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You Can't Afford Me
Making the leap from employment to entrepreneurship can be a scary time. The biggest fear people have is the unknown. Here on the “You Can’t Afford Me Podast” we speak with hustlers and innovators on how to make the most of your journey. If you have questions we have answers.
You Can't Afford Me
I Didn’t Sign Up For A Paycheck, I Signed Up For Opportunity
What if the fastest path to growth isn’t quitting your job, but changing how you show up inside it? Jessica Thomas joins us to share how she moved from healthcare operations through a pandemic storm into real estate leadership, co‑founding Impact Leverage while serving as Director of Operations at Pace of Richmond. Her secret isn’t hustle porn—it’s coaching, vision, and ownership.
We dig into the career visioning process at Keller Williams that flipped the script on hiring, why she now measures her worth with numbers not feelings, and how her team invests roughly 14% of its budget in education and executive coaching. Weekly one‑to‑ones start with “How are you?” and build toward motivation, goals, and the right “how.” The result is a culture that retains talent, scales systems, and creates leaders who think like owners.
Jessica also unpacks intrapreneurship: taking equity, sharing profit, and building new ventures without giving up the team you love. From launching Impact Leverage to stepping onto a national stage to teach their 10‑week business development model, she shows how operational people can be rainmakers when they codify value and tell that story. We talk org models, three‑ and five‑year vision, and the boring reps that compound into mastery. There’s even a wild property story that turns a $3,500 lot into a five‑figure win—proof that ownership is often about positioning, not permission.
If you’re a founder, operator, or aspiring intrapreneur, this conversation is a blueprint: publish your vision, invest in whole‑life coaching, and design compensation that rewards impact. Subscribe, share this with a teammate who needs a push, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we’ll read our favorites on the show.
www.themrpreneur.com
Welcome to the You Can't Afford Me podcast. Real entrepreneurs, real struggle, and the unfiltered journey behind the death. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_03:Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the You Can't Afford Me Podcast. Now, this is a blast from the past of sorts.
SPEAKER_02:So we've actually been working together now for a few years. But this is someone I met freshman year in college. Freshman year.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I guess so.
SPEAKER_03:And have been connected since then. I'm going to spoil in terms of like where she works at, I'll let I'll let her explain that. But um just recently you kicked off your own venture. Um so once you were telling me about that, I was like, we gotta get your own pod and chat about that. Uh so there we have Jessica on podcast. Jessica, how you doing?
SPEAKER_00:I'm good, Sam. Thanks.
SPEAKER_03:Awesome. So give everybody a quick rundown of who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so my name's Jessica Thomas. I my full-time gig is I'm the director of operations at the Pace of Richmond. So uh I work with a high-end real estate team here in the Richmond area, and I get to lead all of our admin and operations, help support our agents from a leadership perspective. Um, but most recently, a little about a year ago now, actually, uh launched my own business with my business partners almost a year now. Yeah, it's like exciting. So uh almost a year now uh launched our business Impact Leverage. And so uh that's a business uh that I co-own with Session Horn and John Pace. So they're my business partners and our real estate team, uh, where I serve an um obviously an admin role there, a part of the team. But we really felt that there was an opportunity that was greater for us and for our community, and uh decided to launch Impact Leverage and uh provide all the services that we do uh on that side of the business as well.
SPEAKER_03:Love it, love it. All right, so let's let's talk back in the day. I want to leave that queer career path. So obviously we both went to Low Owen University in farm New Vegas, Virginia. Yep. Um so after college, what was your career path?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so graduated college with a degree in recreation therapy and so uh healthcare. I went into the healthcare sector for about three to four years, worked in patient rehab hospitals, uh working with patients day to day. Um, transferred, uh, left out of that, went into running a small business in healthcare. So it was a small business. They had just kind of started. Uh, it was about six months, uh maybe a year into the business when I got there, and came in as the operator and just got to work side by side with a business owner to grow her business uh to multi-million dollar business, which was a lot of fun. Did that for 11 years after working in the healthcare sector before I came to real estate.
SPEAKER_03:So, what what brought you into real estate?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, so have and stance. So I kind of got rid, COVID happened, right? I was in healthcare, COVID happened, and we provided home care services to people. So we were going in and out of uh uh clients' homes every day. And um, I wasn't, I was the operator of the business, right? So not necessarily myself, but had a hundred employees working for me, a hundred moms that were now having to try to figure out how to navigate uh COVID and what that meant at home and having their kids at home, but also having patients that were quite literally, you know, not doing well with COVID, right? Um it was a really hard time. Uh I fought for it, got through it. 2021 kind of came around, and I knew that there needed to be a change in my life. Um I kind of felt like our vision as a business was going in two different directions. And as an operator of a business and not an owner, it's a very different perspective uh for a business. And um ultimately at the end of the day, uh you can really live out. Uh my one of the passions that I love doing is fulfilling and helping business owners to see their vision and and being able to kind of go forth with that. But at that time, I was starting to kind of just get a little unbalanced. And I said, you know what, I need to change. And so a lot of a lot of business coaching, a lot of therapy during that time, trying to figure out what was going on uh in my mind, took uh a leave of absence and and left that role. Um and took probably four months just to kind of like get my head to a place where I was ready to embark on a new journey. And in that, I just started interviewing. And at that point, I had hired so many people, I'd interviewed and led so many people. I knew exactly what I wanted and I knew exactly what I didn't want. And that was really hard for me because I was on the other end of something going, I knew my value, couldn't fire out, you know, I'm this girl with this healthcare degree that's like looking, but I run a business and people aren't really seeing that I run a business, not really in a financial place where I could go launch my own business trying to figure that concept out. So, long story short, um, one night had margaritas with a girlfriend, and she was like, Jessica, you're overthinking this. Margaritas will do that. Margaritas will do that. Had margaritas with a girlfriend. She's like, Jessica, you're overthinking this. Go home, go on Indeed, apply for any job that has like operations uh as operations management, optimizations director. Pace of Richmond was one of those. Um, I originally thought it was the PACE uh program here in Richmond, which is a senior care program when I originally applied for it. Got an interview, and about uh 30 minutes prior to the interview, and again, I'm just doing reps of interviews at that point. 30 minutes into uh before the interview, look it up, realize it's a real estate company, and go, oh my gosh, this is wild. So I take the interview because I've already committed to it, right? Take the interview. Uh it was a recruiter actually that they had working for them that was recruiting during that process. Uh quickly kind of went, hmm, okay, this is different. This is different. Just the first 15-minute conversation was different than most of the interviews. Uh, then they asked me to take a personality assessment, and I was like, whoa, what is this? And so took a personality assessment. They went deep on me, spent, I don't know, four hours with a recruiter before I ever met the business owner, which at that point I was going, when do I get to meet John? When does this happen? And the recruiter was like, that's how I knew you were the one. And that's like when we go through this conversation. And so, long story short, um, I was recruited through the career visioning process through Keller Williams. Uh, it is a very intense process that now I get the pleasure of leading and uh allowing other people to experience that same opportunity. Um, but I was very much recruited. They they came in and they told me all about who I was. They cared about what my motivations was or were, uh, what my values were, um, got really clear that I was able to do that, had a business owner that was able to sit down and show me their PL from day one, not afraid to say, here's my books, let's look at it. This is how we win together. Um and yeah, John was the guy that I needed in my life. And I knew my worth at that time. And so it was really easy for me to say no. Some people said no to me too, um, along the way. But that's what led me to real estate. So when I got into real estate, I had no clue what real estate was, but I knew how to run a business and I knew how to grow grow a business. And that's what John needed me for. He knew real estate. He didn't need me to know real estate, he needed me to be the people person, needed me to be the person to get behind the business to run the business. And so that's what got me into real estate.
SPEAKER_03:So you dropped some major gym, everybody in that sex on the ass stuff. So, number one, let's talk about knowing your word. Yeah. So what was it? Because I also feel that's a confidence piece where a lot of people will just take the first offer that comes and not recognize. And I also feel like those same people are the ones that, like, once they're three months into a job, they're complaining about everything. I'm not making it enough, like da-da-da. I've always, from a business owner perspective, I always look at it as well. We sat here, we shook hands, you signed the paper. So if you weren't good with this salary, yeah, I was on you to say something in the beginning. Yeah. What's it been like for you, like once you truly understand, stood your value, being able to go into situations, how do you approach those things now once you came to the realization of growing value?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I just got so much more confident with that, right? And I think it started with um not knowing my value. Yeah, right. I was an employee. Um, and I still am today. I don't really look at myself at that anymore. I look at myself as a business partner. But at that time, I was an employee living out someone else's vision for them, right? And at that time, I I was going through all this like discourse at home. I was not happy. My my personal life, you could just see that everything about me was not happy, right? And and it really took some time, and like I said, therapy to really start figuring out the conversation of well, what where do I add value into this conversation? And then I started understanding the math behind the business, right? I didn't go to business, went to school for healthcare, right? We didn't talk math, we didn't talk, we didn't talk budgets, we didn't talk any of this profit, none of that. And so I started to understand the math behind the business. And that was actually our business coach that she had hired in uh at our previous role. And I started understanding the math better of the business, and I started to understand the impact that I made and my teammate in that math. And not that the math didn't equal because I was well compensated in what I did. Um, it just didn't equal in the long-term game for me, didn't equal in uh the people business for me from that perspective. And so when I was got really clear about that and was able to kind of get take those steps for myself to go, okay, um, this is what it looks like and this is what it feels like. And then over the last four years, being um in real estate at getting the high level of training that I am at this point and the coaching, you know, I have a weekly one-to-one coach that I work with, an executive coach, um, outside of getting to be coached by John Pace. Like, on top of that, um, it is exceptional to understand that like that's what I add to a team. That's what I do, you know. I was in my coaching session this past week with my uh coach, and we were just kind of stuck in a how on um, we were creating a little vision, a little place where we were going. And I kind of got stuck in the how of like, but how do we make that happen? Because that's how my mind thinks. I'm an operational-based person. And she's like, Jessica, I need you to get out of the how. I need you to get into the future, and I need you just get out of there. And so constantly having people around me that helped me understand that as well. And and you know, early on when I knew I needed to leave, it was other business partners that I was around, people that I were, you know, I was co-working with or, you know, in other areas, going, you realize the talents and the skills you have, right? You know, that organization recognized me as a national employee of the year for like the entire organization through the United States. Like I added a lot of value and I still do uh to the what I do. Uh, but I didn't understand that fully until I got there. And um, so with that, that allows me to just put myself in situations where I can be confident and what I what I come up with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I love that. So you spoke a lot about like the uh the personal coaching piece. Um that is one train I got on a long time ago where I recognized the people that were mirroring the level of success that I was looking to attain, they all have one thing in common is they got coached.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Like when I look at my life today, I have a coach when it comes to my health and nutrition. Yeah, I have a coach when it comes to my business, I have a coach when it comes to my finances, I have a coach when it comes to my relationships. Like, I have a coach in every aspect of my life. And I think I may have mentioned this on the previous previous episode, where those with a broke mentality always look at the cost of something and they're like, well, I don't have the money to spend on that. People that are success-minded are like, I can't afford not to invest into that. And it's it's the those two terms is one is spending money and one is investing money. Yep. Um, what has it been like for you in terms of investing into those coaches? And you know, some of that like may not be services that you guys are paying for, but also to recognize the fact that a guy like John Pace, like, this is someone that I can learn from. And I think oftentimes when people are looking for a job, they're overlooking some of the intangibles that don't come through their checking account. Like, yeah, I may be making this much, but I'm also working with someone at this level, which is ultimately gonna take my career to the next level.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So, like from moment one, when I got the job with John, um he hired a recruiter to hire me. So that right there goes, I'm not the best at hiring. I may not be able to give the time that I need to or whatever. He's automatically gonna go and hire a professional to do what he needs to do, right? And then with that, get 90 days of one-to-one training and and through that entire process through somebody that's actually done my role for other real estate teams, right? So I knew going in that training was gonna be what I would receive immediately. I didn't have to come in. Now, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of stuff I had to come in and figure out and learn, right? But um, I had a mentor throughout that entire time. It didn't take John completely away from his sales business. He was able to still run the business, but he was able to teach me on the things that I needed to be taught on, but I could get that coaching from that backside. And so as soon as my 90-day training was over, there um right during that time, there were two other girls uh that were also kind of completing it. They were working for other real estate agents throughout the United States. And I said, you know, hey girls, I've really loved our one-to-ones every week. Can we put them back on the schedule and like just do it on our own? Like, let's just do a Google Meet, right? I still meet with those girls every three weeks still today because um now we've grew our network, right? There's other admins that are in that group that'd be able to come in there and add value to that because uh what we give and we receive is super important, and being able to have someone else to talk to about that. Um, so that was really good. I mean, and in our PL, if you look at our PL, one of our largest expenses is education and coaching. And that will always be that way because how we show up, how we show up as leaders uh is based off of what are we doing to be the best person that we are, right? That has nothing to do with um, you know, our skills on the, you know, it's like our skills to negotiate or skills as sales agents, like that's that's the service we provide for people. But the service that we provide for the people that we hire, the people that we choose to get in business with is who we are as people. And so if we're not doing reps on that, we're not getting better at that every week, then we're just falling behind because you know, I think Gary Keller's the one that says if you're not growing, where are you going? You know, and so I think that's so important is to continue to put that. And, you know, I think coaching, like for me, I knew I needed like therapy. That was my coaching from start one, right? Was like I was compressing all these issues going on and you know, family stuff going on at the same time. And you know, I my therapist told me uh my loss of my me deciding to leave that employer at that time was like going through a divorce, and is what she told me. She said, you know, you were so committed to this, and this is this is like going through a divorce, and I had to treat it in that way and kind of get my mind right, but I couldn't take that divorce into my next work relationship, right? So I had to get myself straight, I had to get those things straight before I could go. And um, yeah, a lot of a lot of people around me, I mean, I I could think, name them off all now, right? You know, that like really said, Jessica, you you can find the things that you want. There are there is a greater world than this, than what you're looking at in these doors, and um, which is super exciting. I keep challenging myself that way every day now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So what's it what has it been like in terms of the people that you guys have brought on the team? What's been their reaction when they learn how much you guys are investing in them as employees on that side? Because that's that's not a what you're describing is not the typical scenario in most companies. And now you actually have me sitting here a second guessing myself, like, am I giving my employees enough on that end? So, what's been the reaction when you guys are bringing someone on and they know, and we get coaching in these areas, they're gonna be up in these areas? Well, their what's their feedback?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I just finished, I just put an offer out to a candidate today, 154 applicants later um went through almost two and a half months. This applicant that I put the offer out to um actually had reached out to me before um I even opened the job, but I still did the reps of getting through the process, right? Um it when I sit down across from somebody and I tell somebody that every single week I meet with one of my employees every single week for 30 minutes, face to face, eye to eye. We look at each other. My first question is, How are you? What's on your mind? Right. This is just all about them. It is not the meeting that we problem solve the big issue or the you know, the issues that are in there. Uh, and John does that for me every single week. Every single week he's across from me and asks the same questions of me and coaches me through those things. Um, it's the easiest uh way to show up and show the way that we treat each other. Um, and I think you know, it's one of those things. I know what's going on in my people's lives at all times. Now, I don't know every single detail. We don't always slow down to talk about every single concept, but I can tell you when the highs and the lows are happening. I can tell you when they don't show uh Friday morning for 30 minutes, they're running a little behind. They tell me what's going on. I already know what's going on because we've already talked about it. I already know what that life challenge that might be facing Friday morning, right? And so I think that's so important is to look at that. We at Keller Williams, we have something called KW Talent. It's one of our communities there. So Liz Landry is the leader of that community. She's a well-respected leader within Keller Williams and really in the real estate world. She was here in Richmond last week, I think it was, uh, teaching a class that she calls Empower. It was all about being the leader that you need to be. Um, and so we were able to bring here to her here to Richmond to be able to show people. Uh, we've been working with Liz for three years as a leadership team, me, John, and Seth, uh, about really defining our team narrative, our organizational chart, our three-year model, our five-year model. Where is it going? What does it look like? Who do we want on the uh team with us? Where are we going from that? And so our team got to see that in real life, right? They see us fly out to Texas, go to Austin for a week, and they're like, oh, they're having margaritas, they're having a great time. What they don't understand is that that five hours or that five days that we go out and we spend that time, and yes, we have margaritas at night, to process everything that we have going on in our constant conversations about how we get better with each other, how do we get better as a team, and how do we lead people. And so one of the greatest things that I've learned is that I'm a really great leader. I'm a really great person that can lead people. And that means taking time to spend with them, to sit down with them and a coaching one-to-one. You know, we we just finished up what we call a it's a motivational interview, is what we call it at KW. What's an interview that you sit down, you talk about your career, you talk about money, but you talk about two other quadrants of your life that are important to you. And you get real clear about what you want and where you're going, and your leader leads you through that. So with John Seth and I, we sit down and lead each other through that. Three of us sit down. So I could tell you what my business owner, John Pace, wants to do in three to five years from now. I know his vision because he shared that vision with me. We went on that journey together to help get real clear about what his vision is together. So I know the things that he's working towards, he knows the things I'm working towards. So every week when we have our weekly week, you know, meetings from that, we're actually being able to go back to like, all right, how does that actually play in for me? Not just how does it play in for the business, how does it play in for me? And that's part of why we launched Impact Leverage. And you know, John wanted opportunities for us to do more, and and we were constantly looking for like what was the right niche, what was the right thing that we could do? Um, and when that opportunity presented itself, it was like that's it. Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_03:That's incredible. Like you dropped a lot there. Um, let me ask you this in terms of I don't, I'm not looking for an exact number, but I'm wanting to put this point across to people as a team. How much do you think you guys are investing in coaching and education per year? And if you have any metrics in terms of what that ROI looks like. Like people understand that for every 10,000 you invest in your skill set, yeah, I can mean another hundred thousand dollars in revenue. I think people get blinded by the NSL price point up front and they they can't envision the long term.
SPEAKER_00:It's around 14% of our budget. So based off of our budget and and where we're running, um, it can flex a little bit, you know, just depending where uh we are and and the people that we have within that. So I mean, coaching, just executive level coaching on on our team on a monthly basis, um$4,500 a month, right? Executive level coaching from that perspective. Um it's not light work, right? It's not light money. And that's just what the business is paying to coach us, right? Not all of us, the work that we're doing on our sides, right? The nutritional coaching, the uh mental health coaching, the the spiritual life coaching, all of those aspects that we're also doing. So yeah, I mean, people looked at it, so you know, we are in a shifting market, right? Houses aren't selling as quick as they used to anymore. Now all of a sudden they're sitting on the market a little bit more. Um, everybody's wondering where the next deal is coming from. Some people are, right? Uh not that we're not, because we're focused on that too. Don't get me wrong. But what did we just do? Our leaders just took time off, took a whole week off, went out, went to education, went to training for a week, and poured in, and yeah, did we have to write a pretty check for it? Absolutely. But do we do it twice a year minimally? Absolutely. So this is not just conference hopping. This isn't like, oh, I go from this speaker to that speaker. But you know, we just got back from our um Keller Williams conference not long ago. We got to hear from uh Sahel Bloom, who was one of the most uh impactful speakers that we got to hear from. He uh wrote the book The Five Types of Uh Wealth or something of that nature. I I don't know if I dropped the uh title exactly correct, but five types of wealth in his conversation is not just talking about our financial wealth, but it's talking about our our spiritual wealth, our mental uh physical health, all of those different areas of our life. And he Gary Keller brings in speakers like that to teach us uh because he knows that we're not a sell real estate, right? We're not coming to these big conferences, we're coming to these conferences to be better people and be better leaders, right? And so I see he'll bloom and now I picked up his book, I've been reading it, haven't got quite through it all the way, but it's been really helpful for me to be able to just take some of those quizzes in the book of going, all right, I thought my life was a little bit more balanced here, but I'm actually want to, I need to go harder on this area, I need to get a coach in this area. What does that look like? Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so everything everything I'm hearing from you is I mean, the level of attention that you have to to self-investing. Like it's it's admirable because a lot of people just don't recognize and and like the vision piece that you out out like that's probably been one of the hardest things in my business. And I'm I think over the last six months or so, I've met the right people and kind of coached me in some of the right spots. But now I get it. Because when you're blessed with vision, like I was talking to somebody about this with my wife the other day. It's like once I visualize something, it's already happened. Yep. Like whether it physically happens in the next three to five years, whatever it but in my mind, it's a dumb deal. This already happened. So, like even this office that we're in now, this was the office I envisioned my life as company 10 years ago. Yeah. And we just moved in this past February. But in my mind, all these things were happening. So like we were talking, um, it was some some of my wife were talking about something, and one of my friends had to pull me inside. He's like, look, dude, you gotta understand, like the way your brain works and the type of personality she is, she's the person that needs to see it physically. But for you, this has already happened, you're explaining something like it's very hard to get across. And it wasn't until just recently I was able to fully get my vision out to our team. And the response to that has been insane because Ember One, allowing them to fully understand what's in my head and where I had this company going, also allowed for them to see where they fit into that puzzle.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So for when it's just sitting up here and it's in my hand, and I'm like, oh yeah, you need to do this, but I'm not fully explaining that to them in a way that they can understand. They're a little distance and not as committed to the the callers of the organization. But once they get all that, they buy in. I mean, we're performing at a whole nother level that we've never performed at before. So, like getting that vision out, I think, is is crucial. Let me ask you this because you're you're one of the first people I can ask this question to as we're sitting here. And I'm not looking for any fabulous bad. I really want to respect because I've often wondered this about people. Uh, so let me say this first. Um, in terms of what I'm seeing and hearing from you, like, number one, we've known each other for a long time. Yeah. Been working together for the last few years. I've never known this side of you. Except because you're spotting it. I'm like, thanks, girl, a killer. Like, I didn't even realize Jessica was nice like that. Um, knowing me from college, did you ever expect me to be anywhere near what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00:It's funny you say that, because so my team was here at your studio, what, two weeks ago or so, and John and all my agents were here, and I was like, uh, I said something to John, and I was like, you know, I really trust Sam and his team. And he was like, Yeah, and I was like, he's and he was talking about your personality, you were just bubbly and out there, and I was like, Yeah, I was like, Sam was always the guy at the parties in college that was like, let me take the mic, let me run the DJ booth, let me entertain the people, let me get all the people rallied around me, right? People followed you even at that young age, right? Like you, we were both completely different people at that time in our life.
SPEAKER_03:I was I was leading them in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, we were we were leading, whatever it looks like, right? And we were out there, and you were you were the person though that that were that was always putting people out there. So to see you be the business partner that you are today, to be the business leader that you are today, it's not surprising. You know, you're just coming into to who you are, right? You're using your talents and your skills for actually a worthy cause and not just a college party, right? Like you're using your skills and talents to actually be able to motivate other people. I mean, think about how many of your people in your businesses that you have today can go home and affect their families because of the work that you put in, right? Past it was just like, hey, Sam put on a good party, this was fun, we had a great time, but like today, the man that you are and the leader that you are, you actually be able to get out and affect actual people's lives long term, right? That could be your clients at your servant. And I mean, I one of the things that you do for us at Pace Enrichment, it's so easy to just know that we're gonna have continuous content. Every time I have something, you're gonna be there, you're gonna show up. And it's gonna be content people want to engage with, right? It's gonna be stuff that people want to talk about, they want to see, they like seeing their faces in it, they like seeing all of those things. And so it's the impact that we get to make on people is really cool. So, yeah, did any of us envision this years ago? No, probably not.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's funny. I'm glad I asked that question. Again, I wasn't uh trying to get some unsolicited uh pat on the back. You can win it, it's okay. I I didn't even think about it from that perspective, the way you just listed it out. But like, yo, you were the hype man, you were the people, you were the guy getting everybody excited, da da da. Yeah, but still, what you do today is just in a different form, but I have never sat back and thought thought that. Okay, that's why I like the coaching and all these different things, like it's so important because oftentimes, like what you were describing earlier in your story, where you're like, your girl had to pull you to the side, like, yo, understand your value and what you've done for these businesses, da-da-da. When you're in it, a lot of times you can't see that.
SPEAKER_00:You're just grounded.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're just grounded. You have to have somebody with the vision outside of that and how that looks. Yeah, uh, let me switch to something else because I think you're a unicorn of sorts in terms of normally people are one side of the other in terms of being an employee and being an entrepreneur. Yeah. I've often said that entrepreneurs aren't built, they're for. Um, and I think they can be any things you like. You may employ that 50 years and all of a sudden wake up and start a business. That entrepreneur gene has always been in your in your body that entire time. For you, talk to us about what that looks like because a lot of people they start a business to get out of an employment scenario. Everything you're describing, it it's not like you're I started this business to get away from the health situation that I was in before, work for somebody else. But it doesn't sound like you're running from that employment side.
SPEAKER_00:of things so talk about your mindset with that like balancing the entrepreneurship side also yeah having an employee yeah i i love uh working with people right um i don't you know having the shoulders the weight of the the the weight on my shoulders of of running a business 100 on me um it's a lot i'm learning it right i'm learning it from the other my business that i'm running with folks thankfully i'm not the sole owner right i kind of get to share that responsibility um but i think i i never really kind of looked at it from that was what i wanted for me and you know i i'm constantly asked a lot uh jessica you've got a lot of talents you've got a lot of things that you can bring to the table you could go out and do this yourself you could start a real estate team you could do these things but what I couldn't do from that perspective is I couldn't grow with someone couldn't grow together right um I think it's so important for us to be able to find people to get into business with right you know people come sometimes come to me and go um you know I had someone ask tell me one time she said uh it's not it's not your business you shouldn't reference it as uh my employee or our people or whatever it be and I was like so put off by that statement because I was like no no no this this is my business I commit it every single day I commit it when I sign those documents to grow in this business and if this business doesn't win I I'm paid off a profit let's be real this business doesn't win I don't win right yes I get a paycheck I get that but I didn't sign up for that paycheck I signed up for that opportunity and that's different right and that's set on t-shirt I didn't sign up for that paycheck I signed up for the opportunity I mean like here I am right I invested in four different multifamily syndications in the last two years with John and Seth and those opportunities that have come up I mean I get to go home to my family every single night without the stress of like what's happening tomorrow. My phone's not ringing every single night when I'm trying to sleep at at home um I have a balance in my life that I've never had before I have someone that believes in me so strongly. You know, I told John I think one time him and Seth we were in a conversation and I was just really fighting an internal demon on something and I said I'm really struggling on it. And the way they showed up the way they believed in me actually allowed myself to go, you know what, limiting beliefs get gone and really be able to fully invest in myself and know that that those opportunities were there for me. And so it is a different mindset because you don't meet people like me every day I would agree right you know and I'm starting to learn that a little bit longer right the I love I love pouring into um admins and operational support people that are in in in real estate I run a mastermind for our KW office. I serve on the KW nationwide operations community I mean I love pouring into others but and the reason why my why behind that is is I have been that girl that's just working just pulling somebody else vision and and I will tell you like I loved what I was doing. I never thought for one bit that I was doing anything that I shouldn't be doing at that point in time. But I didn't realize at that point that there was so much more for me and that there was more for my value. And what I refuse to allow to happen is for people not to understand that. For admin, for people that help run businesses people that help make an impact every day into businesses they need to be they need to be valued and they need to understand that because yes can you hire another person 100% you can hire another person all day but the way that you win together it will only happen the way that you two win together that business partner and you whatever that looks like and so I think that's so important for me because like I don't the word intrapreneur or I hear entrepreneur in intrapreneur is what they talk about a lot of times like I'm in the business but I'm driven by the profit from that side of things right like if tomorrow we tank this business and went away yes could I go out and get another job but it would be totally life changing for me right my life has gone in a different way from that and then I've allowed myself to have these opportunities right did I ever think I was going to start a business and be a business no not at all that was not if you asked it on my dream board all these years I've been putting one out there that's not on there. But I have people like John and Seth in my world where they're going hey Jessica I think this is an opportunity and I think hey with a little bit of financial investment from each of us a lot of time investment from each of us a lot of effort into it we can get to a place that we really want to go and you can get there faster. And when I automatically start tying it to what that dream looks like that home that I get to have that day that family I get to continue to be around and those things that I get to continuously be able to support it gets real clear for me that I can do those things right and that I can get through that. So I think this is just one of many of the opportunities I mean I think real estate is a world that it's not like healthcare right like if my friends and family use my healthcare company guess what I got a paycheck. Yeah that's what I got right if my friends and my family use my real estate company and my real estate team guess what they pay me directly they say thank you for that referral because that's how realtors treat each other. Real estate brings a whole nother wealth and another opportunity in that right I how how did I get into an opportunity to go in and go hey Jessica we're buying a 113 complex multifamily unit down in Jacksonville North Carolina and we want you to be our operations leader in this we want you to put it all together for this this is the opportunity this is the ownership you'll get in that so people are coming to me saying hey this is an ownership percentage we want your skill sets we want your opportunity it's not here's a paycheck yeah here's an ownership because they know you you position yourself very well yeah in terms of some of these things because I think one of the most frustrating things for me in terms of like the entrepreneur um mindset in our society today people are being pushed and it's like you ain't shit if you don't own your own company or do the like everybody's not built like that.
SPEAKER_03:Everybody doesn't want the pressure a lot my wife would collapse if she had to do what I do on a day but I was collapse if I had to do what she had on a day to day I when she leaves me at home with the kids for a weekend I'm like there's no way I could be a stay-at-home dad like all my children to death but like there's no way I could do this 24-7. So like for you like I think the message I want people to take away from what you just shared there is like you can do a little bit of everything. Like it's not like because even in those other sectors like you're talking about some of the real estate deals some of those investment projects where like that's being an entrepreneur doesn't mean that you have to make a new logo and slap up a storefront and do X10 like they had ownership in something. Because I do fully believe that everybody should have some form of ownership whether it's um like yo you'll love this like I had a uh I got a couple properties down in Petersburg. Yeah just lots of land like I don't have doors I go down a couple months ago uh to check on one of my properties I haven't been down to Petersburg in a little bit let me go check on I get down there there's a whole house being built on my property oh fine whole house like 70 80% of the house is complete on my land. So I'm like yo I just came in here and take on the grass like what so I'm calling I go to Sydney Hole and the numbers over there I call my realtor who over the deal I'm calling some other realtors that I know are big into investing like yo have you ever dealt with something like this long story short I paid$3500 for that lock in 2022. Yeah uh redfin I get the alerts on there so that the property is estimated like 30k right yeah um in order for these people to get it from me they're probably gonna have to pay me double so it's gonna be 60k so to turn$3500 into$60,000 in a matter of three years and all I did was get the grass cut a couple times. Like that's ownership and not I'm not throwing my wife under the bus because I didn't go about this wrong. I just went and bought the property I didn't tell her anything because a lot of times I'll see opportunities of I gotta move I got to me I've grown as a husband learning that I do have to make those people before we go by um but at times she was like this is a horrible idea why are you just buying a lot because it makes no sense to me and then I came home and told her this story I mean she's like hold on we're gonna be like 5060G like okay but it's it's putting yourself in a position where you have those opportunities where you don't always have to go out and be the guy or be the girl yeah that just putting yourself in the right position you look at uh a reference to sports um Michael Jordan is the goat to me so you see as a reference um you look at like a Steve Kerr. Like Steve Kerr is on that that dude had never played for Michael Jordan with Michael Jordan we had never heard about Steve in our life but the proximity to being around someone with that level of greatness got him I don't know four or five rings yeah with that team. Yeah as well it's allowed him to become a head coach for another franchise is also a nice huge it's like just being around so like when I was first building this company I told some of the early guys like hey guys listen if you allow me to be Michael Jordan I need you to be Scottie Pippen and you be Dennis Robin. We can all get the ring. Yeah we can all but you gotta play we all can't go out on the court and try to be Florida. Somebody got to rebound somebody got to keep or do the work yeah you gotta do the real work. Yeah so everything about your story is just like it's so beautiful hearing that it's just like you made sure that you put yourselves in the right position yeah and those opportunities come. Yeah and when you keep that circle tight and you focus working with the right people so think about in our college days how big my network was like it was mad like I knew every school on campus. Yeah now I look my network can fit in my car there are about five people that like they did all my if they called me right now in the middle of this podcast and I see their name pop up hey we gotta take a break I gotta take visitable um and I think as you get older and you get more successful you realize like you don't need a lot of people to grow you see a couple you talk about Seth and John it's like I only need two ride a dyes break over the world. Yeah um so it's amazing to hear that part of your story.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah Seth always says you're the sum of the five closest people to you I think there's some author probably said it somewhere along the way he talked so closely about that I remember when we started when we like we all agreed all right we're gonna launch this business we're gonna do this we signed the contract to agree to go into the partnership with that we have uh that provides us some so support on the back end and at that point none of us had gone in financially we hadn't even created a bank account at that point and I remember being in the room and the guys were like all right this is how much we're gonna put in you know Jessica don't worry about it and I was like no Jessica's got her money too I'm ready to play too and they were like okay and I was like you know I and I remember you talked about your wife I remember not talking to my husband about it at first because I knew you know we run a very tight budget at home too right and he's like um I didn't really go into detail as how much where it was going to be and what it was going to look like. And I said look I want to make this investment and you know his first first couple weeks it was like well you got any profit from that business yet you got any profit I'm like can you just sit down and wait just sit down and wait. It's gonna happen it's gonna come because he is an employer right he gets a paycheck every day. One of my biggest visions is to be able to get him in a place where he's no longer working for the man he's working for himself right and he's a talented person and can do that. And um what's so exciting though is is that yeah I've put myself in the place where I can go into those conversations and um I can start to be you know I always told people in my volunteer work I love volunteering it's like what I do in my sleep right it it's there uh I've always described I have a very impactful woman's club and I say there's two groups in that woman's club. There are check writers in that woman's club and there are time givers in that woman's club. And now don't get me wrong we all cross the path with each other right I've always been a time giver right I was I started in that club really young I served I I served as a president of that club I just continued to serve and serve and give my time there was lots of other women that could write big checks and we could make big impact in the company in the community and one of the things I always uh have have a vision for myself is to is to be a check writer one day right because I want to to put my time and I want to serve my time I want to be able to do that but I want to be able to show up and write the check with it right and so that's what drive me on those days where I'm just like why why am I doing this or you know people come question me like you know you you you know I can't tell you how many people I it's funny I talk to John I laugh all the time but people call me um they let their admin go or their admin leaves or they're dealing with struggles they can't figure out what to do they call me Jessica what do you think about this goar to recruit me but they're always looking for my opinion and I always laugh with John about that because I always go you know was is funny because people want to understand what we have and what this looks like but they're not willing to put in the work to do it because you know what I show up every month I host these opportunities to lead their people every single month that I can do I host opportunities to you know I educate and I coach freely all the time to people but when they get in crisis all of a sudden they want to know how to fix it right how do I fix this just go do I do it I'm like well you got to put in the 20 years of work like John Pace did right John Pace will tell you like I think I was his eighth or ninth higher in this role over you know he'd run the business almost 15 years before me. And um he's like I got it wrong every single time got it wrong every single time got it wrong every single time and not that those people weren't great people and they didn't provide great value to him. He didn't have a business partner is what he didn't have. And so um but John wasn't the business partner he was ready to be yet either right he had to put in those reps he had to figure out who he was um to be able to show a lot of people don't understand that success is is boring and repetitive it's just it's doing the same always want to know what the sweet sauce is there is no sweet sauce.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah just show up and you work every single there's great boredom and mastery yeah right because I look at the things that we're doing today and I want to touch on like in terms of like being able to get back and feed into people because I do I'm a check writer too I like doing that stuff. Yeah um but looking at like the mundane everyday things that you have to do the opportunities that we've been allowed to in present day have strictly come by just us being the longevity us being in the game a lot of times it's just being in the right spot like a lot of your stories filtered with that you were just in the right place at the right time but you have prepared yourself mentally um to be at that spot um but in terms of like the check writing and and giving back to people like I shared with my team the other day um one of my biggest dreams in like as a business owner and CEO is that I can't wait for the day when one of my employees comes in here they get to work a little bit later like it may be crying about something I'm gonna say hey what's wrong oh my God like transmission just posted in my car mechanic told me it's gonna cost five grand later that week uh be like the Haley all that's one of our cards. So going down Haley Hall to go hey come down me with this the shoot and then having a vehicle that's under a tarp go on and be hey what do you think about that car it's nice yeah where are the keys yeah of course like and people don't realize that if you elevate others you naturally get elevated every day. One person describing to me it's like if you uh if you give them the authority it's like sitting down in a chair like when we all get up from the chair we'll do is push up arms to lift ourselves up so when you give those responsibility when you push that responsibility down when you're giving your team the credit you're pushing that down you naturally elevate up to the next level and I just think too many people don't understand that kind of thing yeah yeah you know I I don't know why people don't get that I don't think they slow down enough yeah I just think they're just they're just thinking about the next deal the next opportunity the next contract I mean real estate is the worst for it to be honest with you right I mean you're you're just as good as your life yeah you're just an entrepreneur like through and through and you know it trying to get people out of the entrepreneur world and into a business owner world right and that's where you really see that shift and people and um then you gotta become a really good business owner.
SPEAKER_00:Then you got to figure that out too yeah let me answer this uh two more questions okay one what do you think your biggest pivot was in your career like that moment that ultimately shifted the direction and and where what you've been able to accomplish up to this point in your life you know I think if I had to pick one moment if I can like go back and pick one moment um I would have to say probably so we went to John Seth and I spent a week in Austin Texas at KW Talent it was a week long um built to last program I think is what it was called and it's where um we talked about who we are how we show up what does that look like we sat down and we visioned out an org model for today three years from now five years from now um we got real clear about who we are what our visions are what our core goals are and that conversation that week long is a workshop it's not an education you don't just go to take notes it's a workshop you're taking the work you're doing the work in that conversation I left leaving I left there being so clear about where we were going and what that was doing for us like as a business and why I wanted to be in partnership with the two of them specifically and got real clear around that I think that was probably one of the greatest things and then the only other thing that I can really remember that was a big aha for me was I got the opportunity to speak on stage uh I've actually had the opportunity a couple times now but this one time not to the horn either but anyways this one time um the very first time I ever got invited I got invited to go out to Arizona Scottsdale for KW they said uh we want you to come out we want you to talk to us about how you pour your people and so we run a 10-week business development uh every year and we do business development for 10 weeks with our agents and with our staff and Seth and I and John came up with this really great model of what does that look like? What are the conversations we're having how deep are we going? How are we setting people's business plans up for really good success in the future and I'd shared that with a couple people and I remember they reached out to me and they said hey we want you to come out and talk about this right and I remember going oh man this is a big room right this is the biggest room I've ever spoken in front of right I'm talking about not hundreds but thousands of people right in front of that room. And right me too me too one day I know that I will be talking to rooms you know 10 times that size. I can't wait but um what I got to do though was in that opportunity so I got this opportunity presented to me right and I remember going to John and though they asked me they didn't go through to John and say hey can we bring your employee out or anything like they didn't come and say hey here's a stipend here's come out come and speak right we come from contribution they they wanted to see me show up and I remember going to John and being like um I have this opportunity like it just came in front of me and I remember John that day going I have been in this business grinding every day. I'm in the top 200 of Keller Williams as a team I get to sit in rooms close circles with Gary Keller every single quarter and mastermind and have these conversations you know he's he's very successful what he's done. He said I've never been asked to speak to any of these places. He was so excited for his company his business to write that check for me to go out. I literally spent a week at a resort in Scottsdale got to speak on front of stage and so many people and share just what we do really well. And John could have done gone and said that conversation but they asked me to come and have that conversation with people and what that allowed the exposure that it gave us the exposure that opportunity it gave you know just the other day I got a call from a realtor down in Florida and he said hey Jess I got I got somebody at VCU somebody in the athletics program that need a house can you help them out can you do that? I'm like yeah yeah I'll get it done told John the other day I'm like hey uh by the way pass the lead over to Lizzie she's gonna be taking care of it she's going with it and he was like oh awesome all right where'd that one come from and I was like you remember that speaking engagement I was like I was on stage with this guy this is where it was this is what happened I said there's your check for that right there's your reimbursement directly back in your pocket but what's exciting those two moments right getting real clarity with with my team and my business leaders was done and then being able to step in front of a stage at that large that big thought leaders I mean you're talking about VPs of of KW people with huge great impacts taking notes about what I had to say was like all right I do have a voice and I know what I'm talking about. You know one of the things I got so scared about from skipping from healthcare to real estate I remember talking about this in my interview was um I was the expert at healthcare you asked me about healthcare you asked me about what we did I knew it like the back of my hand and I was nervous not knowing real estate by the back of my hand I was nervous not being able to show up into a conversation and not be an expert in that conversation. And that moment really kind of got me going yeah I'm here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah yeah that's that helps with yourself work because I remember the days where like all my speaking engagements were free or like I was paying people to get on stage and then you know that moment eventually reversed where people are like hey man like we see the value that you bring would you mind coming to this like here's what you pay you da. Yeah um and I think a lot of people are so hungry not to put in the work like everybody wants to go from zero to a hundred especially in my space you find people that they just put this camera they're like yeah I'm gonna zero it's the trending thing now right like I I'm gonna go on TikTok and go famous. Yeah it's not people that you see that are famous and they're going viral and all these different things I challenge everyone look at your favorite TikTok or YouTube or whatever it is they didn't start this yesterday. No they were doing videos for years no like Mr Beast talked about that in an interview where like his first year putting out video he may have gotten an average of a hundred views a bit after a full year of doing it. And yeah people no matter what the industry they do something for two three months and a pitching about and I get started for three months. You bet you put that in in like uh humid years yeah like you look at a baby at that's three months old and think they've lived in full life no three months ain't jack that just came out yeah oven so people have to get past that point uh you want to put in the time but you're a prime example of that in terms of putting in the work putting in time positioning yourself like if I had to write a business book right now I'd have to interview you and the point that you just kind of read now for everybody in terms of being completely dedicated to something yeah that it ain't just about the paycheck it's also looking at the opportunities around that um and I try my best to create even because now I understand once you understand your value can also look at other people and see their value more than they can sometimes. So like we have some contractor positions that open up from time to time. And I'd make the decision that like this room right now for the five space or VS studio uh we charge polar 250 an hour to get rent that space but I made the decision hey if you're a contractor with us of e firm you get this space for free. If we don't have it booked for something you have full range to do whatever you want we're we're not in here on the weekends but if you be eight hour shoots on Saturday and Sunday in these space you got it.
SPEAKER_00:So it's like how much value can you add to people in in other ways and I think uh you just basically have this master class yeah I'll triple my salary but not because my salary triples but because of the opportunities that have been given to me that's a bar. Yeah all right the this is this is not the conversation I'm so glad it happened uh I feel like I know you even more now I'm like I need to college just we never sit down and have conversations like this so it's great no bro woman Jesse this is on some other stuff thank you if people want to connect with you they want to learn more about you how can they reach out yeah well I mean I think the biggest thing is to know especially if you're in the real estate world impact leverage uh I think that's the first place that we can go to serve real estate agents right we help people with uh contract to close process the listing process anything when you call it admin work right if you got a deal you got an opportunity let us take care of it for you go find that next deal go find that next opportunity so that's impact leverage for impact leverage re on Instagram and all those good things um I'm also on Instagram as well Miss Thomas99 is a nice mix of business and personal and fun and life and all that good stuff. But yeah just don't hesitate to reach out connect with me I've got a a little link that's a 20 minute booking where you can just get time on my calendar where uh you know I always am looking to meet new people one way or another. So if something I said you know speaks an interest or something you might want to learn a little more about or opportunity that I can help serve you or you can serve me. Like um I'm always looking to get an opportunity with someone.
SPEAKER_03:Love it. Yeah Jessica appreciate you being here today.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you Sam appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03:We'll see you guys on next episode.
SPEAKER_00:All right