ThinkBiz Podcast
ThinkBiz Podcast is your go-to show for real conversations about building and growing your business. Hosted by Garrett Hammonds of Hammonds Media and Nolan Rogers, we dive into the challenges, wins, and strategies that matter most to small and startup companies. Tune in for expert advice, inspiring stories, and actionable tips to take your business to the next level.
ThinkBiz Podcast
"No Men Required" – Jan Steffens on Real Estate, DIY & Female Empowerment
In this insightful episode of the ThinkBiz Podcast, we sit down with Jan Steffens, an incredible real estate agent in the Oklahoma City Metroplex, known affectionately as a "Jan of all trades". Jan, a second-generation realtor whose parents were in the business for 50 years, shares her diverse professional journey, from holding a master's degree in education administration to becoming a corporate flight attendant. Discover how Jan developed her unique philosophy of "No Men Required," teaching women practical skills like checking car oil, changing brake pads, and even installing toilets, driven by a desire for independence and to avoid being "taken advantage of at mechanic shops". Learn about her passion for "helping people" and "solving problems" – whether it's through real estate, construction, remodels, or empowering individuals to tackle home repairs themselves using the "University of YouTube". This episode is a testament to the power of "constant learning" and turning your passion into a profession. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on empowerment, self-reliance, and finding your calling!
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Are you
SPEAKER_01:here?
SPEAKER_00:I am. Well, as often as I can be.
SPEAKER_01:Physically, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:Spiritually may have some other options here. But good morning, everyone. It's a wonderful day. The podcast with Garrett Hammons himself and someone new for our podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yay!
SPEAKER_00:What do we have here today, Garrett? We have the wonderful, the amazing Jan! Yay! Just Jan. And, uh... And by the way, it's noon now, Nolan, so it's no longer morning time. Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it is.
SPEAKER_00:Good afternoon. So now we are in morning of the morning, since it has passed.
SPEAKER_01:More morning as in the
SPEAKER_00:different spelling morning. That's fair. I still have$20 words to eke out, so. Yeah, that's priceless. So we have Jan Steffen with us today. Yes. Jan is an incredible real estate agent here in the Oklahoma City Metroplex and has tons of experience in not only real estate, But all kinds of different industries. Yes, I
SPEAKER_01:kind of wear a few different hats.
SPEAKER_00:She's a Jan of all trades. Yes,
SPEAKER_01:yes. I'm a Jan of all trades instead of a Jack of all trades.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Well, why don't you tell us just a little bit about who you are and your story? What you do?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I have been in the real estate several years, real estate business. My parents had a business for 50 years. My dad was a broker. And so I'm the second generation of realtors. I do housing and all my real estate through the greater metropolitan area, but I can. I did sell a house on the lake over by Muskogee. So as realtors in Oklahoma, we can sell anywhere in the state. But anyway, I mainly do that, but I have a degree or a master's degree in education administration. And I taught for a few years, but I felt like that really wasn't my calling or purpose. So I do contract work for construction. I do remodels. And I sew and I do upholstery. So what else do I do? I do quite a few different things. I work on my car. I teach women how to not depend on men, no men required, and teach them how to check their oil and check their fluids and what their PSI is in their tires. And I love to do that.
SPEAKER_00:That should be the name of a company. No men required. No men
SPEAKER_01:required. Actually so, and I actually teased about that and I was hired in New York to do a remodel on an apartment and the girl that hired me kept Shouting, no, men required. No, men required. And to the point that this man came up to me and says, if you need any help, and I go, oh, no, but you're a man. But no, we love men. And when I say that, because my son got offended, Jensen did, and I said, no, you're not understanding. I'm saying that meaning... that if I empower women to know how to do this, they don't have to, they're not required to depend on a man. And a lot of times that's nice, especially when he's working, trying to support the family and she can go out and figure out the tire situation or the jump a car or whatever. And some women are divorced and they don't have a dad or a friend around that's male. And we have this thing in society where we put a You know, men should be mechanics, not women. And I'm a shade tree mechanic. I've changed my alternator and done stuff like that. Brake pads all day long. I can do them in my sleep because my boys drove cars and ran through brake pads. But yeah, I think empowering women would, not that I wouldn't love to empower men. I would teach any of them how to cook if they wanted to. But yeah, I enjoy teaching women to be able to be a little more independent, not always have to have a guy to come and teach them. That's
SPEAKER_00:excellent. And it's almost as though you were teaching full vertical integration to women. Very good. I like that. It's not necessarily without men. It's just making sure that a woman's life is fully vertically integrated.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I just found out probably two months ago that it wasn't until 1974 that a woman could buy a house by herself. I mean, that's not that long ago.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Or get alone. You couldn't get alone as a woman. And I had no idea where that oppressed. But because, you know, you're raised thinking you couldn't do anything. And then when you're finding out. And I just was amazed that, you know. We are not built like a man. We don't have the muscular makeup as a man. But there are a lot of women, including me, that enjoy doing work that men do, like mechanic. And my motive to learning mechanical stuff was not only to have two boys that I went through a couple of cars each, but I also felt like I was getting taken advantage of it at school. mechanic shops and not all mechanics are dishonest but you know i felt like i was getting sold a bill of goods and so when i was a corporate flight attendant a couple of jet mechanics taught me just enough one of them will say to be dangerous the other one said just enough so when i do take my car in i know whether they're telling me the truth or not
SPEAKER_00:yeah no that's excellent
SPEAKER_01:and so that was really my knowledge my my desire to learn about cars was not only my son's but mainly because I see that most mechanics can pull the wool over a lot of women's eyes because they have no clue what's wrong. And I thought that was important to educate women. I
SPEAKER_00:mentioned 75 to 100 for an oil change is just not allowed. No. That's not okay. And
SPEAKER_01:also a brake pad job will cost you$400 or$500. The brake pads cost literally$40 to$50. And that's it. That's the only thing I pay for. And it doesn't take long. No, it doesn't take long at all. Sometimes you need a special tool. O'Reilly's will rent it to you for free. I mean, they take a card, but they don't charge you anything once you take the tool back to suppress the piston. And it's just amazing how you can learn so much. And it's simple stuff that women... I have a degree from the University of YouTube. I hate to tell you that, but when it comes to working on cars, I've learned a ton. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take my transmission apart this week, and I can't believe I said that. Yeah, but there's a linkage. There's a solenoid or a linkage that's come undone. I'll drive in overdrive, and I'll drive in first and second, but I can't get it to go to third gear. And it is an old truck, and it has 300,000 miles on it. But I've taken really good care of it. And so I'm going to drop the transmission and see if I can find what YouTube just taught me and see if I can do it myself. Well, that's fine. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm excited. You've been solving a lot of people's problems for a long time. Well, I try. So the curiosity then is what made real estate the next thing to help solve people's problems?
SPEAKER_01:One, I love helping people. If I was independently wealthy, just like Sarah said, if I didn't have bills, I love helping people. If you said, hey, I need your help– Pick out fabric for my mom for new drapes. I'd be there. If you said, hey, can you look at my brake pads and see if there's enough meat on them to make it last another 2,000 miles? I'd love to go help you. And I've helped a lot of women that have called me, including some guests that knew I worked on cars. And there's a misnomer. If you work on cars... People think you work on lawnmowers. They're totally different because one's a small engine, one's a big engine. And so she called me over and she had her lawnmower out there and I'm like, oh dear, I don't know if I can... help her, but we were able to figure it out. It was a gas problem and two basic things that happen on cars. So I was able to help her. But yeah, I think that you can't be afraid to just go in and tackle it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not going to tell somebody that I would never educate somebody and say, okay, now go fix anybody's car. Start on your own car. And then if you, but every time I just did my alternator and you have to take your serpentine belt off and pull your tensioner over and you have to have a second So I called my neighbor over and I said, I need you to pull on this breaker bar while I put the surfing team back on. And he just wasn't giving it a whole lot of pull. And I said, you got to do it harder. You got to do it harder. And I'm at the end, I'm going harder, harder. And then I slide it on because he could not. It's hard to do it, you know, and he had no idea. And he was afraid he was going to break something, but I got it on and it all worked out.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. Yeah. Well, and all mechanics who may be listening, turn the podcast off because you don't need to hear this. I'm one of those guys that if you took me to the wrong mechanic, they could tell me whatever they wanted to. Blinker fluid. Blinker fluid. How much do you say it costs again? Blinker fluid or a
SPEAKER_01:flux capacitor. They say either one of those, run.
SPEAKER_00:Run away. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:that's where I was. Well, I really wasn't because I grew up on a ranch and a farm, and my dad, we all drove big machinery. We didn't have to work on them or anything, but I knew enough about, like, When we went off to college, two weeks before each one of us would go off to college, he'd take us out and go, take that tire off. He'd show us how do you check your oil, and he'd make sure we knew. And we knew the basics that most people know. But when I felt like I was kind of getting taken advantage of and had nicer, more expensive cars, I decided to learn just enough to know that they're being truthful or not.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. So what you mentioned at the beginning, you have a couple of different degrees in the education field. How did you go from that pathway to real estate? So
SPEAKER_01:I was just telling that in an interview yesterday for a teaching job. When I was in college my freshman year, my aunt was a kindergarten teacher, and she asked me to sub for a week to her half-day job. maybe seven kindergartners in this tiny little school. And I fell in love with that atmosphere and all that, not knowing that you might not get seven, you might get 29
SPEAKER_02:or
SPEAKER_01:37. But anyway, I thought, oh, education is the way to go. And so I jumped into it and I worked for a couple of years and decided I was starving to death. My dad was still paying my car insurance because back when I graduated, it was even way... You know, we're the... We're 48th in education in Oklahoma, and teacher pay is at the bottom, too. We're way, way at the bottom. And so I went back and got my master's degree because that increases your pay, and that's when I met my– The man that I married, the only man I married, and I had three kids, and I got to stay at home with them and learn his business. And then, unfortunately, after 24 years, we divorced. But I had the master's degree in education and all my background so I could teach and support myself. Not that it's fun to support yourself. I do like that about a man. But anyway, yeah, so I went from teaching. I think... And I've spoken to a lot of people when I was a flight attendant. Most everybody on my plane was not... didn't have a degree in the position they held at that company. It was interesting. I thought I was one of few that really didn't follow their degree. But, you know, you think you know. It's hard to know what you want to do at 17, 18 years old.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I barely could decide what college I wanted to go to. Now you want to know what I want to do the rest of my life? So that's really tough. I know kids that have known what they want to do since they were six or seven. I didn't. And I still don't know what I'm going to do until I grow up. Yeah, so. One day I'll find it.
SPEAKER_00:I wanted to be a teacher when I was going through school and I started substitute teaching and there's just a whole slew of things that happened where I was like, Oh, I don't know if this is for me. No, it is. Yeah. I don't think this is my calling. My senior year, I pivoted and that pivot was basically to nothing. Yeah. So my first job was just like tangentially connected to my degrees. Yeah. I had a degree in political science and communication studies.
SPEAKER_02:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:wow. And I got a job at the American Choral Directors Association in Oklahoma City. Wow. Choir teachers from all over the world. And I was doing membership work, which is a glorified name for I answered angry phone calls from older members who didn't know how to log in. That was what I did all day. And once you helped them log in. Man, the conversations you would have were glorious. But pre-login... After that. Were
SPEAKER_01:ugly. So that's where you got into your first thing with being techie.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. Well, so they basically, for me, they were like... Oh, Garrett's young. He can do social media. So they gave me all the social media and it just kept on snowballing from there. And you
SPEAKER_01:enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00:I enjoyed it. And that's what I found out is I picked up the things I liked and I got rid of the stuff I didn't like. And it sounds like that's kind of the pathway you've gone with a lot of stuff. But one question we always like to ask is, you know, you're very good at what you do now. But inevitably inside of our careers, we have these moments where it's like we hit a speed bump that are learning lessons. What are one of those moments in your life where you would want to tell the future Jans of the real estate industry, watch out for this?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think off the top of my head, I have always felt that, and I'm sure it's the way I was raised, but I've always felt that everybody, Everybody walking this earth has redeeming qualities. And I actually, a few years ago, met two people that I spent four years working close to their businesses. And there are people that don't have any redeeming qualities. I mean, I'm sure they're there, but as deep as I could dig as an outsider, I'm like, you know, I mean, all I know to do is pray for the guys because I keep thinking, how do you live your life so jaded? I guess it's a word. But in that, for every two of those in my lifetime, I've met a million people that if you don't prejudge and you just listen, I think that's why God gave us two ears and one mouth is because we should listen more. And I'm guilty of not. But I really think, and I'm kind of doing a weave, like, Trump does. But I really think that I love helping people. I love helping people. And not in a, hey, attaboy, Jan way. I love to solve problems for people. So if they have a car problem or they have a real estate problem, I think that's where I go when I... And I don't even know if I'm really answering your question properly, but I think that's what
SPEAKER_00:I think. All answers are welcome here. I think it is that curiosity, though, because I have a lot of young professionals that come to me and they do say the same things that you do. I just want to help people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's a problem. They're not making money.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Just by wanting to help.
SPEAKER_01:No, and you can't make money unless you. You turn it into a profession.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. And so that's kind of the curiosity then is how have you taken all of the skills that you've developed and all of the learning that you have behind the immense amount of competency that Jan has? How would you kind of package that and tell a new young professional that truly doesn't know what they want to do? Right. Their degree is not what they now have a job in. What would you tell them to focus on in order to just A, get the bills paid?
SPEAKER_01:Right. I think you have to think about if your passion is helping other people, you know, that's one of my passions. I have other passions, but that's one of them, especially the underdog or somebody that's getting bullied. But if I was talking to a young professional and they said, oh, I did this in this degree and I don't like it, the first question I would ask him is, what wakes you up in the morning? What do you like to do? What do you like to do as a hobby? When I filed for divorce, we– I left the big home with pool and everything, and we had bought a house in Norman for the kids to go to college there. And I moved down there, and I noticed, you know, because I'd lived in beautiful homes, the baseboards don't match. And then I started, I mean, it was a$100,000 house, but it was perfect for our kids, you know, because colleges don't take care of houses. And so I started literally YouTubing. How to cut a board at a miter corner. And to the point I have thousands of dollars worth of tools now and can do baseboards and trim and hang doors and do sheetrock. But I start and I kept I was teaching by day to pay the bills and I would go home and work on that. ugly house that was a rental house for 30 years, 40 years. But we bought it and then we didn't realize how trash it was. I did everything from painting the entire outside, rebuilt the chimney. I did stuff I never thought I could do, but I found it therapeutic. So that's what I'd say. What do you do besides watch TV that you think is therapeutic? Or, you know, what do you do? Do you have a hobby? Do you have anything? And if you can turn your passion into your profession, It's the best thing ever. And my passion is helping people. My profession is I do do construction and there's a lot of women that live alone. And I go, Hey, my worst habit, I think is when we, I take one of my clients through a house and she goes, I really like this house, but I don't. We can take care of it. That's my first thing I think of is, we can tear that down. Whether it's weight-bearing or not, we can put the support up and do it. And I got to quit doing that because it's a little overboard. And we can take care of that. But cosmetically, there's a lot of things that I say, that's not a big deal. That's not a big deal. That's not a big deal. And I have had clients that will say, will you teach me what I need to know to fix my house. And that's what I love. And I actually had a CPA. His wife called me and go, my husband wants to know if you'll show her, show him how to install a toilet. And I go, well, of course I would, but why does he need to know? He doesn't want to have to always hire somebody to do things. And that's exactly what I, when I want to do it on my time, I can do it. And I, and I had, I only, I, I only learned how to install toilets because the contractor didn't show up. I thought, oh, well. I YouTubed it, installed my first toilet, and I've probably done 50 toilets. Wow. From a hole in the floor to installing them. And now I can do them in about 20 minutes, but
SPEAKER_00:I don't mind them at all. I know this might be a weird fascination, but the industry of toilets, it is fascinating to me. Like overseas, there's like... multi-thousand dollar toilets that are like, have robot voices that'll talk to you. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, how has that become such a big thing?
SPEAKER_01:No, traveling abroad, I was in Dubai and New York is pretty heavy on this. Everywhere in Europe, they have a bidet or not a bidet, but a bidet that hooks onto the toilet or they have like a water supply over here. And Dubai, I'm amazed at, I think we're the cleanest country in the world, but obviously we're not because we don't have that many bidets. Anyway, the outside of us looks really clean. But yes, toilets, there is some very expensive toilets.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, this is wild to me. I won't, you know, flush the podcast down this pathway. But it's great to really put together the whole fact of you solved your own problems. I think that's the main lesson to take from all of this is you just said, Oh, somebody else isn't doing their job. Right. So I will do it myself. Right. And that also links into, again, doing real estate. There's so many other industries that link into what you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:What can you also tell entrepreneurs and new home buyers or new realtors about all of those other industries that they need to be aware of and pay attention to?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think one of the things that us as realtors can do is offer, um, uh, people to call, especially people that move from out of town. But if, if I could, you know, supply them with a list of people like you guys and the people in our network that can help them with their tile or help, you know, as a new homeowner. But I think overall, um, I'm not sure how I want to answer this because I think as a realtor, um, I want to develop a relationship with that client that they feel free, even if I haven't talked to them in a year or two. Hey, Jan, I'm having trouble with this. I mean, I want to be there, but I want to give them the tools to be able to help themselves and not feel like, I'm sorry, I don't mean to bother you. Nobody bothers me. If I can help you, you're not bothering me. It might be bad timing because I have my grandson and he's being a little turd or something, but nobody bugs me when they want help. I I want to help people. And I'm not saying that as I'm this wonderful person that wants to help people. I have struggled. And the right people have shown up, you know, to help me or make decisions for me. And that means the world, especially when they'll, hey, if you want to come over or if you let me come over, I'll help you do it and show you how to do it. I love that. Because when we empower ourselves to do things, even though we might not like them, I don't want to make a career out of it. installing toilets, but I can if I need to.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:If my brake pads are bad and my bank account's low, I can. I can do my own brake pads. I change my oil and do all that. So when we empower people, they get to decide what they, you know, I always say it depends if I have more money at the time or more time or more money or more time. If I have more time, then I'm going to do it myself. If I have more money, I might pay to have it done. You know, just depends where my bank account looks like that, that month. But I think it's important that we, I mean, everybody has gifts that they do well in. And, um, like I'm not going to run electrical lines. I hate being, uh, shocked makes me so angry, but I'm not going to run row max and set up you know, electricity like Lou, uh, Louise does. Um, I'm not going to do plumbing. I mean, I'll do the basic, like check, change out a trap or, or handles on it, but I'm not going to run PEC line. I'm not going to do all that stuff because it's not, I would, if I had to, If I'm in a third world country and I have to, but I don't enjoy that. And I, I want to give it to the professionals. And so I think I know where my limits are, but I don't, put a lot of limits on myself because I think, I mean, I've crawled up on a roof and fixed shingles and secured the flashing and the tar around a fireplace chimney. And I'm not above doing anything. I feel like we all need to be humble enough that if we have to dig a ditch or clean a toilet, we're willing to do so. And I am that person. By all means, I'm not better than anyone else. I just think that empowering ourselves to fix things and do things for other Not only helps yourself and saves you money, but it also helps others that might be in that bind and they can't afford to fix it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think one common theme here to be able to pull from all that you're sharing is that your pattern of just constant learning in order to be able to find the solutions that you need and then sharing that with others has created not only And I think
SPEAKER_01:that's so important to try to, like I just said, to make people's worlds bigger, not trying to shrink their world, but make it bigger where, and a lot of people would know, I would never do that. I don't know how to do that. Well, I didn't either. But guess what? When your back's against the wall and you really don't have a choice or you might not have the funds in your bank account to do it. And I'm not telling you to go out and go buy an HVAC and install it. But I did learn how to run all the ventilation in an attic and did it for a guy because nobody was there to do it. And I said, I'll try. I'll see what I can do. I YouTubed it. I looked up a few things online and I went up and did it. And it took me four hours to run all the ducting from the furnace to all the ventilation and secure them. And if you feel like Rocky at the top of that stairway, you do. Even on ventilation in an attic, you feel like Rocky. It's just so cool to know I did that. I did that. And I can do that. If I need to do it, do I want to crawl up in attics and do that? No, I don't. But will I? Absolutely. If we're willing to do something and we're not above that, I think that's where doors open for you to help other people. And that's my goal is to help other people. And I think that's where I probably went into education. My thought process was different at such a young age. I mean, I still love to teach people, but not necessarily reading and math and that stuff. It's more life things, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Well, and honestly... I think you have like a future career in motivational speaking. I feel inspired. Well,
SPEAKER_01:I don't know about that, but I do love to motivate people. For some reason, I can't motivate my boys, but I can motivate everybody else. Well, you know, they don't ever listen to their parents. I can get my friend to tell them, and they'll go, oh, okay. I'll go, I told them that
SPEAKER_00:yesterday. I mean– Boys are just stinkers, though. Yeah, they are. They're ornery. You got
SPEAKER_01:to love them, but they're ornery.
SPEAKER_00:I am. I am very ornery. And I'm one of the people who are of the philosophy, you know, no boys need it. Yeah. Yeah, no boys know me. Boys optional.
UNKNOWN:Yeah. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Men are optional. There you go.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this has been such a fantastic time talking to you. Yeah, me too. The time goes by so fast.
SPEAKER_01:I know.
SPEAKER_00:Tell us a little bit about if somebody were to try and find you after hearing the podcast Where could they look up and find
SPEAKER_01:you? So I work for KBB Real Estate. My name is Jan Stephan. And I have a Facebook page. You can message me on the Facebook or you can call me. And my phone number is... Ericode 405. No, sorry. I have an out-of-town Ericode because I lived in Houston three years. But the rest of my life has been in Oklahoma. And I was in aviation in Houston. But it's 713-754-0029. And my email address is jan at janstephan.com.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent. It's been wonderful to have you here. You are another testament to how awesome all the people in our network are. Always a pleasure to see you every week. Thank
SPEAKER_01:you, guys. You guys are great hosts on this
SPEAKER_00:Think Biz.
SPEAKER_01:I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. And we do have a little tradition to end off our podcast. So, Jan, if you would help us out, do you remember our jingle?
SPEAKER_01:No. I don't remember it.
SPEAKER_00:So we will say stay sharp and we'll have our guests say think biz. So that's you today. You'll say the think biz. Okay. So everyone, remember this week, stay sharp.
SPEAKER_01:And think biz.
