Building a New Life and Business with Guest Nicole Sherman!

From bootstrapping a side hustle to scaling service-based businesses, this episode takes you through the grind of building a portfolio that funds your freedom. We tackle the hard truths about cash flow, acquisition strategies, and why failing fast might just be your greatest edge. If you’ve got the drive but need the blueprint, this is the episode to ignite your path to financial independence.

📌 Key Takeaways:
✅ Cash Flow is King: Whether it’s real estate or service-based businesses, learn how to maximize recurring income while minimizing risk. 
✅ Acquire to Scale: Discover why buying established businesses can fast-track your wealth-building journey. 
✅ Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Embrace mistakes as part of the process—every failure is a lesson disguised as a setback. 
✅ Mindset Shift: Stop chasing shiny objects; focus on systems and scaling what already works. 
✅ Invest Wisely: Use cash flow from businesses to fund long-term, appreciating assets like multifamily real estate. 
✅ Teach Hustle Early: Inspire the next generation to value action over entitlement—mindset is the ultimate multiplier.

🎬 Chapters:
00:00 From Childhood Sales to Entrepreneurial Spirit
06:03 The Journey to Real Estate and Financial Independence
11:52 Cultural Insights: Hawaii's Melting Pot and Economic Challenges
17:39 Mindset and Resilience: Overcoming Adversity
24:52 Hospitality and Tourism: The Economic Backbone of Hawaii
29:12 A New Beginning: Moving to Nebraska and Embracing Change
33:54 Faith and Transformation: A Personal Journey
36:08 The Church and Judgment
39:30 Personal Struggles and Finding Faith
42:51 The Importance of Quiet and Reflection
46:36 Facing Unbelievable Situations
51:51 Support from Friends and Community
54:18 Deciding to Leave and Surrendering to God
01:00:25 Navigating Life After Leaving
01:04:11 Building a New Life and Business
01:13:39 Embracing Failure as a Learning Tool
01:14:38 The Journey of Podcasting and Learning from Failure
01:16:05 The Heartbreak of Unmet Expectations
01:17:51 Challenging the Average: Striving for More
01:19:53 The Importance of Standards in Education
01:21:48 Embracing Failure as a Learning Tool
01:23:18 Balancing Family and Business Ventures
01:25:44 Women in Entrepreneurship: Finding Community
01:27:36 The Myth of Work-Life Balance
01:30:44 The Role of Women in Supporting Family and Business
01:32:57 Striving for Authenticity and Purpose
01:35:42 Navigating Different Perspectives in Marriage
01:39:30 Building a Supportive Network for Women
01:49:42 Closing Thoughts and Recommendations

Transcript

She goes straight up to the front, like we're in a workshop. I'm like, what are you doing? Get back here. And she has her hands up high and... Tissues. Anyway, she's praising God and can we cut? So tell me what got you into entrepreneurship, how long you've been doing this, what's your background and what drove you to real estate marketing and that type of stuff. Yeah, so I actually was that weird kid growing up. I used to sell stationaries. My kids have no idea what that is.

But I would literally go knock on all my grandma's friend's with like the little catalogs and magazines and like, hey, I'm Shirley's granddaughter. Would you like to buy some stationaries? And I just kind of started there. I just love doing it, love talking to people. And I mean, I don't know, I was that weird one. I wasn't out playing outside with Barbie dolls or things that I never even had a Barbie doll. We were too poor to afford those. I didn't want to sit around and do anything and I wanted to go make money because I didn't have any even as a young kid. So then I started selling stationaries and then you know every time I'm sure your kids have it too they have like we had jump rope for heart and now I know they have some kind of running thing now my kids have it they're always asking for money but they're never ever selling anything when I grew up we sold chocolates we sold stationaries we sold pens we sold erasers all the really weird things that no one else would buy.

And so I would always have top sales in my grade because I wanted the prize. That was really some cheap key chain that I probably could have just got from the gas station, but it didn't matter. I won. And so I just kind of always did that. I always want to be the top salesperson. I guess I didn't know what was a salesperson. I just want to win. then these are all school. Like you start selling in school. PTO mom type thing. Yeah. No, my mom was like not ever involved. She's like, are you doing now? I'm like, yeah, I gotta go sell these candies for school. She's like, okay. And I be like, go with my little wheel and like walk door to door and be like, you want some chocolates? but yeah, that's kind of how I started into it. And then I, my parents put me in Hula early on, so then I got really good at it. And somehow in my like 12 year old mind, I thought,

I know enough to teach this and that opened up like my backyard hula studio where I would invite people over and I would charge them like $25 a month to have weekly classes with me and my parents would be like it was at my tutu or my grandma's house and she'd be like what's is all your friends coming over? like yeah we're just having class today like legit out in the yard. My mom was like, what are you guys doing? I'm like, I'm teaching hula, just go back inside, it's fine. And I just teach all these people and I don't know where they got the money from because $25 and I always get a lot of money. I don't know if their parents even knew they were at my house. But I was like teaching hula lessons and then my teacher found out and got upset because he felt like you should bring them to their class. And that's where I found out how business actually works. Like, someone must make money off of my teaching. I'm just going to go over here and do this instead. So interesting. Yeah. I might open some here actually. From Hawaii to Nebraska. I'm not going to charge a lot more, but I wonder what Hula lessons would run these days. Well, when I got older, I had to pay like $150 a month, but

Like I did hula, Tahitian, Maori, like all of it. So. Yeah, you spoke open to Greek for me. Did not understand any of it. But then I just got into like, so I started working also, so off of hula, I learned how to go get paid for what I learned. So at 11 years old, I started participating in hula shows where I would get paid to do that too.

So like all the stuff, you know, when you guys go to Waikiki, all the little hula dancers. I've been to Waikiki. Okay. been to the big island. Well they have them there too. Any tourist spot, all those girls dancing, they get paid. And so I'm like, I want to go do that. So I got paid there. And then I started dancing on the cruise ships and I started making money there. So I've been, I've been working since I was like able to make money. that makes sense!