Sidewalk Conversations
"Let the one who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall..." (1 Corinthians 10:12)
Standing strong and remaining true to your calling is no easy task. No one sets out to crash and burn. In fact, it's actually the opposite, most people want to stand strong, remain effective, and be true to their values all the way through to the end. But, it is really hard to do.
In these interviews, Piet Van Waarde (a 40 year veteran of pastoral ministry) has heart-to-heart conversations with ordinary people about what it takes to stay faithful and effective in the things that matter most.
Sidewalk Conversations
Your Dream Isn't Too Big or Too Late to Pursue with Carol Van Waarde
We explore the concept of trusting God for big dreams and how embracing our God-given desires can lead to fulfillment and purpose. Carol Van Ward shares her journey into real estate after delaying her dream for years, offering wisdom on overcoming self-doubt and taking practical steps toward your goals.
• God places dreams and visions in our hearts for a purpose
• Without a vision, people "cast off restraint" or wander aimlessly
• Carol's lifelong interest in real estate began in childhood
• Her hesitation to become a realtor stemmed from not wanting to be "pushy"
• The mindset shift from "selling" to "helping" opened the door to her career
• Taking practical steps and seeing small victories builds confidence
• Overcoming self-doubt requires "taking every thought captive"
• Recognizing negative thought patterns becomes easier with practice
• Starting a dream later in life still offers fulfillment and purpose
• Living without regrets means pursuing the desires God has placed in us
• Current real estate market presents buying opportunities despite higher interest rates
• Special programs and creative financing options are available for homebuyers
Connect with Carol for real estate questions or to learn more about Austin's housing market. Watch for our studio redesign and special content coming in July!
Welcome to another Sidewalk Conversation. I'm so glad that you are here today. I'm super excited about our guest. I know you will enjoy her thoroughly. But before I introduce her to you, I want to talk a little bit about our theme for today. We're going to be talking about trusting God for big dreams.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that I learned early on in my Christian journey was that God has a quote-unquote plan for your life, and it's better than any plan you might have for yourself. And so I remember some of my mentors and people who discipled me early in the journey. They kept encouraging me to dream big dreams for God. In fact, I had the good fortune to go to a Christian university that kind of reinforced that idea, and one of the things I learned early on was that it's not just about saying, hey, what would I like to do. It's like, lord, what would you have me do? So to dream big dreams for God's purposes, not for my own self-aggrandizement. And so one of the things I learned early on was that the book of Proverbs talks about this that without a vision, people perish or, in some translations, cast off or straight. So when we don't have a vision for our life, we don't have a sense of our purpose, we tend to wander away, we tend to squander the things that are given to us, and so one of the beautiful things about life, when we connect it to God, is that he does give us a purpose. He does put in our heart dreams that we need to dream, and then the second part, of course, is to fulfill them. Now, it's not axiomatic that once you have a dream, you'll automatically fulfill it. In fact, there's a whole lot that has to go into our cooperating with God to see the fulfillment of a dream. In fact, thomas Edison made this quote very famous a dream without execution is just a hallucination, and I think that's so true. And so what we are going to be talking about today is not only having a dream for your life and cooperating with God in the fulfillment of that dream, but some of the practical steps are involved with living it out, and it's not always easy. In fact, god gives us an opportunity to stretch our faith and our courage and our strength, and my guest today has done just that, and so I'm sure she will be an encouragement to you, as maybe you are in that same place trying to figure out Lord, what am I supposed to do and will I have the courage to do it? So, without any further ado, let me introduce you to our guest today, my beloved wife Ms Carol Van Ward van ward.
Speaker 1:Now, before I get into the conversation with carol, I do want to say a thank you to our sponsor today, the van ward foundation. In other words, there are a number of people who regularly and faithfully support the foundation through the Patreon page, and I just want to say thank you out loud. Many of them do so anonymously, but because they believe in the work that we do, not only with this podcast, but with the cancer families and their patients. And then we also do a lot of things on video and teaching and pastoral care, and all of that is get funded through the foundation. I have a great team that helps me make all this work. So my good buddy Preston, who's behind the camera, then we have Jen, who's our administrator, and there are others, martin, who works on many of my videos as well. So a lot of folks are supported through the work of the foundation, and I just want to say a public thank you to all of those who participate. All right Now to the guest of honor today, ms Carol Van Ward.
Speaker 2:Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:I know this is not necessarily your favorite thing to do, but you always do such a great job. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:It is easy to talk to my husband so glad to be here. It is easy to talk to my husband so glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Now we've talked about a lot of things over the years. In fact, we were talking about this before we went on the air that it's always between you and my mom, like who are the favorite podcast guests.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I can win this race.
Speaker 1:Well, it's hard to beat a POW story, that's for sure. But we've talked about ministry, we've talked about parenting, but today I want to really kind of do a deep dive on your professional life, and that's something that you've developed later in life, although there's a dream that kind of has been percolating for many years in your heart. And in fact, that's probably where I want to start. So you are now a realtor and you've been doing this how many years now? Five and a half, five and a half years and so since we've been in Austin, but you've had a passion for real estate, like from very early on in life, yep.
Speaker 2:So talk about that. Yes, so we moved a couple of times. When I was young and driving around in the car and looking at houses with my family three kids and two parents in the car, I have this distinct memory of my dad, who was all into this, saying the phrase location, location, location.
Speaker 1:Which, of course, are the three keys to great real estate right. Yes, exactly so.
Speaker 2:I learned that phrase when I was maybe seven years old and it's just been part of my vocabulary when it comes to assessing a property location, location, location and so I just learned early to appreciate real estate from my parents, and the houses that we had were always so interesting to me. We moved at a key point in my life when I was just entering sixth grade, where I got to live in a beautiful community, with the builder provided interior decorators for everybody building a house in that community, and so I got to select my room, so I selected neon, green walls and blue carpet. That was my bedroom. It was a really good one. All of us kids had our own bedroom and so, yeah, I had a lot of creative opportunity. When I was young, I even built tree forts, not in the trees, but like on the ground and got to.
Speaker 2:I built furniture for my tree forts, and so I love, isn't?
Speaker 1:that a really cool part of how God works, like he begins to give us hints and little signs and signals along the way that there's something in us that needs to find expression. In fact, I also remember you telling me a story about this book that you had.
Speaker 2:Yes, tell us about that Somehow my mom had a book published in 1850 or so. It was very old, very big. It had everything in this book, from dress designs to manners what kind of manners you should have and house plans. And of course these house plans from the 1850s were of various styles, but they didn't include much of a kitchen or closets or bathrooms. So I would take these designs and reconfigure the interior of it to include those things.
Speaker 1:Wow, how fun. Now, even though you've had an interest in real estate for so long, you did kind of put that off. Now, obviously some of it was because you made the decision early on in life. Hey, I want to give full-time attention to the kids and you also were a very busy pastor's wife. But there was also kind of a hesitation you had about jumping into real estate. What was that about?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I always had an interest. When our youngest went off to kindergarten I thought, okay, well, now's the time to get a career and, you know, do something more full-time or part-time to contribute to the family income. And I thought immediately of becoming a realtor. But my hangup was you have to sell houses. And I didn't like salespeople really. I felt like they were pushy. I didn't want to be pushy, I didn't want to be that to somebody else.
Speaker 2:So I just shoved it to the background and I thought you know I have this interest but I'm pretty busy anyway, so I didn't follow through on that. And then, once we moved to Austin, somebody was wanting me to come work with him to assist him in his real estate business. He wasn't quite ready for me and I thought, yeah, that would be fun to dabble in real estate, just as an assistant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and learn about it. Eventually, he said you really should be a realtor. And I thought no way. And I explained my hurdle, that I didn't want to sell people, and he said he doesn't find that it's selling, it's just helping. And it was a complete mind shifter for me. I decided yes, this is a profession where you're actually helping people at a critical time in their lives when they're making a huge financial decision and and it's it's kind of an emotional decision to invest your the future into a neighborhood or a house or you know your financial position. And so I was. I felt like, hey, I can do this. This is really something I can do and I'm going to love it. And so I've been doing it and I haven't been regretful in any way at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I loved too. I thought, when you shared this with me, you said I've had this paradigm shift where I'm not about selling, I'm about helping, and I thought that is so also core to who you are. That's kind of as a personality trait. That's one of your strongest traits is that you just love helping, you love coming alongside people, and so the fact that you had this interest in design and creative expression through architecture and now you put this with the helping gift and it's like of course, yes, of course I love it, and I'm just so grateful that I get to do this with people.
Speaker 2:As soon as we're done here, I'm going to go show a house, so that'll be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so even when people have a sense about what they're supposed to do and they have confirmation that this is the right thing to do, there's still like some hurdles about getting over either internally, like emotional hurdles or practical hurdles to get to actualizing the vision that they have in their hearts. And I'm just curious what was helpful to you in kind of moving past some of those challenges?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think just the idea of taking one step at a time and making a checklist and checking off all the boxes and being clear about what do you need to do to what do I need to do to move past the classes I need to take and so, or to learn social media, how to do social media well, so it's just really a matter of creating a list of things that you want for me, that I wanted to do, and being very specific about the steps to get there and making sure that happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, One of the things I noticed that you did that I thought was oh, I don't remember that. Yeah, one of the things I noticed that you did that I thought was oh, I don't remember that is that every single little step you took also became a confirmation that this was the right thing. So when you took the classes, for example, and you did so well on some of the testing and all that, it was like I think I can do this, I think I can get there, and then you take the test and you did really well on the test, and then you partnered up with somebody who was experienced in the field and it just you made a lot of strategic step-by-step decisions um practices and and events and activities that I think helped confirm for you that this was the right thing.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, um, just taking the classes, I knew that I needed to, uh, sit in a classroom rather than do classes online, and that really helped. I got to know some people. We talked about real estate, we would have lunch together and then I would come home and study and be ready for the tests. All the tests. There were lots of tests and, yeah, I was surprised when I did take the final exam that I was warned that people take these tests two and three times. I did not want to do that, so I studied and I got it done the first time.
Speaker 1:Good for you, yeah, all right Now, along the way, especially and I think this is common for many people, but you've been pretty open about this for yourself that even when you start having some victories, you have some good things that happen you also deal with a certain amount of self-doubt, like the imposter syndrome Am I really good at this? Do people really want to work with me? And so you have these internal voices that create a lot of that noise and I'm just curious what have you found helpful to deal with some of that pushback internally that many of us deal with when it comes to things we do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I seem to have a high dose of self-doubt. So you know, thankfully, I have lived some life and have had self-doubt in all facets of life, honestly, all facets of life, honestly. I think I just grew up doubting myself, and I don't know what that is, if it's nature or nurture. Was I lacking something as a kid? Is it just part of my DNA? I don't know. But I've had that and I've had to deal with it over the years. So I have, yeah, a few tools in my toolbox, and I would say that the greatest hammer in my toolbox to deal with self-doubt is this idea out of I believe it's 1 Corinthians taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So it takes some practice to understand that this thought that I just had is not a good one. It's an unhealthy, negative thought because you're so used to how you think.
Speaker 2:So, the first step is to recognize when I have a negative thought, and sometimes it surprises me that I can go for quite a while and not even recognize that I'm having negative thoughts that need to be dealt with. And so I am 64 years old now by the way, happy birthday.
Speaker 1:just last week I had a birthday.
Speaker 2:And I still deal with it. So I have a great deal of compassion for people who have the same struggle as I do, because it can be besetting. But yet when I take a thought captive that it is negative or not true and I find the truth and I latch onto that, that just changes my perspective and my mood and my productivity and I can move past it a lot more easily. I can move past it a lot more easily, but it's not like, at least for me. It's not something that I have worked on in the past and it's fixed now.
Speaker 2:It just keeps cropping back up in various ways and I have to learn again to take that thought captive and to speak the truth to myself about what is actually true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the things I've noticed about how you've processed that is that it used to be that you would have kind of a cycle of things that you were thinking about that weren't true or that were kind of negative or self-defeating, and you would kind of sit in that space for a while. But now what I've noticed over the years is that you've shortened that timeframe, like you're much quicker about saying wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not true, that's not me.
Speaker 1:God has something different to say about me, and I think that that's just like so helpful for other people to know that when, whatever it is, whether it's a career move you're making or family, or even spiritually, you have to just keep those thoughts captive and say wait a minute, what's the truth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the truth is God. In addition to that, god loves each person deeply. He loves me so deeply. He sees me as his daughter. He sees me as somebody with a high capacity to be able to accomplish the things that I set my heart and mind to. Of course, I'm seeking his will in the middle of that, and he provided a really great husband for me to also speak the truth to me when I can't quite see it for myself. So it's been a blessing to be married to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm glad you see it that way I feel it very much so to be married to you.
Speaker 1:That is so okay. Now I would like to kind of ask you to give advice to people who may be where you have been. So let's say somebody like later in life is thinking about a dream whether it's real estate or some other thing that maybe they've been contemplating for years but they just haven't gotten a chance to get started, or have had self doubt. What would be some of the things you would say to your former self or to that person who's now where you were five, six years ago?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, man, there's a lot of life to live. You know, I feel young and my age doesn't say that, but I feel young. I have always wanted to do, and so should you. Whoever is thinking about starting something late in life. I think that it will enrich your life and it would challenge you and create a new facet for you to shine and for you to be God's instrument in the world, in whatever way. And so I think that God directs us with all kinds of little opportunities, and when we take advantage of one of those opportunities, it leads to the next thing, and it's not that you're not hitting barriers along the way. There's always barriers to overcome, but if you are walking forward in the thing that you want to do, then you're going to land in a new place, and really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you're talking, it reminds me of something my dad said to me that has kind of stuck with me.
Speaker 1:We were sitting on the porch at his new home when they moved to Florida, when my mom and dad moved to Florida, and they were reflecting on their life and we were in an especially kind of one of those deep father-son type talks and I just asked him Dad, what's the best thing about your life? And one of the things he said to me was I don't have any regrets. Which really took me aback, because who doesn't have regrets? But he clarified and said it's not that I didn't make mistakes, it's not that I didn't do things wrong or wish I'd done some things differently, but on the big things I don't regret. He went on to say that so many older people end up having so many regrets that they didn't do the thing that was on their heart or they didn't spend the time they wish they could have with their kids, and he's like it's a regret, regret, regret, regret. And he kind of looked at me and he said that that would be a noble vision for your own life.
Speaker 1:Like try to live a life without regrets, and I think that's kind of what you're pointing to too. You know you could have, you know, maybe self-doubt, or you maybe wonder well, could I? But to not try would be maybe one of the biggest regrets of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know that if I had not done taken this career path, I would be even now sitting here with regret. One of the things that I've wanted to do is flip a house, and we've talked about it so many times, and right now I am hoping to get this house. We should close on the 30th, but a lot of things still have to happen between now and then, which is like five days, six days, and it might not work, but if it does, I will get to say I did that and I made this little patch of earth a little bit better, and so I don't want to have regrets.
Speaker 2:I don't want to have those longings. I want those longings to be fulfilled. And what is that scripture? A longing fulfilled is a tree of life, but unmet longings are like death. You know, I don't remember exactly the scripture, but yeah, it is like a tree of life, providing beauty and shade. And you know, a tree of life is a wonderful thing and I want to do the things that God lays on my heart. He created me to have these desires, so I'm going to follow through with it.
Speaker 1:And I think that's just such a great principle for people to have. It's just like these desires that you have are not from nowhere. You have giftings, you have interests, you have passions and all of that. Some of it, you might say, well, that just comes from me, that's what I'm interested in. But even that interest is placed there by God.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:All right, I want to now actually talk a little bit about real estate, because it's kind of an interesting market right now.
Speaker 1:Now actually talk a little bit about real estate because it's kind of an interesting market right now and you know some people are a little skittish, particularly as it relates to things like interest rates and you know house prices and so on. And so you know, when you're talking to somebody who is like interested in saying, hey, we're at a stage in life where we're either wanting to move from renting to buying, or our family is growing, we need a bigger place, or somebody wants to sell a house and they'd like moving the job, what are some of the things you're telling people about real estate when they have hesitation.
Speaker 2:A lot of people are hung up on the interest rates right now, which are hovering around 7, 7.125 or so, and they are remembering, you know, three and four years ago, when the interest rates were incredibly amazing 3% and you know that was just a very rare time. I don't know if we'll ever see that again in our lifetime.
Speaker 2:I hope we do, because it's really great for realtors lots of business, but as it is, we are under the 50-year average right now. So the 50-year average rate is about 8% and we're under that. There are also special programs. You can find banks that will do lending under the market rate. So I have a bank I'm working with right now that offers 1% less than the market rate, so that's exciting.
Speaker 1:And they also have options like lower down payments and yeah, things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah like 100% financing. You can find those out there. Not that that's always the wisest choice, but it's an option to get a person into a house. The other thing about the market right now is that it's a buyer's market. Sellers are having a little trouble selling their house at the value that they might find through comps, so buyers are getting deals right now. If buyers wait until rates go down, then it could flip and become a seller's market where sellers are asking for more money and the house becomes more expensive. So it's generally advised that buyers buy in a buyer's market. With the rates like they are right now, it's just a good time to buy. And for sellers that are out there that are skittish, we just fight until we make it work, and so I have some sellers right now and we're just doing that and trying to work with creative financing. There's other creative financing options that benefit sellers, and so we try to make it all work together.
Speaker 1:Well, we will put your information in the notes. So if people are looking for a realtor that they can trust and somebody who has a passion to serve, they'll have that information. Is there anything else that they should know about the market or about real estate in this time?
Speaker 2:Oh boy. Well, I mean, there's so much to learn and know and they can just call me with their questions. How about that? Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 1:All right, I always like to end the interview with kind of a more generalized question, which is like do you have a particular philosophy of life that serves as your true north and it could be like it directs everything like your marriage, your family, your business, your personal life. Is there a theme that you have for your life or a statement that would capture what it is you want to be about in your life?
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, I would say that the theme is God is love. Just a simple theme. People always talk about it, but it's my theme too, and I think that knowing that God is love, he embodies love, he is love, everything that drives him is love, then it should be my driving force as well. Then it should be my driving force as well. So in the way that I relate to the people I serve people I interact with professionally, the way I relate to my family, if God is love and he treats us in such a way, then I ought to treat people and be motivated by love as well. So I would say that's my driving force.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting you mentioned that, because we just had your birthday and one of the things that we tend to do in these celebrations is we give family members and friends a chance to kind of have a word for the birthday honoree. Kind of have a word for the birthday honoree. And if I think about it, most of the things that were said about you are one reflection or another of this dynamic of love. So I think you're doing well in mimicking the love of God to the people around you.
Speaker 1:Well thanks, yeah, thank you. Thank you for doing this again. I'm so grateful and, as always, you did a great job.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me, and Preston, you're awesome and I just appreciate the chance to talk and share my story. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, and I just want to say thank you for joining us for another conversation. We are actually getting ready to take a break. I've talked about this a little bit. In July we're going to be doing a total studio redo, so we have a short greeting that we'll be doing next week for July 4th, and then we have a special conversation that we're going to be having with Shana for the month of July while we reset the studio that we've pre-recorded, and so then in the beginning of August we'll be back again in the new studio. Can't wait for you to be a part of that too.
