Reclaiming Your Hue

Ep. 50 with Allison Larson | Area Manager, Guild Mortgage

• Kelly Kirk • Season 1 • Episode 50

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No One Thinks About You That Much (And Why That's Liberating)

What happens when entrepreneurial tenacity meets the demands of motherhood? Allison Larson's story reveals the powerful intersection of these worlds as she navigates building a thriving mortgage business while raising four children, including two under two.

"The game's not over until I win" isn't just a catchy phrase for Allison—it's the mindset that propelled her from cold-calling in college to managing five offices with over ten team members. Throughout our conversation, she unveils the strategic planning that keeps both her business and family functioning seamlessly, from detailed morning routines to weekly "marriage meetings" complete with formal agendas. This level of intentionality transforms chaos into clarity, allowing her to show up powerfully in both domains.

Particularly striking is Allison's candor about topics most entrepreneurs avoid—money conversations with spouses, fertility struggles while building a business, and the liberation that comes from realizing "no one thinks about you that much." Her practical advice on breaking free from the paralyzing "in-between" state many business owners experience (neither failing nor thriving) offers a roadmap for those feeling stuck. Rather than dwelling in victimhood, she demonstrates how controlling your attitude and effort creates momentum in any circumstance.

Whether you're balancing multiple priorities, seeking to scale your business, or simply trying to bring more structure to your chaotic life, Allison's approaches to building support systems and standing confidently in your power will transform how you navigate your own journey. Ready to stop living in the "ick" and start building bridges instead of islands? This conversation is your blueprint.

Connect with Allison:

Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:

  • Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com

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Credits:

  • Editor: Joseph Kirk
  • Music: Kristofer Tanke


Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue!

Speaker 1:

Good morning Allison. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm so happy to have you here. I'm happy to be here and it's nice to see you because it's been maybe a few months since we last saw each other.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, longer Probably. I probably was pregnant with crew.

Speaker 1:

Yes. No no, you had had crew. I'm pretty sure you had had crew.

Speaker 2:

Okay, no.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

No, I think I was probably pregnant with. Crew had just had Sawyer, okay, which was all within five minutes, so okay, so our listeners are like okay, how do you two know one another?

Speaker 1:

Because that's, that was a long time ago, so can you share with our listeners?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we connected through a gal that worked on my team years ago. I don't even remember how you knew her and she was like I met this gal, kelly, and she's young in the business and she's growing and I think she'd be a good fit for you to know, and we had coffee in St Paul, yeah, and I was like, yeah, I just really like this girl.

Speaker 1:

That was it? You know it's so interesting. That takes us back to 2018, maybe 2019?

Speaker 2:

I think it's earlier than that?

Speaker 1:

Well, 2017 is when I had started in mortgage.

Speaker 2:

I think it was like beginning of probably 2018, because you were still at your like first company that you had started at, yeah, long time ago.

Speaker 1:

So it was a long time ago. And so we we've got a nice foundation between the two of us, and what's really fun is to to see and, um, like, kind of have a bird's eye view of what you have built with your business.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

But then the also really beautiful thing is that there's a lot of parallels between you meeting your now husband. Yes, bonus children.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We both, around the same time frame, were pregnant and had children also, yeah, and so Very similar.

Speaker 2:

We're both married to realtors Yep, yeah, very similar. We're both married to realtors Yep, yeah, very similar. I think bonus kids are about the same age.

Speaker 1:

Yes, they are, so would you mind sharing with the listeners. What was it that came?

Speaker 2:

first for you, was it motherhood or was it entrepreneurship? It was entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship came much sooner and easier to me than motherhood did, because we went through quite a fertility struggle to get pregnant. So we did six rounds of IUI and three rounds of IVF and, of course, I had my bonus kids at this point. So I started in the business in college as a cold caller in someone's office. That's how I learned the business. So I started in gosh 2012 ish as a assistant dialer kind of person on someone's team. And then my kids are little. So Sawyer is 19 months and then crew is six months old.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, we're in it, yeah, and then bonus kids are Madison turns 11 next week and Carter is nine. Yep, so they, we're in it, yeah. And then bonus kids are uh, madison turns 11 next week and Carter is nine.

Speaker 1:

Yep, so they are right around that same age, which is it's a fun age.

Speaker 2:

It is really fun. They're their own people and they have thoughts and personalities and big feelings, all the things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and now and now you've got two kids under two and a half to two under two and and um what, uh, what an experience what a ride. It's probably been so far.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, one day at a time, you're like you're like in the trenches one day and then having you know a little bit, uh, older children conversations too, and it's like I get that I'm in the throes of it right now too. So it's fun, yeah, it is really fun. So I do want to talk through, like this, this evolution of starting in the mortgage business and, um, and then how you got to meeting your now husband as well. I think we let's kind of start talking through those experiences.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I um the person's team that I worked on, uh, she had some large builder accounts and some large realtor referral partners who the person I worked for is my aunt, so very, you know keep in touch.

Speaker 2:

You know related. Um and I had initially met my husband because I would have to like go drop off flyers at these parade models and things like that. Um, I was with someone at the time he was married and having small children at the time and then fast forward years later. Uh, I was on a dating app and I saw him and swiped right and we chatted and then gave him my phone number. He didn't reach out or text me and then I got back together with someone I was previously dating and we broke up and I was out with girlfriends. This is months and months later. I was out with girlfriends and we were at Gastoff's when they would do their Oktoberfest thing.

Speaker 1:

Now Gastoff's is closed. Gone, yeah, but this was probably the last week.

Speaker 2:

They were ever open or something.

Speaker 2:

And we were at Gastoff's and I was like I'll just, he's a realtor, so I can Google his number, I'll just text him. And my friends were like, please, please, do not do that. That is so weird. I'm like, whatever, I'll just text him. And I texted him and he didn't reply and so I just deleted the thread. I'm like we're just going to let that never happen, move forward. And then Monday rolled around and my text said something to the extent of like you out question mark, because that's what you text people when you're like young and out and about.

Speaker 2:

And he replied on Monday morning and said sorry for slow reply. I wasn't quote, unquote out. I'm a single dad of two kids. Nice to hear from you. I'm dating someone now. Blah, blah blah Didn't reply, and then the next day I got a text from him and said I broke up with the person I'm seeing last night or last night and I'm wondering if I can take you to lunch on Saturday. I have a sitter for my kids for 90 minutes. I was like, uh, sure, and and the rest is history.

Speaker 1:

A year later, we got engaged and then we got married six months after that. Now we've got two kids. Yeah, yeah, tenacity at its finest I literally that was the word that started to like pop into my head and you literally stole it from my thoughts is the tenacity, and I think that that because I, because I know you but the listeners don't I think it's important to emphasize that this is something, this is a specific skill or attribute is probably a better way to put it an attribute that you, alison, hold and has truly helped to support you. I don't know on the mother side, I know on the business side for sure, and so let's talk through that word specifically.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And how you've honed that in. Yeah as it. We. We've heard. On a personal note on the relationship side. Now let's tie it into business.

Speaker 2:

I think it's just a. To me, tenacity is a mindset, it is just choosing to succeed, just choosing the commitment to success, and if I lose something or something goes wrong, it to me it isn't now I lost it, it's just like okay. Next. My mentor always says and this is probably why I align with her so well, the game's not over until I win.

Speaker 2:

And that is the best way I know to articulate, like how I have gone through life. I've just been like I'm just going to every day. I'm going to keep on going every day to feels like an opportunity to win and I'm going to figure out how I can win the day and then win the week and then we in the month.

Speaker 2:

And then all of a sudden you look back and you're like I want a lot of things and now this is really, really fun. And I think the hardest part in our work journey uh, in our industry at least is when you're first starting out and you don't have support and you don't have help and you're like just stuck on this Island trying to win all by yourself. But you have to win every Avenue of it. Now it's really fun Cause I built a team so I'm not as stuck in the weeds. I can go, do a podcast and know I'm going to come back to my email and not have anything on fire.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, a hundred percent. So there's so many different avenues that I would love to go down, but I think one of the things that's coming to me is this idea of like, as you're going through either business or motherhood, you could do the proverbial like I'm going to hang out on the island all by myself and try to do it all by myself. But I think that we understand too that there's more to that than meets the eye in many different ways, right? So let's talk through how that has, how you maybe recognized that and then started to work through that, and go all right, it's time to start building the team around me, and then let's tie in motherhood as well.

Speaker 2:

I actually think they go really very hand in hand, because the biggest mistake I see people make in any career motherhood anything. At the end of the day, it is a choice to be alone on an island. Anyone can build a bridge literally anyone and so it is a big choice and a big time commitment and a lot of work to find the help, ask for the help, do those things and that is a skill set in and of itself. So I have a lot of thought and strategy that goes into the nanny that we hired when, I had my nanny start what that was going to look like from a balanced perspective.

Speaker 2:

So I didn't lose my mind and a lot of people just go, I'll hire a nanny, I'll find a daycare. And they haven't taken a step back and thought and actually written down on a piece of paper where are all the struggles with this going to be? Where is that? Like everything in my life is a plan. There isn't anything. I left unplanned right Like I knew on Sunday that on my way here today I will get a car wash because you're five minutes away from where I get my unlimited car washes.

Speaker 1:

So that makes sense in my day right, I think I know which one you're talking about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I go like everything is planned out in advance and has strategy. My nanny comes at 7 am because I know I sometimes meetings start at 8. Sometimes they don't start until 9. But I know, even if I'm dead tired and I can't get up at 5 am to work out, I could work out from 7 to 8, click, get ready from 8 to 8.30, and then be to a meeting by 9. Perfect, it is method, it is strategy, it is the same thing.

Speaker 1:

If you would have a business plan for life. You have a business plan. You should have a life plan as well. It's a skill. It truly is. Where do you think that that skill came from? Do you feel like it was just innately within you, or that it was something that you had to learn as you entered into the mortgage industry, Because you're not the first person that I've had on that's within the industry, setting right, whether it's a mortgage lender or a real estate agent, but there are natural things about the industry that require you to have specific skill sets.

Speaker 2:

Yes, For me not. It was probably like having to survive when I was younger. I don't come from this picture perfect family world, single mom. We were in and out when my dad well, she kicked my dad out. He had a drinking problem, it was terribly bipolar and abusive and all these things, and so at that point she didn't have enough income to fully support us and we were in a really bad situation. So we were like we would go to a woman's shelter for dinner and I had a six month old baby brother which is having a baby in the house and a dad in not good health state was what made my mom finally go. You have to go. This isn't a safe environment for my kids and you grow up really quick when you're in third grade and you have to take care of your baby brother because your mom can't afford daycare. So to find the light in the area and things and become an optimistic, happy person with a plan started probably when I was in third grade.

Speaker 2:

So this is how I've just literally always been, Even like people talk about. Oh, college was hard. I think everyone has a pain point in their life. I always joke that when my kids are older, I've spent so much energy to create this magical, beautiful, perfect world for them and they're going to need therapy because they're going to be like my mom was psycho and overcompensated for everything, and it felt like we grew up in a pottery barn and everything had to be sunshine and rainbows all the time and nothing was ever sad or hard. And now I need therapy for it. Everyone has something that brought them to a point. It's whether it's how they choose to work with what they got. Life's about choices.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right, 100%. And I thoughtfully think through, because you had kind of a first person's perspective, so to speak, in the transition that I was making out of the mortgage industry. I think back to that and I go wow, kelly, you sat in that entirely too long.

Speaker 2:

I think, I told you when we had coffee that I thought you should quit. Yeah, and I remember getting my car and being like I hope she's not offended, but like I really don't think she likes this.

Speaker 1:

No, no, and it's well. And what's interesting is I was doing some reflecting on that specific like moment in day and time and going well, of course Alison would don't, because she was. You're managing many individuals. Yeah individuals, which means that you've got many different personalities, which means that you understand, you listen, for specific moments in time or parts in that conversation where you're like, hmm, something's not right.

Speaker 2:

And I think every person in their career has certain things they can overcome. It's just how badly you want to overcome them. Everyone on my team and that works in my office as a loan officer isn't inherently like me. In fact, I can see it on their faces sometimes when I'm on leadership calls or they're like okay, now I feel like I can't succeed because I'm not like Allison and this is how she does it and I wouldn't do it that way.

Speaker 2:

Some people are technicians. They're great at a file. Some people are natural born sales people. That's just who they are and they'll never be a good technician. Some people are a natural born networker. Some people are naturally born in marketing. You just have to love the game of whatever you're good at and hone in on that and not let the ick in any business wear you down. And if, when you get to the point where it's worn you down and you don't want it anymore, you're not going to win the game, right, that'd just be like this is you get one chance to live on this earth Like go live your life then and enjoy it A hundred percent and it's.

Speaker 1:

I want to tie in a conversation that I had this morning and this is kind of a repetitive conversation, but I was like I knew the moment that you found out you were pregnant with Maddie, something in you changed. Yeah, something changed and I'm like yep, a hundred percent. That was. I remember sitting down thinking through, like what you know, a plan right, like a plan for our family. What was that going to look like? Drumming up a vision board, and I could not. I couldn't think about mortgage.

Speaker 2:

It was so tough.

Speaker 1:

I was thinking about what was it going to look like when Maddie came? Did I even want to work? Well, I found out very quickly. Yes, yeah, I didn't understand what the capacity of that would look like, but yes, and so I think that there are two to kind of, like you know, reign this in. There are those like moments that we have as women, either when you find out you're about to have a child, or after you have your child and you start to use, the questions start to come up Did that happen for you?

Speaker 2:

Um, and I'm not saying yeah, no, not like, not obvious, I mean not ever that I didn't want to be in this industry. The question for me popped up of like, what is my bigger purpose here and what am I going to build? Because now I have these little eyes that stare at me and if I'm going to leave you every single day to go do something, I'm going to like it when I'm doing it. It's going to fulfill me. I wanted to make an impact on other people's lives, personally and professionally, and I want to make an income where I can change your future and your life by doing it.

Speaker 2:

So I'm not going to play small. There is not going to be. If I have a nanny coming to watch my kids, I'm not going to get my nails done during the day. I'm not going to coffee meetings that aren't impactful. I'm not not making my phone calls. I'm not. I am like on a full sprint, from the time I leave my kids until the time I get home, and then I ditch, work at the door until the minute they go to bed, and sometimes I work a little after they go to bed and that's and that's what it looks like now, but it was just like instinctive, I think, when you go into motherhood, there's this instinct that comes over you Like. Now I understand, like you see people on TV like lift up a car and they like all of a sudden have all this strength.

Speaker 2:

I'm like that's motherhood, where? You're all of a sudden like I could accomplish anything. The fear is gone. The fear of rejection is gone. The reluctance, anything like that in my business is gone, cause I just want to show up for my kids.

Speaker 1:

I'm like watching the time going. You know there's a couple of quotes timestamps here, because I was so, so amazing.

Speaker 2:

I actually so one of my very best friends her name's also Kelly. She lives now in Denver, colorado. She works for the Broncos. I don't want to totally misquote, but I'm 99.9% sure that she's currently the highest ranked female in the history of the NFL and she, at one point when she was pregnant, was like what if I don't? I don't know how I'm going to balance this. What if I don't want to go back to work? And I said to her this baby's going to come and you're going to be like I want my cat on the sidelines of games looking at me being so freaking proud of what their mom has built and how much of a badass you are.

Speaker 2:

And I just went to visit her she's on maternity leave, and so which she was still working. And I brought crew my youngest out. We did a little like 48 hour girl baby bestie trip. And she looked at me she's like you were done. You were completely right. Like I am, like I am on a tear. She's up for a big promotion. Ouch is huge. But it's, though it's just this instinct that hits you as a mother, like I could do anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it was. It's interesting I had those moments after Maddie arrived and just going. I don't give a flying, you know what, but then going, but I do need to care, like I do need to care about what this looks like, and so the harmonization and the balance for me was challenging.

Speaker 2:

When you get into you can't let your business always have like you can have your business growth, have this emotional toll on you. But every person you come encounter with and this is where people in our industry make a mistake they let leave emotions on them. Yes, so a borrower calls you at seven o'clock and they're mad about something. Honestly, I'm calling them back at the next day. At this point because the most important thing is my kids and that's my dedicated kid time.

Speaker 2:

I have 30 minutes in my calendar already blocked to talk to someone who's mad about something silly that we will fix. And every time. It's fine, right, we will not drop the ball. We will get you into your house. I can go to sleep at night knowing I did my best for you and that's all that matters yeah, it is to go back to what I was alluding to before.

Speaker 1:

The industry itself is you can become quite callous, right, but you need to. I hate to say it that way, it seems so harsh but build up this resistance to not taking things personally Because there are clients who are going to go. I'm done Like I don't want to work with you anymore and I'm going to go the other direction. Or you just find yourself in a circumstance where this partnership with you know, a real estate agent, in this circumstance, a real estate agent, it's just not a good fit anymore. Yeah, right, and it's sometimes it's hard to not take it personally. So how have you overcome challenges like that? I think it's just being really real.

Speaker 2:

If someone treats me like a three, I'm going to give them my energy level of a three. If someone pours into me like a 10, I'm going to give them my all right. I've got their back. One of my top agents just had a client email me that they're ready to write an offer and they've been in touch with a listing agent. After I knew she just had showed them houses the day before all day, I called her and I said this is what I'm replying to the email and I'm going to CC you. They need to work with you. I don't care if I piss them off and they don't use me. She's got my back. I've got her back, like I I've got her. We have other agents who sometimes they don't call me back, sometimes they don't text. We work together once or twice a year. They're great to see at a big event and say hi, and I adore them I like them.

Speaker 2:

I'm not their number one. I don't have to treat them like they're my number one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like that's, that's really real right. My kids, I'm their number one, I'm going to treat them like they're my number one. And when you just put your priorities and packing order in your life and just go, it's okay, there's more.

Speaker 1:

I love it. It's it's so incredible and I like I see what you're doing and the commitment that you that shift right. Your business is highly important, but you also understand that there's there's a bigger purpose to who you are as an individual now, now that Sawyer and crew are here, but you also have the bonus children too, so there's like it's it's kind of all around like I've got these children who are literally looking at me, going, okay, you're the most blessed, special person ever. Yeah, and modeling for them too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So talk to me about what modeling has looked like.

Speaker 2:

Um, you know it's interesting. So the oldest is Madison. She's a girl and so to me it's really important to talk to her about work. I talked to her about work all the time. If I have to catch up on emails at night, I will literally lay in bed next to her and I'll say hey, do you want to type the emails and practice your typing? And I'll talk and explain what I'm talking about and have her type the emails. It takes 17 times as long. That's adorable, but she loves it. It's quality time together and I want her to understand what I'm doing. She's involved in everything. If I'm doing, um, she, she's involved in everything. Like if I'm making something on Canva for work. She's like she helps me make canvas stuff. I just hosted a self-defense class.

Speaker 2:

She came with the self-defense class and help people sign in and like I'm like she's a part of it, um, and I want to instill in these, in her, these early habits of before bed. We have a conversation of what's your plan tomorrow? Is your backpack packed? Is your snack in your bag? Are your clothes laid out? Do you? Do you know where your hairbrush is for the morning? Is your band? Okay, tomorrow's Tuesday. So that means you've banned? Okay, I don't know what I have tomorrow. Great, where's your calendar? We've got to check it out.

Speaker 2:

We fill out our planner on Sunday nights for the whole week, right, they go to two houses. That's a lot of coordination and planning and that's her life, like that's. I'm not going to sugarcoat it or I can't fix it for her, and life is always going to throw you its challenges. So we just have to plan and have some purpose in it and think through it so that we can, so that we can have it all figured out. I think, um, it's very clear. You know kids get flustered or they have a bad day at school, and sometimes we'll take a step back and go. What do you think? Where did it start? Where?

Speaker 1:

did the bad day start? What's the genesis of it?

Speaker 2:

We were five minutes late for school. Why were you five minutes late for school? Well, I forgot my instrument at mom's house. We had to go back and get it, Okay how can we? Never forget our instrument again. And you slowly have less bad days? Yeah, and you slowly have less bad days, yeah, it's just little things like that and having just those types of conversations that I hope. I mean, we don't know how they'll turn out. We don't know right, but we hope it works.

Speaker 1:

I'm getting some little takeaways here, especially for our oldest, my oldest bonus boy, who you know. I'm sure you've recognized this too. There's clear-cut differences between girls and boys in terms of just dynamic, but then how? The how they view the world? Yeah, and it's a, it's a constant like reminder that's happening. Don't forget your hat and mittens at school Because you're going to? Why are we walking back from school without this and it's 25 degrees outside. I mean, I understand the body temperature.

Speaker 2:

We leave our coats at school every day. Oh that's weird that we left our coat again, I guess how will we practice to not forget our coat every day? Should we put a sticky note in your locker? Do we need to? I mean, what do we does? It always work, but it's, it's every day.

Speaker 1:

It's so funny. I love hearing you, the planner in you, yeah, how can we plan? Let's plan this, and I think it's so wonderful. But I'm curious if you, because you manage other people on your team, you see the way that people handle things and it's I have to, I have to believe, because I'm not, I'm a planner to a degree, yeah, and then it, and then it sort of falls off. How can you share just a bit of advice for those people? Because, again, you manage people through stuff like that in terms of business, but then, as it relates to motherhood too, yeah, I think one thing is.

Speaker 2:

I think, inherently, we all have the skill and we all know we need to be doing these things, but we don't know where to start, and so sometimes it's literally writing down on a piece of paper and tracking good days, bad days when did things go on track? Where did they not go on track? Okay, these days, what was different about these days? Well, these are days I had to drop off kids at school and this happened. Okay, so do I need to get up 30 minutes earlier and plan for these things? Can I make lunches the night before? It is literally that granular. Also, the thing that people don't talk about in motherhood and it seems like a very taboo topic is to talk about marriage and your partner and how they're showing up matters. And just because your partner is nice and lovely and takes you on date nights and buys you Christmas presents doesn't mean he's showing up as the most helpful human in your house every day.

Speaker 1:

Well, we can go down this avenue. Let's go down this avenue because I 100% agree with you. I think, as a female business owner.

Speaker 2:

I think, as a mom, the biggest thing is we put ourselves in these boxes and we think we're meant to take care of everyone around us and we are scared. We will pay for help, we will ask our mother for help, we'll ask our mother-in-law for help. But we are oftentimes what I see in coaching and leading and managing people. We're scared to look at the person we share a bed with and go I'm drowning, I need help. And then what happens a lot of times when people have that conversation is, by the time they're having it, they're so spent that it's coming from a place of contention and it turns into a fight and nothing really changes.

Speaker 2:

And so you have to even take a step back in your personal life, in your marriage, and go. We're a partnership, we're a team. What are we building together? Like we have a marriage meeting every single Sunday. We have. We used to do it and it had was pointless because my husband would stare the counter at me and be like, okay, anything else, he felt like I was just like giving him orders, right, yeah, so now we have an agenda and the top of the agenda.

Speaker 1:

Let me guess you created the agenda, I created the agenda and I am not kidding it is.

Speaker 2:

It is literally changed the entire dynamic of our house Monday through Friday. What are we having for dinner? Do we have all the things we need for dinners? Who's dropping every single day? Who's dropping who off at school? Who's dropping who off at preschool? Who's picking up? Are there any sports those nights? How often does someone you look at each other and go. I thought you were dropping them off. I thought there is no confusion in our house of who's doing what and you can plan your day accordingly. And who? Hey, I won't be home from the office until 5.15 tonight. I need you to make dinner. Got it? Check? You don't have to ask me what's for dinner.

Speaker 2:

We already decided together as a partnership. Right, it's not me telling you this is what's going to happen On there is. Hey, is there any money conversations we have to have this week. People, especially when you're an entrepreneur, money is a scary conversation a lot of the times. And let me tell you, when you're not worried about how you're going to pay your mortgage or your kid's private tuition or buying your kid Christmas presents, there's a lot less to worry about and fight about with your spouse. So if you just have those conversations up front of my husband and I are both self-employed. Hey, what's your month look like? This is what my month looks like. Are you worried about any bills coming up? Uh, we don't ask her for taxes and insurance.

Speaker 2:

We have a bunch of rental properties, so once a year, all of a sudden, we have to pay insurance. It's like $40,000 all of a sudden. I was like I don't, I'm not paying attention to these things. That's yeah, he's the CFO in our household, but if we don't have that conversation, I don't know that that's applying stress on him and I'm in my head. It was stressed about something. He's in his stress and it just creates this tension.

Speaker 2:

And then all of a sudden, you look at each other and you're like I thought you were taking the kids to school and it blows into something, cause it's not about who's taking the kids to school. Yeah, instead of saying, hey, I need to work extra hours this week Cause I'm trying to build this because I want to bring this home to our family and this is a big deal for me and getting that buy-in is huge, a hundred percent. And even when I'm going on conferences and work trips and things like that I bring him with. I want him to feel the energy I have when I leave one of these conferences and I'm excited. And I want him to meet these people that I come home and talk about and experience what I'm experiencing, cause how else is he going to buy in?

Speaker 2:

Otherwise it's just like okay, you're leaving our family again, you're going to. Oh, you're in a Vegas for 48 hours. Otherwise it's just like okay, you're leaving our family again, you're going to oh, you're going to Vegas for 48 hours.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's going to be life-changing.

Speaker 2:

Okay, have fun. I'll be here with our four kids drowning in noodles and cleaning up sticky fingers Best of luck.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the assumption in some of those circumstances right is otherwise a different direction than if you're very candid and you're like, actually, this is what it's going to look like. Yeah, won't you join me on the journey?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so now it's the expectation anytime I go anywhere, or vice versa, unless it's a girl's trip or a friend whatever. If it's for like, I'm bringing him with and I'm going with him.

Speaker 1:

That's incredible. I do want to. I want to talk through because you brought up this interesting fact about the dynamic between you and your husband, and it's very similar over here on this end that, like you both are self-employed. You both are on this entrepreneurial journey and that dynamic is completely different than, say, somebody who is a mompreneur and their husband is in a corporate position, and you kind of have a cushy cushy Sorry for the women who have been on the podcast, and there are pros and cons to both of these dynamics, truly, but how have you?

Speaker 1:

I mean you've alluded, you've already talked through, like the importance of communication and having this buy-in on both ends and working as a team.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Anything else that you would like to add to that specific dynamic, that somebody who's listening, who's like yes, I'm in that same position and we're having some challenges right now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, From coaching people and leading people. I think that the number one thing that's not talked about is money. You don't want to talk about it with your friends, you don't want to talk about it with your spouse. You don't want to talk about it with anyone because it's really, really sensitive and, at the end of the day, there are a lot of entrepreneurs who literally aren't making any money.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And I don't care what your gross sales are. I don't care if you're a realtor listening to this. I don't really care what your GCI is. What are you actually taking home and paying your bills with?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Because I don't care how many ads you have on Instagram, I don't care about your professional videographer and how great your social media and your branding looks. What are you actually bringing home to feed your kids? Um, and that's a really hard conversation. I think the first place to start with is do you even know your numbers and what you're bringing home and do you have a budget?

Speaker 2:

When I started at Guild Mortgage a year ago and full disclosure I used to not be involved really in our finances. I'm not going to try and say that I am overly involved now. I am not, but you've got a pulse, but we have conversations about it now, because for one person to live in that stress is not fair and we have a lot of moving pieces. We've got a lot of investments, we've got our own home, we've got a lake home, we've got two kids in private tuition, we've got a nanny on salary for 60K a year and there's a lot of expenses that come and go from our house. We pay someone child support, right, we have a lot of expenses that come and go from our house and that can't just be on one person's shoulder with no communication back and forth. Otherwise it's stressful and so I would say, actually, if anyone has listened to this, I have an editable budget form. If someone wants to message me for it, they can feel free to and I'll send it over.

Speaker 2:

Get a budget and go through it every single month together. And we don't budget to like we only said we're spending this much money on groceries and this is what we're spending. We just fill in what we spent every single month and go, whew, that was a little crazy. Or oh, we did good last month. Or you know, I'm going to actually have my best funding month, knock on wood, this April. And last night I looked at Lane. I've been wanting to do this laser treatment and I like had the little brochure about it. I'm like, do you care if I book that? And he was like go for it.

Speaker 2:

Like we're good Things are good, I'm like okay, cool, but like those are like having money, rules and things that you just talk about, I think is a huge piece of it, and the more you talk about it it just takes the ick away and it doesn't become a point of contention. And sitting down for 30 minutes we do it during the week, when kids are at school or in childcare. We don't try and do it on a Sunday and it is a business meeting. We sit down for 30 minutes, we talk through the balances of every account, the balances of if there's any credit cards debts, due, things like that. Are we moving money, are we doing things with money, where's our investment strategies at and what's coming in. And it's a quick and easy conversation but it keeps us really, really on track.

Speaker 1:

I love that you you're leaning into the very topic that you said. Most people don't want to talk about it. Yeah, and I think you know. I don't know what the actual statistic is now, but like that statistic is quite high for individuals who end up getting divorced because of financial circumstances or situations, or lack of having conversations around money itself.

Speaker 2:

If you looked at most women who feel like they're failing at their career or feel like they're failing at their entrepreneurial job or whatever it is, or even though they're failing as a mom. If you peel back the root, I think that most people are struggling at home, in their marriage, and they don't have the base. And so, to me, the stronger my base is, the stronger everything else is. I don't ever have a day where I show up at work chaotic because my home life is a disaster. I just don't.

Speaker 2:

My worst case day is that today I'm overtired because Sawyer was I don't know if he's having bad dreams or what it is. I almost took him to the ER in the middle of the night because I thought it was appendix burst, because he wouldn't stop crying, and then Lane was like what and laid him back down and he was fine three minutes later. I'm like how is this? So I was up half the night, but that's my worst case. I don't ever have this thing. I think just dealing with what's going on and the most important part of your core helps open up the creativity space and helps open up the confidence space to feel like you can show up to a meeting and close and stand in your power and be bold and not be scared to because you know. You know someone's got your back.

Speaker 1:

It's, it's beautiful, all of what you're saying and it it's a nice little segue into a question that I ask individuals, which is what are some of your guiding principles, whether it's faith, spirituality, universe, what have you, what does that look like for you? Through through?

Speaker 2:

all of this. We're very faith-based household Um Lane and I do, we're supposed to. It doesn't always happen like a marriage devotional together on Sundays and Wednesday nights before bed we have a little book we read. It's a marriage devotional book, so we read the little part of the Bible and then it'll have like a common day story that goes with it and then some conversation questions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And there's something about it that feels magical. Every single time it just it feels daunting. When we go into it I'm like, okay, let's get this over with five minutes. Let's go, and they're literally five minute stories and I read them out loud and every single time it's like the fear is gone.

Speaker 1:

The overwhelm is gone.

Speaker 2:

You're grounded back into what you know matters and that's it. We pray every night at dinner with our kids. We pray every night before bed. Our kids are both in Christian private school. We both were probably not raised. He was even more faith-based raised. He didn't celebrate Halloween as a kid, because we do now with carved pumpkins.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know that until recently and he's like no, I never got to go trick-or-treating, that's like the devil's holiday. And I was like, oh, I thought it was like just hallmarks so I thought I didn't know that. I know same we carve pumpkins we do Halloween.

Speaker 2:

But I was like, oh wow, you're like wow, okay, yeah. So yeah, we've definitely leaned under our faith and I was raised going to church and all of that, but not as strong in it or not using it as a guiding light as I do now. Now, like if I'm nervous, before I go into a meeting, I say a quick prayer and I'm like I'm good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's, it's really powerful.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's really powerful.

Speaker 1:

I I have leaned in way more heavily. Faith has always been kind of like an underlying tone for me so to speak, but it wasn't until I was pregnant with Maddie that there was again, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Speaker 2:

There's something about, yeah, having your kids and you're like I don't know what, I don't know, but I'm not risking it.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I think I have it. I think we've talked about it already so far, and it's this idea that there's a, there's something bigger than you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I look at my kids and I'm like this is you? I can't look at my little boys and tell me that there's not a God. I just can't. And so to me constant prayer and bring that into my kids' lives. The older kids honestly talk kind of a weird amount about God, to the point where it's kind of funny. They have a lot of questions about God. Recently Carter asked we have our great, his aunt Marianne. It's a great aunt, she's like 87 or something, and the other day he asked us if God or Marianne was older. I was like God. Good question, I vote.

Speaker 1:

God, I love it. It's God. It has been a really interesting shift in our household. We have, as a complete household, embraced faith, as a complete household, embraced faith. And when we moved here to Edina which was, you know, we're going on three years being here in Edina in our house I should say, let me back up.

Speaker 1:

When I moved over here to Edina from Woodbury, I was like I would really like to, once we plant the flag with our home find a church nearby, ideally, and we didn't really have to seek hard because there's some really incredible facilities around us. Yeah, and we found it and we've been there ever since and it's just to see how faith has grown through Joe, yeah, and then through the boys as well, and seeing Maddie go to her daycare, which is within the church that we go to as well, in all of us. But it's also really powerful to to see, like to your point about your two bonus children who are asking and eager to learn more. Yeah, that's what's happening to for us and it's it's like, oh, I have these moments where I get like just so joyful and tearful, thinking through that and how that can help them immensely as a as a guiding light, so to speak, in decision-making and even like if Madison were in.

Speaker 2:

She's turning 11. So we've got good days. Bad days mean girls, nice girls, all of the things at school, and when something like that happens right now, it's oh gosh, let's say a prayer for her tonight, like something must be going on with her. That that's how she would act, like let's just. And then we lean into that and it shifts the conversation entirely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah it's nice.

Speaker 1:

Something I do want to go back to is the um IVF process that you and Lane went through if you're open to talking through that, because I know that that was very challenging. And how did faith piece in through all of that Can? You speak to just shedding some light on that for other women who are listening right now, who may be experiencing that too.

Speaker 2:

I would say prayed a ton during the journey, just, and would then try to remind myself that God has a plan for us and it'll happen when it happens. But to be honest, that really didn't. It wasn't it didn't. Now hindsight I think it helped, but in it it didn't feel like it was helping.

Speaker 2:

I think infertility is nothing, feels like it's helping. When you're going through it it is the most difficult, like it feels like such an overwhelming individual journey and other people who are not going through it or haven't been through it can't really understand it. And it seems hard to wrap your head around when you're looking at someone going through it or how I felt is people kind of looked at me like, well, everything else in your life is great you have so much to be grateful for. You know it will happen for you Like, and it did happen. And it is logical to look at someone going through it and going.

Speaker 2:

People would a lot of people will say you're going to get your baby, just just wait. And that is like nails on a chalkboard. When someone says that to you, when you're like you don't understand. I'm doing injections three times a day and all I mean like all this crazy stuff. And I mean I was at doctor's appointments almost every single day for a year and a half. I mean talk about trying to run a business and being like, sorry, now I'm having an egg retrieval again or I have to go under for this, or now I'm having this operation. For that I mean it's, it's a lot to balance it all. Um, so I don't know that faith had played a particular role in making me feel better or helping, but having a plan, having the right support system and learning to vocalize what I needed was really important.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can imagine. So let me back up. I had a an individual on the podcast recently who is not a mom, but she, I mean, her deepest desire is to be a mom and she and her husband had gone through that process and then also the adoption process too, and it's just, it's kind of like hitting a roadblock. Hitting a roadblock, hitting a roadblock. And she alluded to this moment in time where you are, you're focused on your business, but then you get a call and you're like they need you to come in. They need you to come in and you're like, oh, or something horrible just happened.

Speaker 2:

You got test results back that were terrible. You got another bad piece of news yeah, and it's like every single so I had my doctor's number, would pull through and could ring through if I was on, do not disturb, or anything. And every single time I'd see the phone number calling. If I was at a meeting, I would just say here's the deal and this is what I'm going through. If I get bad news, I may just walk out the door Like I, I, I will not put you through like feeling like you have to console me and watch me cry or anything. I will just be so if you know, and then I'll follow and people will be like okay, and it happened a couple times where I got the news I thought I was pregnant.

Speaker 2:

Well, I didn't think I was pregnant, I was pregnant and then didn't stay pregnant. And I got that phone call, thinking I was getting the phone call of like good news, everything looks great. And oh, actually your HCG levels dropped. And that was very far into the process. When they're like there's nothing else, this has to be it, this has to work. Um, and I took the call and literally just was like I have to go and walked out the door and and then still I came home and you know people, maybe the test was wrong, you should ask them to retest.

Speaker 1:

And you, and then you look at Reddit and, and you're like, has anyone's test ever been wrong.

Speaker 2:

Yes, mine, was wrong and six weeks later I was still right.

Speaker 1:

You, yeah it is a wild journey to go down and go through it's it all I could say in that moment and right here and now is there's no amount of empathy that I can give, because I haven't been through that and even when it's so weird once you're out of it.

Speaker 2:

You can't even. It's like you went through this horrific trauma that you can't even put yourself back into that place to remember what someone needed in that space. Um, so I always tell people when they're going through it. If you need to call someone and just complain for a half hour, just keep my number, like, just call me and literally any single time, if you, I have a couple of resources I always send people of. Like there's a YouTube channel that got me through a lot and this acupuncture girl here that's incredible and it's called the baby the baby you want, or baby your way and she's local to the twin cities. She does acupuncture. She was incredible and I would literally binge watch videos of hers because you need to.

Speaker 2:

You're like what does this happen next? Is this a myth or is this real? I read this on one thing and those resources were really helpful as an entrepreneur, when I it's interesting, when I have experiences like that with another business that made an impact on my life, I stop and go. How can I take what they're doing and create this into my business? And so actually, my entire YouTube channel is built because I would get such bad anxiety at night thinking about things. So you get done with the day and you go to bed and you have this big spiral moment and so I would watch this woman's like one to two minute YouTube videos about a certain topic and I was just like instantly, was like, okay, that makes sense, I don't need to be crazy, I don't need it. I can stop eating the core of a pineapple hot every four times a day. That's not real. That's if you're, if you've gone through fertility, you know you've tried it like you've tried everything.

Speaker 2:

Um, and so I created a whole YouTube channel about I'm pre-approved, now what. I'm thinking about buying a home, now what? And they're quick, one to two, because I'm like if there's some gal that's laying in bed before night spiraling about something, I want to be a resource for them.

Speaker 1:

I love that. You literally were like I can't be the only one who is literally up at the wee hours of the morning going what the heck, how do I do this? Yeah, what's the next step?

Speaker 2:

Is that right? Is that true? What the heck? How do I do this? Yeah, what's the next step? Well, really, in my business, the turning point was being better at like. I love working with referral partners and clients where we can have real conversations and have an actual connection. Do I have it with every single person? No, that's not physically possible. But at this point, if I go to a coffee meeting with someone, I want to really like them and be invested in their life and work with them, and if we don't have that, it probably just doesn't work. And that's totally cool. Maybe we'll work together once or twice a year, but I want my people to be my people. I want to know what they're struggling with and working on your marriage and structuring things and weird insecurities and things like that. A whole tribe of people feels the same way and it makes it way more fun to build your business.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of tribes, yeah, what has that village, that support, looked like for you through all?

Speaker 2:

of this. I have really good girlfriends. I'm very fortunate to have some really good girlfriends. My husband's my best friend. He has an incredible support system um, from growing up as well, like best friends, things like that. His family all lives pretty close to us. They help a lot, um, but honestly I'm more of a. I want to just I'll book the help, I'll pay for the help, I'll schedule what I need and just have it planned and know how it's going to happen. Versus hey, can you pop by and watch the kids? Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, something that is sticking out to me is there hasn't really been moments where you've sat in this victimhood moment. No, and I think that there are people where it just innately is not a part of their DNA to do what you do. Yeah Right.

Speaker 2:

But there are.

Speaker 2:

When I figure out how to change that about people, I'll be so over the moon, because I spend all day talking to people in my office or people on my team or people in coaching, going just stop it, just stop it. There's this whole. You know there's a lot of government changes going on right now and a lot of worries about this loan program is going to change. I'm like okay, and when it does it'll be less confusing because I guess they only have one option now and we'll move on with our lives.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. The confused mind says no is something that comes up quite frequently in various conversations, whether it's in this vein of entrepreneurship or it's just like life in general. And so if, if, a customer has a barrage of options and they have no idea what the heck they're doing, yeah, they're going to be like probably not for me.

Speaker 2:

If you're a first time home buyer who lost some program that you didn't even know existed yet, and you're a first time home buyer and you don't know that existed and now you don't get it, it really doesn't matter, right, and I? And like no one's calling me from the government to ask my opinion of how we should set it up, so also really not my business to worry about yeah, I think, control the controllables, like it.

Speaker 1:

You can only control your attitude and your effort is is actually something that I just like took a hot second to do a video on from a previous guest and I'm like it's so simple, it's stupid Like you control your attitude and your effort through all of this. If you can keep that in the forefront of your mind and go do I control this? Yeah, oh no, I can't. I can't control that. And so how can we pivot? This is something that I would love to talk through with you, because, as an entrepreneur, you have to be ready for change. You have to be ready for pivot.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk through it. What does it look like for you, so I can give you a little bit more direction in that?

Speaker 2:

question like for you so I can give you a little bit more direction in that question. I like change. To me, change is a big opportunity. So I have won in this industry thus far by everyone else being reluctant to change and me diving head in. So when I see opportunity for change, I'm like perfect, this is my chance to sprint ahead, this is my. Someone tripped on the track and I, it's my turn. Um, so that's how I've always taken advantage. To get ahead on things is when someone else gets stuck in the weeds, just being like oh they're, they're lure stuck. I get some a little faster now. Now they can't catch up right. I mean, that's honestly it.

Speaker 2:

Our business is one of the, I guess, entrepreneurs alike, I guess I don't know. Sometimes, when things are so personal to us, it's like we get so okay, do they like me, do they not like me? Blah, blah, blah and we get away from strategy. If I worked in corporate America in sales and I had to sell a medical device to a hospital or someone, I would never show up without a plan and hope that they like me. I would show up with strategy. I would know who their competitors are. I would know what their budget is for this item. I would know their need, I would know all of those things before I even showed up to the meeting. And entrepreneurs just sometimes don't do that because they're dreamers and they're thinkers and they're feelers, which is what drove them to be in this position, and I just, yeah, I like I don't, I don't chase the sparkly objects, I don't do that. But when there's a pivot or a need for change, I'm the first to dive into it.

Speaker 1:

Something that I took away when um you were putting like a it was like a weekly mastermind call of other mortgage lenders. Is the practicality that you have as an individual and how you were like, as we were having those conversations, you're like is this practical? Should I actually like this and this and this and this are all new things that are being implemented in this industry. Which one of those is actually something that will reign through, and I should chat, gpt being one of them.

Speaker 1:

I remember that being one of the things, and I'm like it's blowing up now. Right, we're not going to, we're not going to go down, but this is so interesting?

Speaker 2:

because when we first talked about that, that was probably two or three years ago at this point, and people are spending all of this time worrying about how chat GPT was going to affect their business instead of figuring out how it can just help it. Right, and I just let the crumbs crumble and now I'm like perfect, I use chat GPT Everything I post on Instagram. I voice memo while I'm driving a thought and tell chat GPT to write me in grammar check. I can't spell to save my life and I'm super ADD, so I can't get to the bottom of an email. So I voice memo into chat box AI and it writes my posts for me.

Speaker 2:

And then I'm like you. I'll literally be like remove the emojis, don't be so, don't sound so scripty, you talk more like me. And then it'll say okay, try this. Yeah, sometimes I don't even read to the bottom, I just copy and paste it. But people spend so much time worrying about things. The reality is is the things we worry about, 90% of them never even happen, literally never happened, and the 10% that do, we can't control anyways.

Speaker 2:

So if I'm really worried about something and I am not sure what to do with it. I have a little thing in my phone in my notes and I write down the worry and I write down every worst case scenario and then, when you write down the worst case scenario, you'll realize it doesn't matter. Oh my gosh, my realtor partner just shared some other mortgage person's Instagram thing. And what if they stopped using me for them?

Speaker 1:

Well at one point.

Speaker 2:

they didn't send me their business and I was still employed. So I think the worst case is that they would stop sending me business, and that's the worst case, and I'd still be okay.

Speaker 1:

I, I had, I literally had something that I wanted to like spiral off into based off of what we were talking about, and I'm totally drawing a blank. So it's okay, we'll come back to it. But I think, just in the world of mortgage. Now I'm on the other side of it and I have these really funny moments where I'm like, oh, the self-importance that I put on, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

It was so stupid.

Speaker 1:

It was so stupid, it was so silly.

Speaker 2:

The best advice I ever received came in a very crash moment, that crass moment that was probably not meant to be given this way and definitely wasn't meant to be nice. When I got it, and it was in a moment of like I'm annoyed, stop talking, kind of thing, but I was asking a question about how to handle something. But I was asking a question about how to handle something and the person I worked for at the time very annoyedly looked at me and said no one thinks about you that much. Stop worrying about it. Like everything's not about you, I'm sorry, okay, and I walked out of her office and I didn't say anything and that is probably the single best thing that ever happened to me in my career, because I'm like no one is thinking about me even. Like there's all these people who follow you and you're like should I post this? Should I post no one's thinking about me that much? There just aren't.

Speaker 2:

All the time I'll literally someone will be like oh, I think that we were pregnant at the same time or I think we had babies at the same time and they think they know something about me and they'll like call my kids their own name. I'm like oh yeah, they have no idea. And this is a person who, I think, knows me really well. Yeah, no one's thinking about me that much. And think of how much you know about other people. We're just. I know you have a Maddie because I have a Maddie.

Speaker 1:

Other than that.

Speaker 2:

I mean, how often can you really remember people you works with kids names? Normally I'm like looking on Instagram before I get there to remember if they have kids. Totally.

Speaker 1:

And here we are, like spill the beans, it's okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm like oh my gosh, are they like worried about?

Speaker 1:

why do they think this? They're not thinking about you? Well, we live in a society too. Now that is it. Things are so fleeting, and so our attention is being drawn in so many different ways. At every single drop of a hat, you're like oh, what about this? Oh, what about this, what about this? And you're you just mentally, we are not supposed to actually be in taking the amount that we're in taking, but here we are. This is just how life is now. And so, to your point, yeah, nobody is really that concerned about what you're doing. Yeah, I think, and let them, and then also to kind of go and extend that a little bit more, but then let like in those moments where you want to feel supported or you want to support, do it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, do it. That's. The other thing is, I think people show up half-assed for a lot of things and then don't show up full to anything, and especially entrepreneurs. Like the amount of random. We've had this conversation of random networking events people go to and all this stuff. I'm like what are you doing? You're burning yourself out. You're not getting business from that. There's not even people in that room who could actually refer you business. They don't have any business.

Speaker 1:

They're all starting.

Speaker 2:

There's nothing wrong with networking events. I think they're great. Be really intentional about it, right. And if it's not going to get you business, is it filling your cup or is it just adding to your calendar?

Speaker 1:

Well, in this world of mortgage and real estate, it's sales driven and there's lead generation and there's working on and working in the business Right. And so, to your point, you have to have the, you have to delineate between, like, what is actually. Trust me from somebody who learned the hard way going to those networking events, thinking that there was something that might come out of it, and you know I'm, yeah, people are very nice.

Speaker 2:

People are nice to keep in touch with, that, I mean. I mean, I just even think of, like, some of the people I met at these networking events and I still follow them on Instagram. I'm like they've had seven jobs since I met them. Right, there's something wrong with that, no, but they just like they couldn't even get a mortgage if they just had seven jobs.

Speaker 2:

So like they probably aren't in the group of people who are going to send me a mortgage and if I'm paying for childcare, I need to go to work and do mortgages, not go to work and pretend to work and that's just, that's it. So many people will quit entrepreneurship, will leave this business, will leave real estate, whatever it is, and go to a W-2 job and work for someone else 40 hours a week. And if they actually look at their calendar, they've never worked for themselves for 40 hours a week. Because if you count the networking groups and like the fact that in our business I think we count driving places as like part of our workday, if you worked for someone else you wouldn't count the 20 minutes that you drive to work and the 10 minutes it takes you to get settled in as working time.

Speaker 2:

No you would never.

Speaker 1:

So, as the, as the planner who, like you, are, I think that there's been probably, and it's and it really is the, the individuals, the women who have been in business, operating their business, call it, eight to 10 years plus, that are in this mindset that you're in right, like you have to be.

Speaker 1:

And as you continue to go year by year and you level up and you grow up and you continue to peel back the onion layers so that you can continue to scale in your business, you're like you start to understand what's important, what's not important. Yeah, throw in motherhood into all of that and it's just. It becomes really easy to go no, that's not important Right right, exactly.

Speaker 1:

But what I enjoy about you, allison, is that you take it a step further in the planning and it's I'm learning, like I'm literally going okay, let's, let's talk about, like, how you're planning out your calendar so I can take bits and pieces of that and implement it to support our bonus boys.

Speaker 2:

just a little bit better, right, just a little bit better, but I think just a little bit better is the key, because the other thing is people try and uproot their entire lives and try and show up as a different person one day, and that doesn't work either.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's like habits, right? Um, this woman here, Alacia Citro, uh, she, she wrote this book higher self habits, and in the book she was actually a guest. On the podcast too, she talks about this very thing. You can't just think that if I want to start getting up earlier in the morning to get my workout in, because I know that my child wakes up at 630, 645, and I know what the rest of my day looks like and who I am as an individual I'm not going to get a workout in later on in the evening.

Speaker 2:

I'm just not. No, I'm not working on it.

Speaker 1:

So it has to happen earlier in the morning. What's the little thing to stack, to stack, to stack, in order for that to then become foundationally a part of who you are.

Speaker 2:

And even it's really easy to have a week off and be sick and then all of a sudden you're like, hmm, sleeping till six is pretty nice, cause it is, it is yeah. Yeah, and in a phase of my life I will maybe be a six o'clock sleeper, I don't know. Right now it's a 4 50 AM sleeper.

Speaker 1:

Like, that's what I get right now and that's okay, because there's like there's something you want in everything.

Speaker 2:

Back to the marriage component, on that topic specifically, I was just at a conference and I was speaking about this like marriage agenda that we do and the amount of women who came up to me at lunch and afterwards and whatever and they're like but how did you like really get your husband to buy in? I want to be clear I don't have like this like husband that walks on water and is just this like super inspirational, like I'll do whatever you say, kind of, but that is not who I'm married to. It takes a lot of work to get him to buy in. But as females, sometimes we show up one day and I do this too, where I'm like I'm going to do this and this and this and this, and your partner is looking at you like I've known you for a decade and you've never woken up at 5 am. So cool.

Speaker 2:

I will support you for the next 48 hours that you wake up at 5 am and then we'll just go back to our regular routine, right? Yeah, you also might have to prove to your partner that that's who you're going to be and how I'm going to double my business and I'm going to grow this region and I want to do this and I want to do this coaching thing and all this stuff. And he's kind of like sure, hon, okay, yeah, and it probably took six months before he was like all right, I'm buying what you're selling and I think you're really doing this. We're. This is real.

Speaker 1:

I'm picking up what you're throwing down here.

Speaker 2:

You meant it and we're doing it. So don't be shocked when you look at your partner or your support system and they look back at you and go what? Because if they came to you, if Joe sleeps till 7 every single day, and came to you and said I'm going to start waking up at 5 every single day, you'd be like that's great. Hon, Okay, yeah, and you know he's not going to Try to be as supportive as possible.

Speaker 1:

Be supportive and lean in.

Speaker 2:

But know that like it might take the people around you a little bit to rally and go, you're right, you got this. Well, you're undoing old habits right, or the old scripting that's been in your head, that you know who knows. You're undoing it as much with yourself as you are with the person who shares a bed with you.

Speaker 1:

Right, exactly. But I think in in instances of what we're talking about right now, it boils down to discipline and honoring yourself. Yeah, Right. And then you're honoring yourself. You've made somewhat of a contract for yourself.

Speaker 2:

Like.

Speaker 1:

I am buying in that this is what I want to do. And then showing and modeling yeah, which you know at the genesis of that. You're modeling for yourself first and foremost, but then it's showing your significant other, your spouse. This is what I want to do. You get the buy-in. The rest of the family unit looks at you and goes, wow, mom's doing it. I love it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and then they support and they fall in line because that's the new thing that you've created.

Speaker 1:

We've talked a lot about the cushy, cushy, amazing things and some some of the tough things, but I do want to go into the space of like there's. There's valleys too, and maybe you have already shared a little bit about what some of those valleys have looked like. But what has there been a dark, dark moment that you can think of? Where you're like this is? This was a pivotal moment for me and how you worked through it. Would you be willing to share?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's probably been a honestly a lot over the years and I think um.

Speaker 1:

I know mortgage is not easy. And so like I can understand and relate to it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I to me, the mortgage part is probably like that's probably been like my status quo, like this is the easy thing. Um, I was in a relationship long term before my husband and um was bad and needed to be done with it. And I mean, I'm like in the middle of being self-employed and trying to put on this show like everything is great and I'm a top producer. I moved out of my house without any money, like I, a girl on my team, actually I think she was like slowly piecing together how bad things were, and I remember her saying I have all these extra plates. You don't need any extra plates at your house, do you? And in my head I'm like yeah, I'm living in an empty apartment with no plates. I do need plates. And she literally like brought me plates and dishes and that was like gosh in 20 night. No, 2018, 2017.

Speaker 2:

I'm like not that long ago, right, like I, I really had to rebuild and find this confidence in myself to go okay, I'm worth it, I can do this. And so, to me, this business has been the thing where the sky is the limit. It means the world to me, because I looked at my life and was like this isn't good. I'm not like proud that I don't have kids and a stable family and a stable marriage and these things. I want to find those things, and so that became a priority for a long time. But the only way I could have that be a priority is allowing this business to grow and allowed me to create these things, and so that's why now I'm so like I worked really hard to get all of this. I'm not going to mess it up Like I'm going to be the best wife and the best mom and the best business owner and I'm not leaving any room for error or to slip worse, into a valley, because what happens to people is you start to slip and, instead of going, stop.

Speaker 2:

I had a bad week. How do we change it? All of a sudden, a bad week becomes a bad six months, and a bad six months becomes a bad year, and all of a sudden, your business isn't there, and I don't ever want to feel that way. So I'm like I just now a bad day is where it stops. I just am like I had a bad day and I'm not. Tomorrow's not going to be a bad day. I need to correct we're in a full circle.

Speaker 1:

We're pulling this back and we're fixing it. There are just those moments in time that happen that is life-changing for people and many of the women who I've had on the podcast have had those, those like groundbreaking, pivotal moments where it was like enough is enough.

Speaker 2:

I think seriously, I think the worst though I feel very I think it's how you look at things I feel very lucky to have gone through in my life through childhood and adulthood some really difficult times and feeling like I'm at the bottom. Because when you feel like you're at the bottom, you feel like you've got literally nothing to lose and it's only up from there. I feel for the people who are stuck in between. You wake up every single day feeling like they live in the ick, but it's not that bad and it's not that good and it's not bad enough to feel like you have to claw your way out, and that's where it's really difficult, where you go.

Speaker 2:

I need to start being honest with myself and having more open conversations and creating a plan and digging in a little more. You talk about the woman who doesn't have the self-employed husband. Maybe there's not as much stress on the business and you feel stuck in it. You feel it's not going down but it's not growing, but it's not what you dreamed of, and that sucks just as much as the person who maybe hit all the way to the bottom and it catapulted them back up. So I feel very thankful that I've had those moments that catapulted me back up and taught me how strong I am to dig into and to find that strength, and I very much so feel for the people who waver in between and don't feel like they have the power to go either way.

Speaker 1:

What would be advice?

Speaker 2:

that you would give them. I would start with having honest conversations with whoever you need to in your life and really digging in on the why behind things. For a lot of people, they're building a business because they dreamed of this idea. But why did you dream of the idea? What did it mean to you? Does it still mean what it meant? When you started it you in the mortgage business you were probably a.

Speaker 2:

You were a younger version of yourself who was eager and single and ready to grow something and probably had this guy's limit mentality and at some point you didn't probably need that anymore, right, and you it didn't mean the same, but you're still trying to put the same effort into it, not being honest with the fact that it's not what you want Totally. And sometimes it's okay to say say this isn't what I want.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's having those raw, honest conversations, with yourself first and foremost, and then going, okay, here we go. Yeah, what is the purpose, what is the vision, what is the why, so to speak? And how can I just continue to? We talked about habits, change habits. How can I just move the helm of the boat? Well, just look at your calendar. Every single day.

Speaker 2:

Is your calendar feeding your purpose? Is your calendar aligning? I mean, everything boils down to how many minutes there are in a day. Okay, so I have eight hours to work today. Is my calendar fulfilling my goals? Yes, no? If it's no, why not? What's going on? What do I need to fix? Every single day, I look at. I track everything I do. At the end of the week, I look back at the calendar. Is it my fault? Is it someone else's fault? Is it a team issue that I have to fix? Is it an at-home issue I have to fix? Where did things go sideways?

Speaker 1:

Out of curiosity, have you done like the Enneagram and human design stuff I have?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

What's your Enneagram? I forget. I feel like you're a three.

Speaker 2:

I think that sounds right. My team all did it and then they were texting. They're like LOL, what's your Enneagram? I'm like you guys are mocking me right now.

Speaker 1:

You're in a group and you're mocking me.

Speaker 2:

I think that sounds right. What is that? One again, what's it called?

Speaker 1:

Productivity is like your thing, it's next, next, next, next, next.

Speaker 2:

What's an eight?

Speaker 1:

The only reason I say that is because there was somebody else who was on the podcast. She's been in business 10 plus years and she alluded she's like I'm an Enneagram three. So for all of the women who are listening right now who are Enneagram three, you get this. You understand it.

Speaker 2:

I took the I honestly whatever is the one that would probably allude to someone who would take the test, read the first word and then not finish it and be like, okay, next, that's whatever.

Speaker 1:

I am Cause that's what I recently did, and I just took the human design test.

Speaker 2:

Did you do that through Maggie? I clicked on her. This is again, whatever Enneagram this is is who I am. I clicked on Maggie's link and I took the test on her website and then I copy and pasted the results into chat and GBT asked it to summarize for me, and I read that on a plane recently for about 30 seconds. In which I felt very justified because it had this whole thing about becoming. I think I'm a hermit in my like, later, like in this phase of my life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Where I only want to be, like have deep relationships with the people I have deep relationships with, and small talk lately like literally hurts my soul, like I am very annoyed of it. I hate when someone stops by and they're like, hey, how you doing? I hate it, it just drives me insane. And it was really interesting because there's something in my human design thing about wanting to step into a coaching, leading, mentoring later in life, of feeling like you've grown something and now you want to share it with others, which, coincidentally, is exactly what I'm doing now.

Speaker 2:

So that was really kind of fun to see.

Speaker 1:

Share with the listeners what it is that you're doing now, cause I I mean it's. I see you just shine and glow, and I saw your um recent post about the I'm assuming it was the event in Vegas right when you got up and you you had. You've been doing a lot of speaking. Yeah, I've been doing more speaking stuff.

Speaker 2:

So I one bit of advice I would give you would be find an incredible mentor that you would really, to the bottom of your heart, admire and respect and want to learn from, but who is similar to you.

Speaker 2:

So I found this woman, um, her name is Sheila Gifford and she actually I've I feel I manifested her cold, calling me cause I've stalked her for so long and then she cold called me Um and then a year later I went to work for her at guild and she's been coaching and mentoring me and honestly, has put me on a lot of stages and given me a lot of opportunities to be seen and share my story and share to help people and taught me how to go do this for other people and how to grow them. And since then I've become a coach for a program called Go Coaching. So I just started coaching with them in the last few weeks, which has been really fun, and I went from one person with an assistant and a part-time marketing person when I joined Guild Mortgage a year and a month ago to one, two, three, four, five offices. We've hired more than 10 people. I mean, we've had just massive growth and it has been really, really fun to go from one person with a big dream to just doing it.

Speaker 1:

People are like what are you doing? How?

Speaker 2:

are you recruiting? Did you hire someone? What's your follow-up sequence? I'm like I'm just, I'm literally just doing it. Stop thinking about it. Just actually do what you say you're going to do every single day. Pick up the phone, connect to people, go talk to people, show up big, stand in your power. Don't be scared to be bold and see what happens. That's it.

Speaker 1:

So normally I ask that question like what's the advice that you would give a younger version of yourself actually knowing all that you know now and I feel like you maybe shared a little bit of that, but can you elaborate? Perhaps Don't be scared to mess up.

Speaker 2:

The faster you mess up and things get messy and things break, the faster you learn. And I'm pretty type A and I like everything to be pretty with a bow on it, and so for a long time I was scared.

Speaker 2:

You don't say I was really scared to mess up, but yet I was messing up left and right and living in fear of messing up. So I wasn't playing big enough and at some point I got too scared to not play big and was like this is dumb. I'm not a stupid person, people like me. I'm capable because the mortgage and real estate industry I'm sorry, the bar is not very high, like we don't have a Harvard grads in our industry. No, if we did, their parents probably like, paid for them to go there, like they didn't get there on their own Like.

Speaker 2:

The bar is not that high. I just have to show up, work hard, be a good person and say what I'm going to do, say execute on what I promised, and that's it. And I'm more than capable of all of those things. And so I just keep doing that on repeat. And so don't be scared to mess up. Do what you say you're going to do. Be a good person, be honorable, put yourself out there and stand in the power of whoever you are. Don't try and be somebody else it's.

Speaker 1:

it's so funny. I'm literally like having this flashback of probably more than three conversations. You and I had where you're like probably more than three conversations. You and I had where you're like, kelly, you can do this. And at that moment in time I just was not ready and looking back, connecting the dots, going it just wasn't my path in life and that's okay. I'm finding and carving a different kind of path and carving a different kind of path and that's okay. Yeah, and for women who are listening, it's okay to have that moment to Allison's point also, where you talk about like being in this like kind of gray area, like the like the gray area is just not yeah, it's, it's even in our business to me the ick is like I'm in this business, I'm trying to grow up but I can't have an assistant yet because I can't afford it.

Speaker 2:

That's thick to me right. Every business has this like ick feeling where you're like yeah, how the hell do I just get out of the ick? Yeah yeah, and I just so right now. I'm like I just refuse to live in the ick when something gets hard. I'm like how are we gonna fix it? Okay, cool, it's hard. How do we fix it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, it's even having a baby, like I didn't get maternity leave, I didn't take time off, I didn't, and I was like this sucks, but I'm not going to live in the ick. How do I fix it? I need to ask for more help. I need to get my husband on board. I need to tell him how I'm feeling. I might need to cry here and there, right, Like.

Speaker 2:

I like I was living in the ick and I had to like raise my hand and say this sucks, how do I get through it. We got a night nurse this time. Not every day, she came twice a week and at one point I looked at Lane and I was crying and I was like I am working a full-time job and I'm not sleeping and I can, like I'm trying to nurse and this is insane. And he was like, should we hire? Should we pay for more hours? I'm like, yes, we need to pay for more hours for the diners Like I'm not.

Speaker 1:

well, you spoke up and it allowed, like the permission was given right, not that you needed the permission from lane.

Speaker 2:

It was just like again, it's all about like standing up and the support and yes so, and if you're a mortgage or a real estate person that's listening to this and I always think of, do you do Peloton ever? We do not have a Peloton, okay. So even if you take Peloton app, like classes on your app, the instructors Allie Love is my favorite instructor and she always talks about like wherever you are right now is where you're meant to be and then also like how do you want to feel when you cross the finish line? And I always think how do I want to feel when you cross the finish line? And I always think how do I want to feel, but who do I want around me? And to me, the finish line is the end of a week, the finish line is the end of a year, the finish line is wherever you want the finish line to be. How do I want to feel and who do I want to be around me?

Speaker 2:

And if you're in mortgage or real estate and you don't feel like you have your team of people where you're, like I want these people around me, I would love to chat with you, because that is a huge miss in this business is to feel like you have someone who's got your back and will show up for you with spades and go. Let's go to war together, cause this is a hard thing to be a part of. It is really hard and to have, like you, sat on my community calls all the time where you're like, yeah, it feels really good to have people to show up every single week and know they know what you're going through, yes, and feel like someone else supports you out there and is cheering for you.

Speaker 1:

Oof. This has been really incredible, super powerful Thanks for having me. I love how you share like literally step into boldness, be brave, do the hard things.

Speaker 2:

Keep in mind this is literally a mentor looked at me and said why aren't you just standing in your power? Be bold. And what did I do? I literally just listened. Someone tells you to do something. Who has built what you're trying to build? Just listen and do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, don't fight against it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Don't try to go against it, don't get in your head, or like do things on your own and to to piece in the whole faith thing too. It's like when we try to control things that are completely out of our control, that's where things really start to go awry. And if you just kind of let let the power be let the power be and allow that to work through you. There's nothing you can't do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, seriously, I agree, and if you can't do it, maybe you weren't meant to.

Speaker 1:

There you go. Yeah, what's a. I think that I want to ask this question a little bit differently. What is advice you would give somebody listening right now that does want to scale, because you've done it time and time again? What is advice you would give that woman listening right now? That's in that moment and they're in the ick?

Speaker 2:

I think, invest in yourself. I hired before I probably should have, knowing wholeheartedly that I would put everything in it to continue to grow it. Get yourself out of the ick. Invest in yourself, get a path to move forward as fast as possible so it doesn't wear you down and burn you out.

Speaker 1:

So good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I actually just every single person in my office. I just gave them, like my go ahead to go. I don't care if you can't. Really, if you want to hire someone and you want to take that on, even though your numbers maybe don't support it right now, I want you to do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I believe in you. I know, if you say you look at me, you tell me I'm going to put in the work, I'm going to do this, that I believe in you to do it. Just do it.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful who would be a good connection for you.

Speaker 2:

Anyone in the mortgage or real estate space.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, you shared that. If there's somebody who just doesn't feel like they've got the rallying troops around them, that would be a good conversation to have. So how?

Speaker 2:

can people find you? You can find me on Instagram at Allison Larson Loans and you can Google my name and you'll find me a million other places too. My cell phone, my email, everything is out there.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, I am so honored that you came and I know you're a busy gal, so appreciate you know taking the time to come on here and share your wisdom, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are plenty of women who are listening right now who are like go Allison, I want to be in her corner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, thank you. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. Have a great day, yes.

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Kelly Kirk

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