment with, but also how to do it so that they, you know, again, have the time to do other things that are important to them, as well. So that's been really fun we've had well over 1000 students go through the academy, to learn how to be a TC, and I also get the pleasure of coaching, privately in, in group settings, quite a few people in this space to help them, you know, work toward whatever goals they have and navigate the ropes of this, this crazy industry.

 

Mike Swenson 

Well, and one of the things that I love, you know, I'm I'm more of an administrative ly gifted person than kind of on the sales side of things. And when I was early in real estate, I would hear agents talk about like, Well, why would I want to be on the admin side? Like I just, I don't have as much income opportunity. And it's like, well, it's not about that necessarily, right, you can still earn a really good income being on the admin side. It's about what passions do I have, it's about my skills and abilities. Introvert extrovert, like how are my batteries being recharged. And so there's so many reasons why people want to do it.

 

Mike Swenson 

And that's why I love interviewing people of all shapes and Scott sizes and skills and abilities and passions. Because, yeah, you can carve out a very successful business inside of real estate. And maybe you were an agent in the past. And you're like, Hey, that's not me. I'm actually more excited about supporting agents. And so you come over to this side. So there's, there's a whole awesome world, on the admin side, and especially in the TC space for people that this is their niche, this is what they want to do. This is what excites them. They don't want to be an agent, but they really love supporting agents and helping them. And they're an entrepreneur, and they want to build and grow a business inside of real estate that's not about helping people, or working with buyers and sellers, you're helping those people working with buyers and sellers.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, absolutely, I would love to add one more layer to that. And that's that, you know, a lot of us were moms with young kids, and you know, balancing, showing homes at nights and on the weekends, especially as single parents, nearly impossible. I did sell homes for a while and I did enjoy it. But I it was really hard. Like, you know, finding a babysitter at the last moment or like, Hi, this is my daughter, she's coming with me to the showing, she didn't want to do it either. So for many of us, it was also a way to stay in an industry that we loved that we were good at that we you know, knew a lot of people in and to, to do it in a way that also allowed us to have that freedom and flexibility that we really needed, especially as moms, single moms especially Yeah,

 

Mike Swenson 

and the beauty of building and growing your own businesses, you get to dictate the terms, right and, and working with clients, you don't have to take every client that comes your way. It's about finding the right fit, based on your personality, their personality, your time availability, their expectations, some agents expect a transaction coordinator to respond nights and weeks, weekends and everything in between. And when you set up your business, you get to dictate how that works. And so you can say, You know what, I'm not working with you, because that's not a fit for me, or, Hey, I would love to work with you. Here's my guidelines, nights and weekends. Sorry, I'm with my family. I'd love to serve you during the week, you know, and so that's the cool thing is you get to build and go grow your business and take on the clients you want based on the life you want to design.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And I think that's been one of the things about this industry. You know, I see, I have a large Facebook group with a little over 5000 people in it that are in this space. And you know, I see everything, somebody will post a question and they'll be like 25 different ways that that can be done. And I think that's one of the things that I've really enjoyed. It's, you know, the way that I did it is one particular way, but that doesn't mean it's the right way or the best way it's that way worked for me. So being able to, you know, reflect on what others have done and hear what others have done.

 

Michelle Spalding 

And then take what you want, leave what you don't want and create what works well for you. I personally didn't work nights and weekends. But you know, again, it was it was because I had a family and that was important to me. And prior to starting this I worked at a law firm. I mean that was 6070 hours a week on a good week. So I didn't want that anymore. It was not sustainable. And that was another draw for me into into becoming a TC all those years ago.

 

Mike Swenson 

I still remember when I first got into real estate I watched a video where they had interviewed an agent who He was a very successful agent at his brokerage. And he talked about how the previous year he had only worked one one night or weekend to do a showing for somebody, and the person interviewing them said, how are you able to build and grow this business? And have it be so large and not work nights and weekends and his response? And this is eight years ago? And I still remember he said, Well, you'd be surprised what people are willing to do if you just ask them, you know, yeah. And he just said, like that, that was his thing. Like, I want to spend time with my family, I'd love to show you the house at 9am Tomorrow morning, and set that expectation.

 

Mike Swenson 

You you teach people how to treat you. And that was important to him. And so in his slice of the pie, that that was the one where, you know, five o'clock, I'm with Family and everybody's family is different, right? I remember when my wife was going through grad school, I was more open to do stuff on nights and weekends, I ended up helping flip a house during that time, because she was at class. I was home by myself, we didn't have kids at the time. So I wanted to do that today. I don't want to do that. Because I want to be home with my kids. And so that's the beauty is you get to pick and choose how you build and grow your business based on what you want to accomplish.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah. And you know, to add to that, you can also surround yourself with people that are not that do also want to work those other hours, those odd hours are the hours opposite of what you want to work and partner with people so that you know both of you have wins not just the one or the other.

 

Mike Swenson 

Yeah, you find somebody maybe maybe they have a spouse or a partner that works in odd shift. And for them, they want to be home during the day. Well, you pair the two of you together, you got some pretty good coverage figured out. And so yeah,

 

Michelle Spalding 

I think it's being creative. And I think it's you know, as entrepreneurs, I think that's one of the things that is required. You know, it's it's, we can learn from others. But we also really have to just, I like to say if the front door is locked, you go around back. And if that doesn't work, you try a window, right? You just, you gotta keep trying, eventually, you'll find your way to the to the thing that works best for you. But you can't just while the door was locked, and walk away. If it's something you want, you figure it out, you get creative. And that's that's probably been the the funnest part of being an entrepreneurs, being able to come up with crazy ideas, some worked. Some didn't. Sound like I'm like, What was I thinking? But overall, it's been a fun adventure.

 

Mike Swenson 

Awesome. And talk a little bit about you know, you've you've been an author now, you've wrote some books, how does that fit in anything is that kind of just hey, this is a passion I, I feel like I want to share this piece with the world at this time. You know, like your your TC book, now you've got, you know, an illustrated book, I'd love to just kind of hear how writing books fits into kind of what else you do.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, you know, I think it comes back to a childhood dream. I told everybody, when I was a kid, I was gonna be a teacher, have a big have a shop, because that's what I thought a business was. And I was gonna be a writer. And I mean, I get to do all those things today. Because those were those are important. I wrote my second book about like, what it was like to be a business owner, not specifically only to the TEC space, or only to the real estate space, but just business in general. And that book is called glitter duct tape and magic, because every business is a little sparkly.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Sometimes it's held together with duct tape, and sometimes it's just a prayer. And and that was what that book was, it was about, you know, a long journey. Some of the things I learned some things I wanted to help people with. And the last one that I wrote, which was released last month in November, it was it was a story that just basically came to me, I picked up a leaf while out hiking. And all of a sudden, I just started hearing a story not hearing hearing, but like it just started forming. And I was hiking in a in Georgia in the north Georgia mountains. And when I got back to the cabin, I just started writing. But it took all those years to like find the right people to help me bring it out. That story came to me in 2017. But it took four different illustrators to get it published. It just, you know, it was an adventure. So those were my books. And I think it's more of just a passion. You know, I enjoy writing. I enjoy telling stories.

 

Mike Swenson 

Well, and it's awesome to see how you've picked different things up along the way, kind of put different pieces together, and how you've been able to help a lot of people in the real estate industry and even just in business as well. And so it's cool to see how all these different things that maybe to an outside person might seem unrelated. You're able to put them together and help people and live a life that you want to live on your terms and do the things that you want to do. So congratulations on all that you've accomplished.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Thank you so much. It's been it's been a fun adventure. I think that It's probably you would even say this in your business and experience. It's nothing like it was what I thought it would be when I started but it's so much better than I ever expected.

 

Mike Swenson 

So for people that want to learn more about you find out more about your books, your TC training and coaching, how can they do that?

 

Michelle Spalding 

Yeah, this place to hit me up is over on my website and that's Michelle spalding.com. And there's links to all the books all the How to Find me how to connect with me, how to get training, etc. It can all be found there.

 

Mike Swenson 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Michelle, for coming on and sharing and excited to see you know, where where your journey continues to take you.

 

Michelle Spalding 

Thank you so much t was a pleasure.