Nicole Wilhelm: From Homeless To Millionaire Entrepreneur
LISTEN TO FULL EPISODE ON:
We talk a lot about about physical real estate, but how is your "mental real estate"? Nicole Wilhelm is here to share why mental real estate is the most valuable piece of real estate that you'll own. By investing in yourself, you can increase your value and the life around you. It's what has brought Nicole from being hopeless and homeless to the point where she is now a millionaire. Nicole and her husband are the owners of the Wilhelm Team with Compass, specializing in real estate in the Bay Area up to Sacramento. In addition to that, they are real estate investors and developers and have taken a strong hold to investing in cryptocurrency over the past few years. We spend a little bit of time covering how they got into cryptocurrency and why they feel so strongly about their holdings there, so if this something you'd like to learn a bit more about, make sure you tune in!
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Her background at Hawaii Pacific University, Golden Gate University, working in marketing & communication. Then, he worked her way up and became a VP of Marketing.
- People want the liquidity of money, yet, because of the appreciation of homes in the market it can be a faster way to grow your wealth, but it's less liquid
- She learned crypto currency from one of her clients. She would recommend to invest even a little bit in it and hold and see where it takes you.
- She is now preparing to do a TEDx talk about mental real estate, because as a real estate entrepreneur herself, she has seen so many people focus on the real estate that you can buy and sell yet people forget to take care of themselves first
- What's great about working on your mental real estate, you are the appraiser. Only you know what the mental return on investment is. Do comps on yourself, and look to increase your value.
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro and overview on Nicole ‘s career.
07:12 - Talking about investment & development side of her real estate business.
14:19 - Diving in into crypto currency.
21:19 - Talking about mental real estate and mindset.
38:59 - How to connect to Nicole and how we can learn more about her.
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right. Welcome, everybody. We have a new episode of REL freedom stories. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. And today we get to talk with Nicole Wilhelm. And she has such a cool story to share from hopeless and homeless to a millionaire entrepreneur, you and your husband have a lot of stuff going on. So Nicole shared with me her husband was previously a poker player, professional poker player. And so you're one that takes risks. So you have a real estate team that did $65 million in production last year, you have some investment properties, some development, you also had mentioned that you do a lot in cryptocurrency. So we're going to talk about cryptocurrency. And then one of the things that you're passionate about is just mental health, taking care of your mental real estate, in addition to physical real estate, which I know is important. There's so many people that have struggled in the industry, burnout, stress challenges that they face. And so making sure that your mind is right, is really important to you. So we'll cover that as well. So welcome, Nicole to the show. We're so excited to have you.
Nicole Wilhelm
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. And if I can do anything to help someone in their journey to financial freedom,
Mike Swenson
I'm here for it. Why don't we just go ahead and talk a little bit about your background to get started? So you are in the Bay Area? In California, Sacramento, San Francisco area.
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah. So I think a great way to start this story is so my mom is from the Philippines and my dad's from Indiana. They they met each
Mike Swenson
natural, a natural spot for people to meet, right. And in the Philippines, why not?
Nicole Wilhelm
They actually met in Vegas. And then two weeks after knowing each other, they decided they wanted to get married. I bring that up because for the longest time, I thought I was going to be a diplomat or an ambassador. But I found out very quickly that we were going to war when I was in college. And I was like, Yeah, I'm good. And so my mom was like, Well, if you're going to do anything, you have to get an education. And I was like, okay, cool. So I got my bachelor's at Hawaii Pacific University. And then I got my masters at Golden Gate, university and integrated marketing, communication. And then I worked my way up, I became a VP of Marketing at a startup very quickly. And then I looked around and was like, Oh, my God, all these people are trading their time for money. None of them really have families. If they do have families, we never see them.
Nicole Wilhelm
You don't really have control over how well you do because it's based on how well your team does. And at the time, we were going up against Uber and Lyft. And I was like, There's no way we're going to win unless we move fast. Because we're in a tech, a taxi hailing company, and only taxi cab drivers do not want to change how they do business, because this is how they've been doing it forever. And my husband, at my fiancee at the time was like, Hey, we should go into business together. It like tech sales, you do marketing, and we would crush it. And I'm like, I think so. Okay, yeah, let's try it. So I decided to get my real estate license.
Nicole Wilhelm
And the first three years it's up, I don't even get money. There was times I had to tell my landlord like JK don't have it. But um, we, I would say after like the fifth year, it just took off, right? Things skyrocketed. We went from having just ourselves and an assistant to then running a team of about five, which is where we're at now. We do from the Bay Area, all the way to Sacramento. And I'm so glad that my husband was like, Look, we should go in and do it for ourselves. Because now looking back, I can't imagine not having control over my destiny. And then working with someone such as my husband, because I don't trust anyone more than him.
Mike Swenson
You know, it is interesting because I was raised in a family where, you know, my I lived in a small town, there was kind of one major employer and you worked there until you retired. And that was kind of what was what was normal. And and so that mindset, it's you know, I didn't realize that there were people that didn't really do that, you know, until I went to school and majored in entrepreneurship. And that was before people knew what the word entrepreneurship was. I remember when I told people that's what I was gonna major in. They're like, what, what is that? And yet at the same time, I didn't Take a risk right out of college, I went and worked at a job for a while before I could get up enough courage to make that leap.
Mike Swenson
So it is tough and it is challenging and, and getting in started in real estate is really hard. And that's why you know, 80 85% of the people quit and get out because you have to, I tell my team, you have to stick it out long enough till the pieces fall in place. And it kind of all clicks and takes off. And for some people that that does take time, you don't always have instant success. But once you figure out all the opportunity that's in real estate, and you find a way to go get it. That's where your life can take off.
Nicole Wilhelm
For sure. Yeah. And how was I was meaning to ask you what is it like to study entrepreneurship in St. Thomas?
Mike Swenson
St. Thomas is the college in Minnesota now.
Nicole Wilhelm
I thought it was like St. Thomas like the island. I was like, Oh, I can I can?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, well, so here's the funny thing. When you got accepted, I'm sure they still don't do it now cuz that was a long time ago. When you got accepted. They give you a t shirt, and it says St. Thomas. And then in parentheses bloat it says, not the island. So So that's funny that yeah, they actually play off of that St. Thomas, not the island. So yeah, so in Minnesota, that's a it's a, it's a private college. But but when I talked to my parents about going there, I said, Look, this is what I want to go into. I knew I wanted to go into business. And they had won an award for their master's program that year for being the the best program in the nation. I said, Look, this is a place where I can go get a good education, and learn a lot about it, I would say, you know, there's a lot of kind of general business principles that you learn.
Mike Swenson
But yeah, a lot of my friends, a lot of my classmates went and started businesses or took over the family business after they graduated. And I went back to still need that stable, that stable paycheck, the 401k, the benefits, and all of that, and it took time before I saw other people out there doing things where it's like, okay, Mike, you got to take this risk sometime, if you're gonna, you know, have those opportunities, and it's, it still is a challenge. And yet at the same time, I'm excited to, to go do what I want to do how I want to do it, and really build build the life that we want to live, which is kind of what this podcast covers. So yeah. So so why don't you talk a little bit then about the investment side, the development side? So in addition to running your, you know, your sales business, your your real estate, sales business, what some of the other stuff that you're working on?
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah, I mean, I am a huge proponent of building generational wealth. And one of the things that I really am adamant about is investing. And not only investing in your business investing in yourself, and we look at the residential sale side of our business as a vehicle to be able to funnel money for right now we're doing a development in Berkeley, it's a duplex, we took it down to the studs. And we are actively working on bringing it up to you know, value. And from the time that we purchased it. It was 700,000 Nobody would touch it with a stick. It's like the ugliest house on the block.
Mike Swenson
Even 700,000 I mean that. Yeah, that's that's basically a garage where you live, right?
Nicole Wilhelm
It is. Yeah. And it looks like that haunted house. And like everybody just like looks at it was like who? And why would you buy it? We, and we just gravitated to it. It was built in 1980 or 1880. And the reason why it was so important for us to purchase is because we knew if we held on to it, that it would be something of value. And so now the current value of the home was around 2.5, which is amazing. And so we'll use that money to then either create a fund to purchase more real estate, or to invest more heavily into cryptocurrency.
Mike Swenson
Now, that's, that's awesome. I mean, you you could see the value of of hanging on to an asset. And I think that's a key thing for people to understand is, you know, in addition to rental properties that you purchase, we always talk about, you've got the the appreciation, and the cash flow benefits. You also have the tax benefits, the depreciation, things like that, but then to it also provides leverage, you can go take a home equity line of credit. Now at the same time, this isn't financial advice, right? Because Because sometimes home values can go down. We're in a period where that hasn't happened, but but being able to leverage the assets, you have to go gain additional leverage and gain more assets is what's really important. And so yeah, you you have the ability now to use that asset to be able to go acquire more assets.
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah, and it's scary. That's the part of the deal. You're right. It's terrifying. When we purchased it, we're like oh my gosh, this is something that we can undertake while also you know, running a real estate business. But I would say that if you lean into the fear and You. And that's something we'll talk about after this, which is mindset. If you go into into it with the right mindset and know why you're doing it, I think it's easier to figure out the how that way. And so for us, we're like, okay, I want to make sure we have a daughter, her name is Olivia, I want to make sure that I set up a foundation that Olivia can springboard off of right? Where she can then say, okay, I learned how to develop a property at five. Right? I've seen these things before. And I think once you have been exposed to wealth generating activities at a very young age, it makes it easier to then pass it down to your kids. And so for us, we knew that but us taking a risk now would be worth it.
Nicole Wilhelm
Like I always do the rocking chair test with my husband, and I go, is this gonna be the story that we're in a rocking chair, and then all the grandkids come and they go, Oh, my gosh, grandma, Nicole, I can't believe like, you did a development in a pandemic, what crazy, we're so thankful, because now we're able to go to college or do all these other things. So I would say if anyone's listening, and they have that fear, definitely do an analysis to make sure that it makes financial sense for them, but also, always focus on the why they're doing it. Because that can carry you a lot further than people think.
Mike Swenson
And they'll say houses only cost $700,000. I can't believe that. I think when my parents bought their first house, it was 40,000, maybe 50,000? Or maybe it was less than that. But yeah, I mean, you look back and then two interest rates, you know, back then were 15%. Right? So you know, we've had a bump here, we were in a spot where rates were so low that, you know, you still have to remember people bought houses at 15% interest rates. And we're okay with that. Because it used to be 18% or higher. Do you've got your sales business? You've got the development project you took on you also said you had some some buy and hold investments that you've accumulated over time or have done done some of those, right?
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah, yeah, we have a place in Pleasant Hill, we have a place in Berkeley. And so for the listeners are like, where is that? It's about 20 minutes from San Francisco. To Daly City, it's about 45 minutes, maybe, from San Francisco to Pleasant Hill, it's located in the East Bay, Bell, those are something that we're just keep. Because one thing that I tell my sellers, which is very counterintuitive, is the only regret that I have sellers have is not anything other than that, man, I wish I didn't sell. So I say if you're going to sell, make sure that you're going to put this money to work for you somewhere else, either another real estate purchase cryptocurrency, the stock market, whatever, just make sure that you're just not cashing out. And then you're gonna, you know, I don't know, buy rims, or a great sound system, or you'll just spend it on random things. So for us know that we want to have a diverse portfolio, right?
Nicole Wilhelm
Because it's great to make huge gains when it comes to, you know, doing a flip or development. But it's also important to have something at least for us in our portfolio, that's more of a buy and hold so that you know if we need to, I don't know, when Olivia is older, and she needs to go to college, we don't want to take from our other investments, we can use the rental money then to pay for her college, or whatever she may need in the future. Even for us if we need long term care, we can always pull from those investments. Yeah.
Mike Swenson
And I know it's hard because, you know, people want the liquidity of money sometimes. And yet, because of the appreciation of of the the homes in the market there, you have to find something better than that to pull your cash out. Because, you know, otherwise, it could sit in a bank account for half a percent or less than that. And if houses are appreciating that 1520 25%, you know, go find an investment that does better than that. And for a lot of people that's challenging to do, you're actually going to lose money by cashing out on that asset. So you've got to find a way to strategically put your money to keep that money working for you. So let's dive into cryptocurrency a little bit then. So you have jumped in, you're all in and you're doing it. How did you get started? And when did you get started with that? And why
Nicole Wilhelm
such a great question. So I had a client who was in the cryptocurrency space about five years ago, and she and her boyfriend were moving from San Francisco to the East Bay. And I said, Okay, great, you know, do you have a down payment? You know, all the normal questions that you ask as a real estate agent and she goes, No, I don't have my down payment yet, but I'm working on it. And I'm like, Okay, how are you going to work on it from the time that we You know, find you a place and you have to write an offer, like that's pretty tight, right? Because things go quickly in the barrier. She goes, Oh, I'm day trading cryptocurrency. And at the time, we just had never heard of it. And we're like, what does that even mean? And so she sat me down and she goes, You know, I taught myself how to day trade. And you know, I, I'm now in in the space, I'm at a job where she was like an engineering or a cryptocurrency space.
Nicole Wilhelm
And I watched her save a ridiculous amount of money by investing in crypto and I go, Look, I don't know what you're doing. I hope it's legal. But this is, this is crazy. How did you come up with a down payment for at the time or place was like, I don't know. $700,000? Like, how did you come up with it so quickly? And she said, I invested in and then she went through all the different things that she was invested in, she would sit down with us and would say, hey, look, I have my family on an investment plan and strategy, we started treating it as a game. And now we have text threads, where we go, how much did you gain today? How much did you lose? What did you learn from it? How are you pivoting? And then it really caused us to say, that's something we want to implement within our own family so that we can spread it out to our more extended family. And then again, really focusing on building generational wealth. And so we started reading it as a game. And then we watched our portfolios, like, catapult and don't get me wrong, like you're gonna have days where you're gonna look and be like, Oh, my God, why did I invest in cryptocurrency?
Nicole Wilhelm
What was wrong with the s&p 500? Or well, along with just like, putting it in the bank, because there is huge gains and huge losses. But again, I would focus on the why, right? And having a strategy behind it. Because as long as you have benchmarks, or you have, okay, when this happens, this is going to happen, like, you know, a cause and effect. I think it's easier for, for people to analyze or to make rational decisions. It's harder when you're just like, Oh, my God, I lost a whole bunch of money. That's it, I'm done. I'm never coming back. You know, and I think a lot of the, my husband and I joke, because we watched Black Panther, and they talked about having like, Vibranium, right. And that's like the strongest metal you can have, we always talk about, you need to have rhenium hands. Like you have to hold on and you have to be strong.
Nicole Wilhelm
So I would say for us. In cryptocurrency, it we're in it for the long game. We know a lot of people want to make short term gains, and then be done. But for us, we look at it as the future of, you know, the way that we will now do transactions, right, like, especially because of COVID, I think people are going to get away from actually giving out paper money. There are theories about how there is not a lot of backing in paper money. And so I just think, if you can, I would invest even a little bit in it and hold and just see where it takes you. There are countries that are also now using cryptocurrency to pay either their government, governmental employees, or there's like different organizations that are doing payment through crypto. I just think it's the wave of the future.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Well, and I think for people listening that, you know, you you've been in it a while, so you're sold here sold on it, for people that are hesitant to try something new. You know, I think there was a period where people thought, is this gonna last? Is this just a fad is this like, I'm trying to think like Beanie Babies or something like that, you know, where it's like, you know, hey, I'm putting all my money into Beanie Babies. And you know, we're gonna save for your kids college, because I'm going to sell them all, you know. So I think there's people you know, that had a, you know, we're looking from OSI, like, is this thing really going to last and what we've learned is it is. And at the same time, this isn't just unicorns and rainbows, you know, where I'm putting my money in. And, you know, magically, it turns into something else. And now I've got a ton of money, or I have no money. And so I think people understanding, you know, people are a little bit older, right?
Mike Swenson
Because the younger generation is going to naturally dive into this, but people are a little bit older, there still is a lot of opportunity to be had there. And you have to force yourself to get a little bit uncomfortable and learn something new. Because you can reap the benefit of that. And yeah, there's there's volatility just like stocks, right. You know, when you're in stocks, you're either day trading to make money or you're playing the long game with the stocks that you're choosing. You can't go up and down based on what happens that day and cryptocurrency currency is that to to a degree of 10x or 100x. And yet at the same time, like you said, it's it's here, we're going to invest in it. We're playing the long game, and the faster you learn this now and go through the growing pains, the more opportunity There is for you to reap that reward in the future,
Nicole Wilhelm
For sure. And another question I get is like, how do you have the money to invest. And so I would say if you can take at least I don't know, whatever you can part with 1% 5% 10%, and be consistent about it, and every month, put in that same amount of money, you'd be surprised how much money you'll have at the end. And that's regardless, if you do cryptocurrency, or if you do stock market, just anything, isn't making that investment. And I would say not only do that in the physical realm, but also in your mental real estate, right? Also, like invest in yourself in that same way as well make those deposits in your way of thinking.
Nicole Wilhelm
Because that's, that's where it actually all starts is just one is, what is your money blueprint? like Tony Robbins talks about it? How do you view money? Do you think you can make money? When you have money? Do you think you can keep money? And is it something that you feel like your family can benefit from for generations? If you were to have it? And I think once you set your mind on that, then it's easier to look at like, Okay, is it cryptocurrency? Is it real estate? Is it you know, the stock market? Or is it a blend of all of them? Because again, your why is very clear. I think when you're wise like muddled where you're like, I mean, I guess it would be cool to make more money, maybe, then it's harder to make the decision of I want to make an investment.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and I think that's a natural transition to now talk about the mental aspect, because like you talked about, right, I'm investing in my mindset, I'm investing in my mental health, because that is going to impact what happens in the future. And taking time to figure out something. cryptocurrency is a great example of that, like, either I'm going to be scared of it, I'm going to think it's a fad, and it's going to go away and maybe miss out on some opportunity. But then there's also the balance, there's a legitimate balance of shiny object chasing because as realtors, they tend to chase shiny objects, you know, you might chase 100 things and one of them sticks. It you know, I still remember this quote, I heard it maybe like five years ago, if you want to become a millionaire, find a product to sell to a realtor for 999 a month, because realtors will buy stuff at nine, you know, for only 999 or 999 a month. And I mean $9.99 a month, if you went and found enough realtors to spend $9.99 a month on some product that they forget that does even on their card, you'll become a millionaire. So you could do that.
Mike Swenson
Or you could lean into some of these these things that are challenging to learn, right, because cryptocurrency is different. And yet you come with a great mindset of, I'm going to figure this out, I see the future of words going you had the luxury of having somebody that you knew that was in the space. But if you aren't in the space, find somebody who is learned from them, take the time, it's an investment of my time to learn about it, to be able to make an investment of my money to make money off of it. But I think that's great. So let's talk about kind of the the mental, the mental health, the mindset piece, why are you so passionate about it? And how have you seen that play out in your life to help you grow and get where you're at today.
Nicole Wilhelm
So I am preparing to do a TEDx talk about mental real estate, because as a real estate entrepreneur, I've seen so many people focus on the real estate that you can buy and sell. And they're not focusing enough on the mental real estate they already own. And I can personally say that I wasn't paying attention to my mental real estate for a long time. There was a time where I was a worrier, and worried about everything. And I would play this game of like worst case scenario every single day, right? I'm like, oh, man, maybe across the street, I'll get hit by a car. And that'd be horrible. And then like, I don't know, my parents would be devastated. And I would just play these like negative cycles and not recognizing that it was because I was watching the news all the time, I would listen to music that I thought it was just listening to the beat. But when you listen to the lyrics, they were skewing toward being very negative. And when I was 19, my parents were like, look, we think you have so much potential and we love to see you soar.
Nicole Wilhelm
But from our experience, the only way to truly SOAR is to to basically gain your wings on the way down. And I go Wait, what what do you want me to fail? What do you want? And so they gave me $100 They packed up a cardboard box and they and they said you can move wherever you want to but you can't stay here. And so I was I don't know Hawaii. And so that's how I ended up holding At 19, in Hawaii, and the song that I would continue to play or sing to myself, while I was living in an active office building was Kanye West song spaceship. I don't know if you're familiar with it. Oh, it basically goes, I've been working this grave shift, I made shit. I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly. And so I would play it over and over and over in my head. And then, and then there was the time where I looked around, and I saw all these happy people on the beach in Hawaii. And I was like, why is it not me? What what is it about me that like, I had such bad luck, right? And then I go
Nicole Wilhelm
Wait, or if I could change my mindset, and what if it was reverse, and I played the best case scenario game, and I'm in Hawaii, and I'm, you know, and I'm living my best life or whatever it was. And I would play it, I would do it every day, at least five minutes a day, not recognizing that it was visualization. Yeah. And then eventually, I ended up moving back to Hawaii with my husband to finish college. And we left because like, I was like, homeless at this place, like three or four years ago. And now I'm finishing college. And then I want to say like two years ago, we got our parents an all expense trip to go with us to Hawaii. And it was a very different experience. And my husband asked me, What is it about you that has changed? What? Who were you then? And who are you now? And I said, I think I've always been this person. But I was unfolding into the person that I have always been. But a lot of it was that. I I was like an absentee homeowner, right?
Nicole Wilhelm
Like I just wasn't there. I wasn't making the investments necessary in order to have the appraisal value, right, that everybody wants everybody who thinks their their house is worth more than what it really is. But I wasn't doing the home improvements necessary. And when I say home improvements, it's like reading positive positive books. Every day. It's, you know, depending on what your religious background is, or spirituality, I wasn't like being in touch with the source, right? I wasn't doing all the things that I know now that feel me that I would say, if you if you I called it a mental recession, right? If you are currently in a mental recession, what I would highly suggest is start to invest in yourself.
Nicole Wilhelm
Because Jim Rohn is someone that I adore, he came, he had a quote that said, when you work hard on your business, you make a living, right? When you work harder on yourself, you make a fortune, and when that like really hit me and struck me, like I said, my whole life changed. And now when people ask me like, oh, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm blessed and highly favored. Like, there's just like that. Some people think like, Oh, you're so positive all the time. And it isn't that I'm just grateful. I'm grateful for the mindset, I'm grateful for the opportunities versus looking at the shortcomings or the downfalls.
Mike Swenson
No, it is really important to, to focus on certain things that you know, whether it's a word or a phrase, like you said, or a song that can keep you solidified in a tough situation and can help encourage you, when you had talked about the the Kanye West song what popped into my head was when we got married, the the it was my wife's old youth pastor that had had done our ceremony and he actually lived in Walnut Creek at the time, and flew back for our wedding. But the message was, be strong and very courageous. And so he would always say, Bs, CV, Bs CV. And so you know, I've been married for 16 years now.
Mike Swenson
And when when I'm struggling when my mental mindset is down, you know, like I said, I'm not a natural risk taker so when I take a risk and and you know, quit my w two job and start a real estate team, like there's challenges there, and I keep coming back to you know, be SCV be strong and very courageous be SVC be SVC be strong and very courageous. And so it's it's that sort of thing that helps pull you through and, and like you said, For you it's a song and you go through life and you have these different things that you can cling on to but I also remember growing up you know, we were taught garbage in garbage out right so if you're feeding yourself garbage, you know that's going to process through your mind and garbage is going to come out so it is important to focus on what am I feeding my mind and, and real estate you know, we all go through challenges, and that's why there's a lot of people in the real estate space that focus on mindset.
Mike Swenson
And in all industries, but but we talk about it so much we talk about it and our team, what are you feeding your mind? Because that's going to be what helps you to grow. So I love the concept of mental real estate. It's it's awesome.
Nicole Wilhelm
Oh, thank you. Yeah. And it's funny because most people, they don't think about their mental real estate, and how it can go in cycles, right? So just like physical real estate, you have a recession, you have a recovery, expansion and hyper supply people. I feel like if they could just relate that to their mental real estate, then they could go, oh, my gosh, I am in a recession, or I'm in recovery, or I am an expansion phase, or even like hyper supply, right? You're always in your, you're either what was it? Les Brown said it, you're either you're either in it, you're going through it, or you're leaving it? And I would say like, that's how it is for a recession, right? So if you think that, oh, this does not apply to me, like you're listening right now. And you're like, I'm never going to be in a mental recession or depression, or, you know, that that's far behind me. And when that's happened to me before, like, it's going to happen again, like spoiler alert, it's going to happen again.
Nicole Wilhelm
And I think it's really about having those daily deposits, like, you know, you have a phrase that you say, or having a morning routine, right? Yep, this is something you do every single day to prime your mind. Because as real estate agents, or even real estate entrepreneurs, I feel like we don't spend enough time investing in ourselves when our clients, they like it's it's transmutation, they send you the energy that they're feeling, you have to hold it right, you cannot sit back in the way that they gave it to you. You have to transmute it and go, Oh, the energy you're feeling may seem like anxiety, it's really excitement, right?
Nicole Wilhelm
Let's help you by giving you the steps that you could do. But if you don't take the energy that they gave you and put it somewhere, or like, move it around your city. And the more business do, the harder it's going to get where you start to see real estate agents who are top producers, but they don't care about their health. They're divorced, they're no longer in touch with, you know, their spirituality. They're drinking or doing drugs, or all of these different things. Because they didn't set up that routine, or they didn't have those things that really grounded them. I call it like your foundation.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. And if you think about it, if you were to ask people, you know, what's one of the most stressful times in your life, it's when they're buying and selling a house. And so you're dealing with people, probably at their worst, emotionally, physically, because they're staying up late, you know, we had a client that you know, was fixing up their house. And so they were up till midnight every night for, you know, seven to 10 days because they were doing some repairs, they're packing you know, some of I had a client last year, they moved from a different state. So they're packing every they're selling their house, packing up their, their van and driving across the country.
Mike Swenson
And so it's like all these things where these people are at their most stressful moments. And these are the people that you're talking to as your your regular day is dealing with these people, these high stress situations, and then you've got the deadlines of closings and and this happens or that happens, we had a closing delayed because FedExed plane in California had some mechanical issues. And so the documents didn't arrive the day for closing. So it got delayed a day, well, then, those buyers were trying to sell it, or they were the sellers of the house, we represented the buyers, the sellers couldn't buy their next house because our closing was held up, you know, and so then you've got this chain reaction to things like it is a very stressful business and, and I think to just giving yourself grace, to recognize that instead of feeling like I'm just a firefighter spraying, you know, spraying water on everything to try to calm it all down, like realizing that's a natural part of my job. And it's okay to feel stressed.
Mike Swenson
But then where's that stress going? How am I filling up my cup so that I'm not just spilling all over everybody and, and you take one call from a stress client and now you blast the next person you talk to her you're short with the next person because you're frustrated about the thing that happened five minutes ago. It's difficult. So yeah, recognizing that and, and pouring into yourself and then to investing in yourself. It's okay to spend money to go to a session that works on your mindset or to take an online course or to go to a conference that focuses on your mental health. How do you grow? Grow your mindset, Tony Robbins, you know, great example of, you know, it can cost a pretty penny to go to a Tony Robbins conference. And yet at the same time, how much more can you gain and grow as an entrepreneur as a result of the lessons that you receive from something like that?
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah, and I would just add, Who are you meeting when you're there? to write, because it's really about fellowship and proximity is power. And for me, one of the ways that got me out of being in a mental recession is I changed the company that I was with, right? The friends that I hung out with, I looked for people that caused me to stretch and grow. I started looking at how do I become a person of value? How can I be a Go Giver, right? And then like I said, my whole life change. And I feel like if you feel like it is self, that people like, it's selfish to invest in yourself. I, and that's how I started, right? I looked at it as well, how, how much more can I give, if I did invest in myself, right? Because if your point about having, you know, a full cup, I can only give what's running out of my cup, you know, what flowing out of my cup, I can't give you a hookup I need that, you know. And so I would highly encourage you, if you're listening to this is, is to be selfish, to be so full, right? Because who else do you want to be full of? And then how can you give to others, if, if you don't have an overflow,
Mike Swenson
We've been in a challenging time, the last two years. And so more than ever, I think people are feeling the the lasting effects of what's happened the last two years, I remember, you know, when it was so funny to think when, you know, when COVID happened in in March, or whatever, and to think like, oh, my gosh, my kids have to do distance learning for three months or four months, you know, like, and, and we were worried about their relationships, then.
Mike Swenson
Now, we're about almost two years into this thing. And so what was normal is gone. And so we're creating the new normal, and we're never going to go back to how it was and what what helped me through that time, too, as people said, Do you really want to go back to how it was, you know, we're moving forward, you know, the, what's happened in the past is in the past, we got to look and move forward. And so so I just love your message, have mental real estate, taking care of it, investing in it, just like you're, you're swinging a hammer on a fixer upper to improve the resale value of a home, you're investing in your mindset. You're investing in your programming, to grow your mindset to grow your mental real estate so that it's appraising? Right? We wanted to have that higher appreciation rate for our mental real estate, right? Yeah. And
Nicole Wilhelm
It's funny, like I had somebody asked me, but like, how do you know the value, right? Only and what's great about being working on your mental real estate, you are the appraiser. Only, you know, what the mental, you know, return on investment is or whatever you're, where you were to where you are, like, I would say do comps on yourself, right? Like go ahead and do a comparative market analysis of where you were, and and where you are now. And you wouldn't be surprised if you're really doing those deposits. If you're really, you know, working on your fixer upper, you'd be surprised how much value you gained and how much value you could be to other people. And I think that's for me, like, Mr. Rogers is someone that really stands out because he was a great neighbor. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for other people. Make sure that you're doing it so that we have a better global community. Right? Invest in yourself so that our kids have a better future, because I feel like if people just did a little just still just a little, just a little self work or homework.
Nicole Wilhelm
And uh, no, it's difficult. And you don't want to have to uncover or unlearned. I think we talked about that earlier. If you're older, you get comfortable, right? Lean into being uncomfortable, right? Being comfortable being uncomfortable, and I promise you your life will change. For the better. It's even better than you expected. It always is.
Mike Swenson
That's great. Well, thank you so much Nicole for, for sharing a lot that we covered. We talked about real estate and investments and cryptocurrency and mental health, we could do an episode on any one of those topics just by itself. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your background with people. If folks want to learn more about you or connect what would be a great way to do that.
Nicole Wilhelm
Yeah, such a great question. I would say you can go to our website. It's tthewilhelmteam.com/ You can find us on Instagram. It's TheWilhelms that spelled Wilhelm for my last name. So thank you. It's been a pleasure and I hope that at least one person will get something out of this invest in themselves and then find us you know 5, 10, 15 years from now and say that their life is better.
