Financial Educator & Business Director of Deaf OIC
Rosemary Beyer, is an accomplished Financial Educator and Business Director in Our Infinite Company with over 3 years of experience in the financial industry. Rosemary ensures the vitality of providing the best financial solutions and making generational wealth to individuals, especially to educators and Deaf / ASL sector.
rosemaryabeyer@gmail.com
Hosted by Tamara MacDuff (pickle#1) and Sid Ragona (pickle#2) of Re-Thinking Business: Success Sauce & Two Pickles.
Financial Educator & Business Director of Deaf OIC
Rosemary Beyer, is an accomplished Financial Educator and Business Director in Our Infinite Company with over 3 years of experience in the financial industry. Rosemary ensures the vitality of providing the best financial solutions and making generational wealth to individuals, especially to educators and Deaf / ASL sector.
rosemaryabeyer@gmail.com
Hosted by Tamara MacDuff (pickle#1) and Sid Ragona (pickle#2) of Re-Thinking Business: Success Sauce & Two Pickles.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to another edition of rethinking business, success sauce, and two pickles. I am your substitute co-host and aspiring pickle. Want to be Christian we're gonnna in for tomorrow. Macduff our pickle. Number one, I am also here along with our cohost pickle. Number two, Sid, we're gonna sit, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Doing great today. Thank you. I'm used to doing the show with Tamara pickle. Number one, and I guess this is the first time you and I have done a show together, Kristen.
Speaker 1:It is other than me as a guest, haven't had the opportunity to work with you as a cohost. So I feel honored to be an honorary temporary pickle.
Speaker 2:Well, we we'll give you a certificate of something and I'm on next week. Show a well update the listeners on whether our marriage survive this one hour.
Speaker 1:Well, we have a special guest today. She is a financial educator and planner with a company called our infinite company and she provides financial solutions to a variety of clients. Uh, but one of the demographics of clients are in the deaf sector and she has worn many hats over the years for different businesses. One of them, she become a doula and she has introduced over 800 babies into this world. So this is Rosemary buyer.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. I am really looking forward to having fun and I got to have olives with my pickles, so it might be all live with the pickle. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Excited to be here. Hello, Rosemary. How are you doing? I'm really great. It's a little chilly here where I am. I'm in Dallas. I don't know if I can say that it might be a whole 60 degrees right now, but nonetheless, I'm chilly. It's chilly for Texas.
Speaker 2:We're in Rochester, New York. And we dream of your children.
Speaker 3:Yes, I know. That's why I had to tell you what that's about 30 right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's 13 and it's gloomy and 60 I'd be in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I really would.
Speaker 3:I know it. I know it. Yes. We were dying at this morning when it was about 30. There was frost on the cars and you sh you would laugh to see us all in our parkers and massive layers. For sure.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at your bio here, Rosemary. And he says financial educator and planner. One of my first questions is how is a financial educator and planner different than a financial planner?
Speaker 3:That's actually a really great question. And, you know, I really contemplated, what do I want to, what do I want to be when I grew up? No, just kidding. But, uh, as I, as I furthered myself into financial services, I really wanted to decide how do I best want to serve my clients? Still the difference between being a financial advisor and a financial educator is that I get the joy to be able to actually spend time providing financial knowledge and literacy about the building blocks of things. Like how does credit work? How do we make an X curve work? How do we reduce your responsibilities? How are tax implications going to play a factoring in your planning, future illnesses, rather than just looking at how much you have to be able to and assets and build your assets. I want it to actually help people be educated on how many works and to be able to start setting up financial plans. A lot of times a financial advisor works with people that are already ready to start investing. They already have some stability in their finances and they can, they get to play in stocks and mutual funds.
Speaker 2:I assume from this, that, uh, as a financial educator, you are not selling mutual funds or stocks or anything like that.
Speaker 3:You're correct. I don't provide those types of solutions for my clients as their financial planner or educator. So that's what a financial advisor is. They would have a license to be able to provide those types of products to their clients.
Speaker 2:When it comes to somebody seeking out financial education, what type of clients do you get and where are they in their life? What, what actually goes through their mind, that all of a sudden they realize they don't understand money and they decide to come to see,
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I, I deal with some people that are just now, maybe they're in their early twenties and they're dealing with some pretty serious financial debt from student loans. And they're realizing that they really may not be ready to buy a house that they want to because their credit's not where it's at to be able to qualify for the type of mortgage rate that they want to all of that matters. But if you're walking into the real world with not even the slightest bit of knowledge of what's credit, what's a mortgage, how much money should I have saved to be moving into a house? How does this interest work on my student loan debt? I literally help the client understand that entire process, listen to their goals. I also have clients that are ready to retire and they have assets. Maybe they have a 401k. Maybe they have a Roth IRA or whatever their financial strategy may be. And maybe they've had this plan for a decade or a couple decades, and guess what said they don't understand how it works? And they had a financial advisor. So I actually take it a little bit deeper and I actually break down how financial products and strategies work. And I look at your whole plan and I listened to your goals. That's what a planner is going to do and listen to what matters to you. And well, this ha this is how this plan works. These are your options. And honestly said, we're our own best money manager. We know what we want. We know what our habits are. He was telling someone something, but then you do something different, right? Just like the trainer that you work out with. So it's so important to not just in my field, to not just manage assets, but to actually make sure that my client is on the same path, the vision they're working with, someone who's holding them accountable and helping them achieve those goals, paying off debt, buying a house, paying off the house,
Speaker 2:What you're doing there is I'm getting them to express that concerns and dreams, right?
Speaker 3:Yes. That's my most favorite part. And so you also have a unique approach as well
Speaker 1:Because, you know, sign language. Can you tell us a little bit about how that comes into play with your business and what you do?
Speaker 3:I actually am really glad you asked that. So my mother and father death. Yeah. So I was raised by two deaf people. The only deaf people and their families, my mom is the baby of nine and it was such a blessing to my mom to be born deaf in her family and in her community, she was able to go to the Texas school for the deaf and to be exposed to great minds and a different level of thinking a different community, a different world. Had she stayed in Amarillo and been forced to, you know, pretend to be hearing, I don't know who I would be, you know, as a, as a young woman. And I'm, she's a type of deaf person who makes me extremely proud to have deafness that I can even claim to have roots in the deaf community. So she's what we would call a capital D deaf, right? So she is definitely that. And she married my birth father when I was super, super young. And my birth father was hard of hearing, grew up in a mainstream school in Dallas, Texas, where I live and was never given that exposure of community, of being deaf and being proud to be deaf. It was more of a handicap for sure. Um, and my mom just didn't really have that experience. And so I think that there was a big clashing of mindsets, you know, when they had me and my mom deemed and realized, Hey, this is not the home that I want to raise a child in or a marriage that I want to be in. So my mom divorced my birth father and married my, uh, I guess he's my stepdad. But I hate saying that, sorry, dad, if you're listening, but because my dad started signing when he was 19 as a live in interpreter for a young boy and he literally self-taught sign and he's been an interpreter for 50 over 50 years, and he's worked in deaf education for now. 44 years in Dallas has been a AIDS HIV, uh, advocate in sign language. I was exposed to a ton of advocacy using sign language in my life in general. So I became an birth advocate because of that. But my passion for serving in the community came from my mom. And my dad's just roots of being an education and an interpreter and advocacy work, education empowerment in general. So that's kind of where all of this came from and that's how deaf a YC was born. Basically financial services came into my life and it is really a dark place when you don't know your next move financially, when you're in a paycheck to paycheck trap, it's, you almost can't sleep. You never vacation. You see, you're always saying no to your kids. That's horrible. Dreading any special events that your kids may have had at school. So I'm 36 with a 16 year old. So that's a lot in all three of my kids go to private school. So there are things we will not compromise on because we were blessed with kids young because we do see it as a blessing and the struggle makes us stronger. And it was just that fight of wanting to be able to provide everything that really sought me out on how does money work? How do I get out of this trap? I just, I realized it and I said, Oh my goodness, me as an intelligent hearing woman, I have this information. Why am I not empowering another deaf person? If this could work? What if it could work? And
Speaker 2:Our role is all your advice to, to deaf people or advise for hearing people as well.
Speaker 3:I actually didn't have the courage to start out providing this information to the deaf community. I, um, I was just learning, I speak and I hear that's my native language. And I'll be honest with you. I am always critiquing myself on my signing skills. And I guarantee it's because I have a very, very good sight. My father is like the best, right? So he's been signing so long. He's probably invented signs. I think that a lot of codas have a little bit of pressure of, can I do this? Am I allowed to serve the deaf community as a Coda, as an adult Coda? Can you explain what a Coda is? So yes, absolutely. Yeah. You're right. So a Coda is a term, it's just an abbreviation, C O D a, and it's a child of a deaf adult. There's a world that you're highly embraced in, in the deaf community because you're this, you're a child of a deaf adult. So it's like saying, okay, well you're deaf by birth. Like you you're born into deafness. So, so you get that birthright. But if you don't marry a deaf person and you don't have deaf children after that, what are you? Cause I'm not a child anymore. I'm a woman. I did deeply struggle with who, who am I in the deaf community? And I did pray, you know, see if I am to continue being in the deaf community, which I deeply want to show me where show me how I'm supposed to do that. And I sought it out. I was, I was actively looking for doors to be opened. Being a child of a deaf adult, makes me having grown up where sign language was my primary language in my home and makes me extremely expressive. And that's very common. And the deaf culture is just being extremely expressive. So my parents had suggested that I take this certification, my license and my, my, and it was a casual, why don't you teach this to the deaf community, being an athlete and being competitive. I am a boy, mom of three boys. I have a husband. So it's a very competitive home I live in. I just said to myself, you know what? This is a challenge. Why not? So I didn't do it right away. But I did after a year of really getting some good footing under myself, just making some major growth. I finally felt like, you know what, I'm going to try. And I started at a local, uh, deaf community center. It's called deaf action center in Dallas. And that's actually somewhere. It was so interesting. I walked in for an, for an appointment to be able to offer a free financial education class, just so I could get competent in signing these kind of complicated financial terms. That's not an everyday talk. Right. And, um, wouldn't, you know, that the director Heather says, and I've known Heather since I was a child. So I think that's why she was so willing to support me. And Heather says I was cleaning out the office today. And your dad's name was on a list of one of the original interpreters during this year. And I happened to be cleaning it out today, got up, got the list. There's my dad's name. And I was just like, okay, if I had any doubt that I should be on this path and that just solidified it for me. And the rest is history, I've been providing financial education workshops via zoom, doing them weekly. Just simple knowledge is so empowering and having a consistency was good for my business to build an identity. And just the confidence of signing these concepts. I ended up doing an expo, a live workshop at an expo ended up having almost three months fully booked of follow-up appointments for requests for one-on-ones that's the end of every meeting. I would say, what made you sit with me today? You came to do business today. What made you do that? And one thing, not because they knew me, not because they liked me pretty doesn't pay you do one thing, right? I knew how to sign.
Speaker 1:Speaking of workshops, you have one coming up for our Rochester chapter later this week, financial wellness, one Oh one, you'll be presenting it in American sign language ASL, which I think is awesome because we have such an underserved community here in Rochester for small businesses. And I think this is one great way to reach out to those that audience, but we'll have interpreters from Rochester Institute of technology and tid voicing on your behalf for the workshop. So we're super excited about that as well. So thank you.
Speaker 3:I'm excited. And it's not every day that I have interpreters speak for me, but I'll tell you, I am really bad at signing in talking at the same time. My brain typically will choose sign language over speaking because I can sign way faster than can move my mouse.
Speaker 1:Well, and I don't know if anybody knows, but they're two completely different languages as well for American sign has a whole different
Speaker 3:Structure,
Speaker 2:The English language. So it's always fascinating to have somebody that knows ASL American sign language, uh, and as most listeners, uh, to this, uh, radio hour know we have three children and, uh, two of the boys are deaf. And so we know some sign language. We consider ourselves a very, uh, multilingual family or bilingual family in the sense that sometimes we sign, sometimes we speak, sometimes we sign and speak and sometimes I'm not quite sure what language is. Just be a glance. It's a total blend. It's a total blend. Absolutely. Uh, even with a lot of home sign thrown in.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, you have to have the home sign. And I just want to say that, you know, it's as a child of a deaf adult who watched my mom grow up in a home where, you know, she wasn't supported and language accessibility at home or her parents, you know, and family being able to possibly because she was the baby, there was a big age gap and that she lived in Austin as opposed to living in Amarillo with her family. But that really makes a huge difference. And so I really just want to take a second to applaud you all as a child of a deaf adult who watched a mom grow up that way, your future grandchildren will really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Uh, did you find your niche in the deaf community and that niche being a financial educator? Is that the niche?
Speaker 3:Yes. So that, that is, yes, that is my knee. So it's not, it's not only. So I do a lot of financial education to the deaf community. Um, the other side of that though is actually building entrepreneur mindset in deaf people that want to come into the business and want to build depo IC with me, there are about 39 million deaf people in the United States. So obviously myself and a few other agents are not going to be able to make, um, a huge shift. So it's so imperative that I Def team work and collaborate with other deaf companies that are influential, whether we are educating their staff. I mean, it literally is something that's as simple. That's why the rich get richer. They know how money works. It's a game that's being played on you and me.
Speaker 2:Uh, Rosemary, you were probably not always a financial educator. What was your journey into entrepreneurship? But one of the things that we like to do on this radio show is we do enjoy the origin story. We enjoy the origin stories, many because most entrepreneurs or people that are thinking of getting into business have conversations with themselves in their minds about, can I do this content? I do this. Should I stay with a regular job because of the security? Should I try and go it alone? There are a tremendous number of conversations that budding entrepreneurs have with themselves. And what did you do before this?
Speaker 3:So I was actually a birth professional. I used to, it started off as, um, a doula birth doula support person. Then it grew from that to becoming a childbirth educator and through becoming a doula and a childbirth educator, you know, there are limited ways that I can really increase my income. I can either take in more clients and increase how much I'm making or I can increase my certifications and my right, my tool, my skillset, and then I can raise my price. And so what I ended up doing was a big mistake. I ended up taking a bunch of classes and, you know, these courses that were going to make me more money, right? And I go take this course. I'm like, I could have written this course who sorta, who made this a credential. And it wasn't until I actually got into the industry I'm in now where it's all about licensing. And I see that, um, I can make a course on how to be the best financial educator. And I can create that into a certification and into a standard, you know, that's business. And at the time I was self-employed, I thought I was a business owner, but I was actually self-employed. And so I was kind of buying into that whole mindset of how am I going to make more money and all the way till finally becoming a student assistant midwife. And, um, that was what my background was good at. Spending had no clue how to save money or how to make it work for me. Most importantly.
Speaker 2:So how long had you been an entrepreneur?
Speaker 3:Well, um, I started out as a doula at the age of 21 and that is very entrepreneurial in itself. Um, so I started out really early and I made the terrible mistake of leaving. When I finally left my birth career, I, I needed a break. I was really tired and entrepreneurship is very tiring when you stop. I don't know if you guys can relate, but it's like, go, go, go, go, go. And you're in this fabulous mindset that creates that vitality to be able to do that. And you're probably surrounding yourself with positive influences. You're probably taking care of yourself. So when I started to feel like the burnout and I wanted to leave that industry, um, I wanted to get a break. So I wanted someone to be able to tell me what to do, how to think, how much money I needed to make. So I went into sales and, um, it was my first time in doing something different, other than birth professional. That's when I realized I'm really good at sales, because I'm a good listener from my previous industry. Wow. And I care as a birth professional, it's all about advocating. Do you know your birth rights here's information? It was so transferrable because sales is transferring information and showing you why it's a good, you know, let me show you, what's a better fit. So I, I was really great at sales ended up being a top producer at my company, but I didn't believe in what I was selling the product. Then the leadership started to really crumble and being an entrepreneur, your like what people think of you is everything that's affects your entire career, your future. Even if you leave that industry because it's your reputation, you people buy you when you're an entrepreneur. And really didn't understand all of that. At the time. I was just a really good birth professional. I just happened to be very good. I thought, right? Well, it's actually just had transferable skills. So I was looking, I was working in a place where I was being influenced by a woman who was raised by philanthropists, went to a boarding school, um, very, very smart nurse. And she was getting involved in cryptocurrency. This must have been about six or seven years ago. And I was like, what is that? And she made it sound so cool. And she was like, Oh, it's investments. And I just shut down. And as a 30 year old woman to be able to just shut down like that, it was very real. It was a startling realization for me of, wow, you can't even, you're not even confident to have a conversation. And I started asking her questions about investments and she started offering to teach me. I was very frustrated. Um, my husband at the time was senior vice president for bank of America's mortgage mortgage department. Very, very good with money. And he, God love him. No, no, nothing wrong. But our marriage, the way our marriage had been for so many years was that he was taking care of the money, you know, so no fault to him. It was just the structure of our marriage habits. And she started me. She raised this awareness within myself of, I need to know how money works. Um, I read rich dad, poor dad, and the rest is history
Speaker 2:Or a very good book. Isn't it?
Speaker 3:It's life-changing for sure. I mean, it was just the first one that really kind of started me on my quest of, Oh my God. That whole time I thought I called myself a business owner as a duel, a birth professional, no, just having an LLC. Doesn't make you a business owner. I was self-employed and hurting.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people don't realize that, uh, that, uh, quite frankly, you can have a business or an LLC or a DBA, uh, and you're not necessarily working with a business mindset. I think that's a very important distinction. Now my background, of course,
Speaker 3:As a birth professional that is very entrepreneurial to begin with. I didn't have a boss. I had to go out and learn how to market. And I think as most entrepreneurs, the trap is trying to learn how to do everything rather than focusing on your strengths. One of the things that really burned me in the very beginning of becoming a birth professional was trying to master marketing and how to get more clients rather than how to get my first client. I think a lot of entrepreneurs kind of miss that Mark. So I had the blessing that I, I in many ways, started out as a self-employed person with an entrepreneurial heart. Once I started having children, all of my shift would completely divert to my kids. And that's when I went heavy on the childbirth education. So if you are considering becoming an entrepreneur, it's not bad to supplement what your dreams are, but to keep yourself available. So what does that mean? Working maybe part-time that worked very well for me to be able to still be able to be a childbirth educator, not lose that passion and not completely say this isn't working for me and to stop the breaks. That was huge and having realistic expectations. If I ever wanted to take a vacation or wanted time off, you know, you gotta have a game plan of, well, how much time off do I need? What are my bills going to be? You do have to accept that if you're not going to scale, you're going to have to work a lot more. So maybe you're going to be creative with some of the other offers that you have, but that still means you're one person doing maybe another skill set for another client, or you're increasing your rate, which could hurt the clientele basis that you're working out of. That is where I started to realize that I was still not really breaking through as an entrepreneur, that I was still just a self-employed person who did not like someone else telling me what to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that's very good because I mean, what you're saying is that despite the fact that you could call yourself an entrepreneur, you actually had found yourself working in your business as opposed to on your business. And that's what a lot of people end up doing. They forget that to be an entrepreneur, you have to start allocating time to work on your business and growing your business. Otherwise it's just a job. And one of the other things that I found interesting, what you just said was that you had a full-time job or full-time job, even looking after your three boys in the family and your part-time entrepreneurial activities. You know, one of the things that we've discussed on this radio hour, uh, many times before is that the most successful startup come from people that actually did it part-time while maintaining financial security by having a full-time job and doing that, they didn't actually just go from one to the other. They did double shift, essentially working one job, learning how to be an entrepreneur in the other job and growing accustomed to what you just discussed. And that is that when you are an entrepreneur and it comes to Christmas, vacation time, a vacation with your family, time off, nobody's going to give you vacation pay. Uh, in fact, uh, you aren't doing business at that time. It's one of the things that Kristen and myself, since we're entrepreneurs, after bear in mind, that we would love a three-week vacation. We would love to vacation, but that's three weeks away from us.
Speaker 1:We did a trip across country years ago with the kids. And we were both running our own businesses at the same time. So all of our stops revolved around, okay, who has internet access so that, you know, answer a call and say, Hey, I'm running into a meeting as we're looking at some national park. And then at night, we'd get into the hotel. And we both go our separate ways, log in, answer emails, visit with our clients and customers follow up, send invoices. So we were never truly on vacation and stepping away completely. So you'd just have to do what you have to do to make it all work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that really has helped me this year, this past year of during COVID, so all my kids came home. I have a 16, 12, and soon to be 11 year old, he'll be 11 on the 19th. You know, it's really a crazy thing when everything comes home and everyone's home and you're working from home, it's a crazy thing for you to see the internet has limited. My wifi has limits and my patience has limits again, as an entrepreneur, you got to invest with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One of the things that, um, you know, I found as being quite, uh, interesting when it comes to people that have not done very well, um, with a virtual setting, uh, is sometimes not actually the work itself. It's the fact that there is no commute, not necessarily the commute to the office, but the commute from the office. There's no decompression time. And, um, you know, I've even done a small presentation where I recommended the people that are having a hard time working virtually have a 20 minute virtual commute in their own office. You don't just stop working and then walk into the kitchen with your family, with your mindset, you know, only 10 feet away in your office. Uh, you switch off work, listen to some music or watch something on your computer or YouTube video or something, and have this decompression time, which I think has always been undervalued in the commute.
Speaker 3:Gosh, I couldn't, I couldn't really, I mean, I you're so absolutely correct because, um, I have a long, a really long commute from picking up my kids to getting home. Um, when I'm working, I actually purchased a luxury car because I can do Bluetooth now. So I can safely drive safely drive and work. Right. But you know, my, my point is that now that I'm working from home, I have found that I, that time that I drive to from my house to pick up my kids, I actually, that's not working anymore because of what you're saying. Cause I'm still working home from dropping off my kids. I have found such a I'm more clear headed when I get back to work or if I am helping my kids with their homework, that, because I gave myself a 25 minute walk and I take my beagle and we go for a walk, I have a nature preserve. I go for a walk in the nature preserve. I don't bring my cell phone. It's 25 minutes. Everything's going to be okay. Exactly what you said, said you got to work double time. And in fact, I want to challenge it and say triple time, because I was going to entrepreneur meetings twice a week and there I learned mindset, what books should I be reading? What's in the book. What is my relationship with money? What does busy mean? What does productive mean? Here's my schedule. What's your schedule look like? Who did you talk to? What did you say? How, how did you be in the confidence to say that what's your elevators feel? Let's go in the elevator, just feeling you have to do that. You have to do that because there really is a difference between being self-employed and being a scaling entrepreneur. If your vision is to be that you have to be around people that are doing that well, I still have to make production. Right? So then you read out you it's your red zone. You make it red. What about my family? What if the kids have soccer practice at six? And that's my red zone, because that's, when people answer the phone,
Speaker 2:What techniques do you use to make yourself productive? And I think this is relevant to the listeners because in the age of COVID, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you're most likely going to be working from home in your office and the human brain loves distractions and a lot of people. Yeah. And a lot of people we've spoken to for the radio show, all complain of the same problem that show you're working on your laptop. You have Facebook, Oakland, you have LinkedIn open, you have other social sites open. You do probably have your kids home and there's constant interruption. So how do you get things done without being distracted and without the human brain wanting a small break by glancing to one side. And I just heard the ping on my phone and let me go check and see who's actually instant messaged me. How would you block all that out?
Speaker 3:I'm pretty rigid as it is being a mom of three young children. It's natural. Part of our life. Dinner is at six because my children are very hungry at six. So there's no if ands or buts about it, it just that's it. I have to leave by two 30 to pick up my children, which means I have to be completely finished with all of my tasks by about two 15 my time. So that's a lot to do. I'm a business director for my company. I have associates that work with me and business partners that I need to report to my CEO by a deadline, my clients. So, I mean, if you don't have everything on your calendar, it doesn't not exist and transparency and communication. So all of my appointments are in my Google calendar and there they were color coded my money, making appointments are color coded. And I have specific times that I run production in my business. I zoned them off. I purposefully schedule those times to meet with clients on purpose because that's my zone. I'm in a zone. What I just did right before that meeting was I just helped them with an account. So I'm in a flow that during this time I am in a, I'm helping my clients with financial planning zone and I have another zone cause I have to grow my business. So I've got to be meeting new people and then I have a zone for that. And there are no followup tasks to prospecting other than me scheduling my next appointment. So that's a great thing for me to do right before I go get my kids. And for me to ping my assistant and say, Hey, can you please follow schedule a follow-up appointment? So I delegate all the things that I know I'm going to be a CEO. I've got to make sure that I am my tasks are that of a CEO. And I looked at my schedule and I saw, Oh my gosh, I am doing admin stuff for like no joke, six hours. I need to hire someone right now and pay her, her hourly sum for me to be able to beat a CEO and do what Sid work on my business. Not being an administrator.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have trouble with that one.
Speaker 3:You gotta just do it. You know, there's a trap where we're entrepreneurs put their selves in and say, Oh, like I've hit a ceiling. Whether it's your time. If it's your time, you got to hire an assistant. If it's your money, you need to get a team member or you need to hire an assistant. There's no, there's no other way around it.
Speaker 2:Well, here's an idea which comes to me because I've just been listening to you and taking notes, of course. And that is while you are a financial educator and planner and you are going to be doing a score workshop on financial education. I was taking notes from what you were saying, and it suddenly struck me that we might be able to hit you up a little bit later to give a presentation on organization and productivity for a small business.
Speaker 3:Yes, that is one of my strongest skills. As a leader, it's helped me to survive. I have mental health and my family and in my history. And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from the pressure wearing all of the hats of being an entrepreneur is supposed to be fun. That's why we're insane enough to work 80 hours for a minimum wage paycheck in the beginning, because we know that vision is there, but if you can delegate your time correctly, you're going to be able to do so much more. And when you do finally make the income that you are dreaming about making, you're going to be able to have the energy and patience to be able to spend that time with the people that you love. That's why people become entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:Rosemary, who are your best mentors when you were growing up? Did you have mentors when you were growing up?
Speaker 3:Well, I think both my parents were definitely big, big time mentors to me. Like I said, my mom just persevered through so much. Um, as a deaf woman, uh, she had knew when she was very young, she would walk through a ton of opposition. Uh, she was a huge mentor to me. She used to get up at four 30, every single morning to get to work anything I ever needed or wanted, even though she was a very young mom, she made it happen. My dad, he would always tell us that a lot of these kids, these young deaf children, and in there in his elementary school, they don't have access to language. They don't have parents at one assigned to them. They don't care. They're like how was school, you know, and making very blatant oral motions with their mouth. And my dad burned to give these children language and love, understanding that you're wanted. And that really the time, um, he used to, he was a teacher, then he would get off work and coach interpreted code, interpret that coaching, and then maybe go do another side job.
Speaker 2:Wow. So when you were a child, was it then that you actually began to realize your parents were mentors or was it much later in life when you looked back, uh, with a little bit more experience in your life that, Oh, my word, these were not just, um, tough parents to deal with, uh, all loving parents, whatever one looks back at, you look back with a degree of understanding.
Speaker 3:Of course. Yeah. That was my truth said. I mean, I, uh, was actually really embarrassed of my parents at one point, sorry to my dad who may be listening, but, um, you know, uh, my dad was just so cool and he didn't fit in any of the lines that my other friends' parents did. I mean, my mom's deaf. I wear glasses. Um, my parents were divorced, you know, so I think that I had projected what everyone, I thought everybody else wanted or thought that a perfect family look like. And my, my parents didn't fit in that. Um, I had a really open family. I had a family, um, in Dallas, Texas in the South here that, um, was very loving to all genders races. What would they call it? Maybe sexual orientations and things like that. So, um, they were very supportive of accessibility of love and compassion to everyone. And a lot, a lot of the parents that I was around or as outgoing and open and wanted to get to know my friends because they liked, they were like, I like humans. I want to know you are and who your, who your friends are, who your humans are. And my parent and my friend's parents didn't do that. They didn't, you know, they were like, Oh, they're, you know, go to your room or whatever. And so now looking back, so I do that. So I have become that because I do so cherish my children and I, it is so important for me to get to know like who my kids love and who loves my kids. And it took a long time. It actually took me becoming a mother to look back and say, my goodness, I am a really hard worker. And I love it because I know my goal when I get that. It's my parents.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, I think, uh, I think that's, I think that's wonderful. I think, um, when you mentioned that, you know, you were embarrassed about your parents, uh, the first thought that went through my mind is which kid isn't at some point that parents, even with our son, Sam who's, um, almost he is 23. Um, last night we were giving him some advice and we realized that he was stud that he towers above us and he was watching us both speak and sound, speak, and sign as we were giving him advice. And then I stopped and I said, you know, what's happening? And he goes, yeah, I know what's happening in my parents. And always will be good answer. And I said, yeah, I said, so I'm not going to apologize for being your parent. It's who we are. And he goes, I get that. Thank you. So, so played enough to, to sit there and take it. Yeah. So he was polite enough to let us run out of steam while I would take it to and talking to him and signing, uh, Christine would do the same thing and then I'd go back to reinforce it. And I think he was just stood there, patiently waiting for us to finish. So parents or parents, um, I think that's, that's one of the things now I do have, um, other things that I actually know about you. And I wonder whether you would like to, uh, talk about them a little bit and I hope you don't mind me bringing them up. I have a note here, miss teen, Texas. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I know you're laughing about it. Um,
Speaker 3:That was a, that was a long time ago, but, um, I, I grew up being a, you know, an athlete, you know, had always been, you know, said, Oh, you're so pretty. And you should try modeling and all this other stuff. And, um, you know what I, I said, let's go for, let's try it out. And I ended up going for, uh, an audition call and ended up really having a lot of fun. And what I really enjoyed the most with was, uh, in beauty pageantry, and I only participated in a couple of pageants. Um, I did end up winning. It was a lot of fun. What I found that I loved was I really love meeting new people. And I love meeting new people from places that are different from where I'm from. And, um, when I meet new people, I'm the girl who says, I can't wait to hear more about you. And so that kind of takes, uh, you know, I can kind of take, cut, catch someone off guard for someone to be very interested in hearing about a stranger's life. But to me, that's what this world is all about is understanding other people in pageantry. That's not weird, that's that's normal. And so I really excelled in getting to know other people. I learned amazing interview skills. I learned how to talk to adults and tell them why I'm worth it. Why, why am I number one? And I developed an incredible amount of confidence that my parents would probably tell you. I had, I didn't need more so
Speaker 2:Well, that's why I, that's why I brought it up because I brought it up. So you could talk a little bit about it. Uh, so that my follow on question would be, how do you think that prepared you for life later on? And I think you've already mentioned that a certain degree of confidence and ease with, um, talking about, uh, talking to adults as a teen and I'm talking for a wider audience.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I, as you really have to reach to make the connection with some people. So I am the young, Latino, Caucasian girl at the time. And if I were to sit in front of, um, an older, let's say Indian judge on the, on the penal, I don't know. I'm just choosing something as opposite as I could think of. And I would have to ask, you know, he would ask me some pretty preliminary junior questions, and I could either answer the questions very directly, or I could say, what about you? Do you have a story, um, that you, you know, what about you? And I learned that, you know, from my parents, because it's so important to, to create normalcy, that's that connection. You've got to create that connection for someone to feel safe when people want to connect with people that they have something similar, they can share something about. And that is so important in developing a business is you may not be a client to me. You may not be someone who, um, is interested in, uh, growing my business with me, but I still would love the relationship because you never know how our paths can cross in the future.
Speaker 2:Very, very, very important Rosemary, what would the Rosemarie of today advise the Rosemarie of 15 years ago with the experience that you have now? So did you feel that because you are now responsible for another person's life, essentially, I know the soul of your budget, this reduced your desire to take risks. Yes. You had to actually do the safe and steady enough what your personality calls for, which is, um, adventure and risk, which is what I'm picking up on this interview.
Speaker 3:You're absolutely right. Whether it hindered me from continuing hiking or kayaking, because I was afraid, what if I have an accident? And I'm a mom, what if I get a call for a birth and I'm on the water and I can't make it back. And it's a fast birth that is so unreasonable. That is such a paralyzing a thought process. I ended up because I kept going to entrepreneur mindset, meetings and trainings. That was actually such a shattering. I did. I had no idea the barrier was so, so strong that because I was so afraid that if my kid, if I had to sacrifice time with my kids temporarily, that it would be long life damaging. So don't grow your business. How rediculus once that shattered. I actually scaled to, I became business director. I ended up developing a team. Um, I just had such a shattering, uh, growth in my business just to let go of that. You can't fail. And I think that this little thoughts like that, that start with whatever event happens when we're very young, that do actually impact entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have got to do soul searching of finding out. You should sit with a professional and find out like a, like a mentor and see, Hey, what are your shortcomings? And rather than cause we should not focus on our shortcomings. We should focus on our strengths and then work with someone who can either you can leverage or can help you identify, Hey, this is a lie. This is a negative self-talk, it's not true. And then you got to have faith and walk through it.
Speaker 2:I think that's fantastic advice. I have a question for you. And it's a, it's a very general question. And that is, do you think your children understand what you do and the importance of what you're doing? Let me preface that by describing this particular story, uh, I do sales. I do sales full time. I live on commission 100%. And about two years ago, my eldest son, Sam came up to me and he goes, dad, I want to be in sales. And I asked him, well, why would you want to be in sales? And I was feeling that perhaps he admired what I did. Um, so how much joy I got from it and so forth. And he said, well, I've been watching you. He says, you get up and you have a cup of coffee. You have a pair of shorts and a t-shirt on, you don't have any socks on. He goes, and you wonder into your office. He goes, and then you talked to a couple of friends on the phone, or, um, you know, via Skype. He goes and you're laughing and joking. And then you walk back in, prepare another asked mom, you know, is there any errands that we have to run today? It goes, then you jumped into pool, have a swim. He said, and then about four o'clock. I see you get in the coals ready for a barbecue and a few more laughing and joking with your friends. And he said, I want to live like that. And I was thinking, that's the life he sees. What he doesn't see is how much work goes into this. The people that I'm calling we're discussing business and that when I'm not here, obviously he doesn't see me because I'm traveling to Europe or something like that. And I'm, um, I'm working. So I, my question to you is what is your family see of you? Do you know,
Speaker 3:I'm going to try to hold it together. So in the beginning, it's really, really, really, it can be really tough for me. I had a hard go at it because I was learning an entire new industry. So from birth professional to finance financial services, which are incredibly complicated, there's federal regulation. There's right. There's, it's a whole world and you never stop learning in that world. And so my children from the moment that I really started realizing that I was breaking promises, I realized how heavily involved in understanding the back story of what was going on, they would need to know. So what do I mean by that saying, I wouldn't be late this time to pick you up. That's not going to cut it because you're late again, which that might happen sometimes in the beginning while you're learning time management while you're learning. Um, I don't need to have this much conversation with my client. I can wrap it up and go get my kid. I don't have to really secure the relationship. I don't have to do that in my line of work. That was in my birth business. That's not required in this business. So when I started seeing that I was breaking promises to my kids, I actually started really involving them in my business. So they would be actually at the office with me while I was working with a client and they would see me and they would say, man, mom is working really hard. And then if they would misbehave, I would go into the next office. And my client can see my kid too in the office, across the hall. And this is pre COVID. And so my client would always give me a lot of referrals because they were like, man, she's dedicated. She's really here for me. Even her kids are supporting her and I would go across and maybe Skype, like I said, three boys, maybe I'd say, you know, you guys are being way too loud. There's other people working, mom, you know how much longer. And I would say, I'm helping my client with this. And this is going to bless our family with this much commission, which will allow for you to have dinner, not a peanut butter sandwiches. So my kids were at an age where I was able to, where I was starting to get into this industry that I had. They had to be a part of it. Um, my husband would come pick them up from the office and my kids would make it back home after practice and, you know, whatever, make it back home oftentimes before I did and I would go upstairs and I'd give him a kiss that made my passion to bring results and to be very conscientious of my time, uh, that made that really quick. Cause my, I was being held accountable to my kids cause they could, they could see me working and they would ask me, did you get a result? That's heavy, that's heavy
Speaker 2:Rosemary. If some of our listeners want to contact you, uh, how do they go about contacting you for, um, financial, uh, education advice?
Speaker 3:Well, you can always do the good old fashioned LinkedIn. I love connecting with people directly on LinkedIn. Um, you can look me up it's Rosemary. And my last name is spelled B as in boy, E Y E R on LinkedIn. And check me out on Facebook. My company, Facebook name is death as in D E F and then, Oh, I see. Yes. As an Oh, I see. Yes. As in that
Speaker 2:I will remember that. Well, I think this brings us to the end of another rethinking business success sauce and two pickles, a I'm pickle number two tomorrow. Macduff is pickle number one. Uh, but today we have a substitute pickle. Uh, Kristin[inaudible] yes, you're doing substitute pickle,
Speaker 3:Doing great. I had a lot of fun today and I hope Rosemary did as well.
Speaker 2:Uh, Rosemary, that was, um, a delightful, uh, interview. Uh, we look forward to having you back actually to talk about organization and productivity. I can't wait. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have any final comments before we, before we, um, sign up,
Speaker 3:Uh, just to any, um, budding or dreaming entrepreneurs out there? Um, absolutely definitely. Keep your job free up your time. Do your double shift to make your dreams happen, but my goodness do it now. Whatever you do, it's gonna be messy. It should be messy and sloppy. Just do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, um, I would agree with that. I always like to tell people lost time is never found.
Speaker 3:Thank you again, and everyone have a great day, have a great signing off.