Mindset Matters | Owning a Piece of America Starts Within | Episode 1

Welcome to Life, Finance, & Real Estate with KirbyTheRealtor.
In Episode 1, we lay the foundation by talking about mindset and what it truly means to own a piece of America.
Owning a piece of America is not just about property, land, or real estate. It’s about owning your life, your finances, your decisions, and your direction.
Before you can own anything tangible, you must first own your thinking.
In this episode, we break down how mindset shapes the way you live, spend, save, build, and invest—and why ownership begins internally before it ever shows up externally.
In This Episode
• What “Owning a Piece of America” really means
• Why ownership starts with mindset, not money
• How thought patterns affect financial outcomes
• The connection between life decisions and real estate decisions
• Why responsibility and ownership go hand in hand
This episode is for anyone who wants more than survival. It’s for those who want agency, stability, freedom, and ownership—in every area of life.
About the Show
Life, Finance, & Real Estate with KirbyTheRealtor is a weekly show focused on mindset, ownership, discipline, and intentional living. We talk honestly about life choices, financial growth, and real estate, helping people move from hoping to owning.
Owning a piece of America means owning your decisions, your finances, your future—and eventually, the assets that reflect that ownership.
👇 Join the conversation:
What does owning a piece of America mean to you beyond property?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to life. Finance and real estate. Well we discussed how to make smart money moves. The ever-changing real estate market, and of course, things going on in life. And here to come and more with you is your host.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

And we'll study recovery the rooms for 92.1 and 93.1. Listen, I'm the Kirby, and I'm so excited to finally say this out loud. We are alive and we are on the air and we are starting a movement to help you own a piece of America and not just survive in it. Listen, this show is called Life, Finance, and Real Estate for a reason. If you want to own a piece of America, you have to understand these three things. Life, finance, and real estate. You know, as I'm sitting here reading this thing here to you guys, um, you just have to understand that life is your habits, it's your mindset, it's your relationships, it's your business, and it's your decisions. Your life matters, guys. Life matters. Your life experiences and exposures have molded you to what you are today. So, what happens if life didn't matter? Because life does matter. I'm gonna be sharing some stuff with you. Not just my stories, but other people's stories in life, how it made uh them who they are today, and how it made me who I am today. Um, about finance and how money works, and how to stop wasting money and how to multiply. So, guys, those two are gonna really be fun. The finance and the mindset, it's just it's gonna be fun. So, I want you guys to book your seatbelt because you got to take it all in and you gotta learn to be honest with yourself. Um, so I'm excited about it. Um, did you know I found out that I was wasting$3.33 a day? Do you know how much that is a month?$3.33 a day, which is about$100 a month. I found out every over a 20-year period of time that was$330 a day invested, cost me$75,000. Good God, that's gonna be an interesting story, but we'll talk about that at another time. I'm probably gonna have an expert come on and talk to you and give you a little more insight because y'all, when I tell you my eyes open, they open very wide, my ears open, and I begin to look at life, finance, and real estate in a whole nother light. So I want to um tell you guys some things that help me along my journey because I want you to learn how to position yourself and how to protect what you buy and how to let real estate work for you. I gotta tell you, I've learned a lot over these last 15 years in real estate. I'm really, really excited about this particular topic because I've learned so much and I learned how real estate can work for you. How real estate can work against you. So if you don't know what you're doing, we're gonna help you get there. We're gonna help you get the inside scoop on all those areas about life, finance, and real estate. But today's first part is about life, it's about your mindset. That's the part most people skip because it's not as flashy as the countertops, the luxury cars, the bags, the interest rates, um, investing in stock. Mindset is something we all avoid as humans because we don't we don't want to change. So if you're listening to me right now and you ever thought that, hey, my credit is bad, I don't make enough, nobody in my family ever owned a home. People like me don't get those chances. Listen, this episode is for you, and we're gonna go straight at those thoughts. Because life is how you think, how you live, how you move, and how you see yourself. Finance is how you manage money, how you grow money, and how you stop wasting money and begin to build wealth. Real estate, see, it's ownership, stability, legacy, creating something that lasts. So we're gonna have real conversations and real strategies that will help you move from just getting by to actually building something. Now, here, this is what makes this show different. I'm not just here to hype you up, I'm here to give you strategy, stewardship, and ownership. We're gonna pull back the curtains on life, finance, and real estate. And we're going to show you how all three of these things work together, how your mindset has either been pushing you forward or holding you back. Wow. I don't know if you guys caught that or not. How your mindset can push you forward or how it can hold you back. You know where you are in life, but guess what? Wherever you are, we're gonna help you get the right mindset to have success. So today's episode is called Before You Own the Deed or the Keys, you have to own your mindset. Now I want you to hear this with your spirit and not just with your ears. Deed and keys are not just the physical things, they represent access, they represent breakthrough, they represent healing, they represent financial peace, and they represent a new chapter in your life. See, before God places anything in your hands, he strengthens your mind, he settles your heart, and he prepares your character. And when I say deed or keys, I'm not just talking about real estate. I am talking about anything God is calling you to step into this next season. Your next season, your next chapter with anticipation of excitement of what life will look like. So before life, because before life elevates, and before your finances shift, before you walk into your next level, your mindset has to get there first. I'm gonna repeat that because that's important. Before life elevates, before your finances shift, before you walk into your next level, your mindset has to get there. You have to make up in your mind that you're gonna do something about it. So here's the thing. Unfortunately, most of us, we're not taught a lot of things that I'm gonna talk about on this call. When I say mindset, most people are like this one idea. You're just one idea away from one great ideal away from that idea that can change your life forever. Because you gotta have the right mindset. You have to have the mindset of being of not being fearful or scared. You have to have that mindset that God is not a limit to this God. See, this show is designed to help you get past those fears. So when I start talking about mindset, mindset, mindset, most people can't do what they've never seen before. Most people can't do what they've never been exposed to before. And a lot of people want to do stuff, but it's just no, I can't do that. I don't make enough money. We don't make enough money. Our credit's not here. But guess what? That's not what we got. We have to shift our mindset. I can have anything I want to have with God, with the strategies, with the right purpose in life, and with the right coaching. See, some of you guys can take care of a whole lot of things in life if you'll just get a coach. This show can act as a coach for you because we're gonna talk about some real things. We're gonna be talking about calling to action and speaking things as not as though they were. And we're gonna do a lot of those things on this show. We're gonna have guests come in and talk to you guys to encourage you. So when I say shift your mindset, remember that everything starts in your mind. You have to make up in your mind this is what I want to do, and this is where I have to, this is what I have to do to get where I want to be. Whatever you tell your mind, that's what your mind is gonna believe. See, the subconscious mind cannot determine whether something is real or whether something is not real. So whatever you put down in your mindset, the conscious mind is gonna go down there and it's gonna get it and try to make it come real. If you don't believe me, just Google it. Go Google subconscious mind and how it works and how the conscious mind connects. So we have to get our conscious mind to connect with the things we want. We got to put those perspective affirmations in the universe and let God do what he does. See, your mind is like a computer. You put bad stuff in and bad stuff comes out. So, right now, this call is all about cleaning out all the clutter out of your mind. This call is about getting what you want because God said you can have it. Okay, so I don't want to spend my time on that. We'll talk about that in another time, but I need you guys to listen. You cannot walk into real estate ownership if your life mindset is stuck in limitations, you cannot store your finances well if your thinking is rooted in fear, and you cannot build life, finance, and real estate, success on broken beliefs. And I know it's all is it's all it's a lot of us that we have broken beliefs. I've had them before. I've been there, I was there, I was there at a very young age because I tried to grow up too fast. I was there, but guess what? I had to pick myself up and I had to reset and restart. So for the next few minutes, we're going to talk about life, finance, and real estate, starting with the foundation of it all, and that is your mindset. So I need you to grab your notebook, grab your pen, or turn your recorder on, get comfortable, stay with me, because this might be the life, finance, and real estate reset you did not even know you needed. But let me start here. I am not not just talking to you as Kirby the realtor, Kirby the broker, the coach, the singer, the serial entrepreneur. I am not here to talk to you as some fancy business woman. I am not someone who just woke up successfully. And I'm not about to tell you a whole bunch of things I read in a book, but I never lived it. Because listen, I'm not that girl, that's not your girl. I'm Kirby. I'm talking to you as a woman who had to fight through fear, lack, and other people's opinion. So before we go deeper into life, finance, and real estate, I want to share a little bit about me because what matters, it matters who's talking to you. It matters that you understand a part of my journey, it matters that you understand that I am very documented about everything that we're going to talk about today. My mindset did not begin in a book, it began in my home where I grew up watching hard work. I watched my parents work, I watched them sacrifice, I watched them struggle at times, and I watched them do the best they could do with what they knew. See, most times we can't just do any more than what we know when we're not exposed. And I am very thankful for my parents. Oftentimes I tell the story as a kid when we would uh people thought we were rich as kids because my parents knew how to make things, you know, look new or take some somebody threw away and make it their own. And we would go down to the uh rummage sale, and uh sometimes we'll get clothes and shoes from there. But a lot of times my dad would get pieces of furniture from the places and take it home, sand it down and paint it, and we'll be hiding. Like we used to be so embarrassed because we were at rummage sale, but we used to always get told that we were, you know, sometimes people would make fun of like, oh y'all rich people, and it wasn't that we were rich, they were they were just good stewards and they knew how to make the most out of what they had, and so they taught me a lot, they taught me a lot about life and faith, but no one taught us about finance, and what they know typically um from what they learned from their parents, I would say they what they learned from their parents was what they learned basically, and so that's what they taught us. So they only could teach us what they knew. I grew up knowing how to work hard, I grew up knowing how to pray, but I did not grow up being taught how money really works. Now, yes, I went to college, I earned degrees, I have a master's degree, but it did not happen overnight, guys. Listen to me. It took years to get my first degree. Like a lot of people, I did not fully know what direction I wanted my life to go. I made decisions that slowed me down. I had moments of indecisions, and I questioned myself. So if you ever felt behind in life, confused about money or unsure about real estate, that was me at one point. See, there were seasons where I felt stuck, seasons where finances felt tight, and seasons where the future felt uncertain, and seasons where ownership felt far away. Yeah, that's me. That's your girl talking to you because that was my life, that was my finance journey, and that was my real estate reality at that time, and in every one of those seasons, there was one thing I could always fall back on, and that one thing you you know I told you my parents taught me about my faith. That one thing that was faith in God. I could always fall back on that, and guess, and guess what? It always carried me through those tough places, those bridges. God, and that's why you're gonna hear me talk about faith on this show, and I don't force anyone uh to in into believing things or anything, but I I'm not gonna apologize for it either because God is real to me, and because without Him, I would not be where I am today in life, finance or real estate, and over the years through real estate, through business, and through a lot of trial and error, I started to realize something. So many people are not locked out of ownership because they are lazy. I mean, we got a lot of people that are lazy today. I mean, they are. I will agree with that, but it wasn't because they were lazy, they're locked out because they were never taught life, finance, and real estate the right way. They never had the inside scoop. They never even seen it modeled, and some have even been talked out of one and more. You know, we have those dream stealers out there, they say you can't, or they talk you out of your dreams. Time after time, I sit at the closing table with people who are first in their entire family to ever buy a home. And when the keys or deed hit their hand, tears fall, and it's it's tears of joy, but the keys indeed is not it's not the it's not real estate, it's life-changing for them, it's a financial shifting, it's a it's a bloodline breaking moment, and that is why I created this show because I've seen so many people over the years. I have seen people in their 60s and 70s buy their first home, and you can just see the gleam in their eyes when they finally figured out in their one day, like I'm gonna own a home, I'm gonna give it a shot, I'm gonna try, and y'all, they had success. I've seen young people in their early 20s buy their first home, but the whole key was shifting your mindset. You have to get that mindset that I can do this, that I need this, and that God made me for success. And guess what? This show, this show is where we're gonna help you get there. Now, that's my story. I'm Kirby. I struggle a little bit early in life, but I did not stop. I didn't stop, and I'm here to share with you what I've learned and what I've learned from people way smarter than me, and that I am so grateful for. But we're gonna talk about mindset because if you want to do anything different in life, your mindset has to change first. Your life cannot change without your thinking changing. See, you can change jobs, you can move to different cities, another state, you can get a pay raise, you can even get new opportunities. But if your mindset stays the same, you will recreate, you will recreate, recreate the same results in a new place. Oh my god, y'all. The same results in a new place, you're gonna recreate it. If you don't change your mindset, you're gonna recreate the same results, even in a little place. Life does not change from the inside from the outside in. Life changes from the inside out. See, guys, your mindset is the lens through which you see everything. If your mindset is rooted in fear, you will avoid growth. If your mindset is rooted in lack, you will sabotage money. If your mindset is rooted in insecurity, you will shrink when opportunity shows up. That is a life issue before it ever becomes a finance issue or a real estate issue. Let me repeat that. If your mindset is rooted in fear, you will avoid growth. Think about it. If you're afraid, you can't grow because you're stuck. If it's rooted in lack, you will sabotage money. If your mindset is rooted in insecurities, you will shrink when opportunity shows up. That is a life issue before it becomes a finance issue or a real estate issue. Life, finance, and real estate. Listen, guys, your mindset controls your habits, your habits control your behavior, and your behavior controls your outcome. See, mindset shift does not mean pretending you do not have challenges, it means refusing to let those challenges define you. It means moving from survival thinking to ownership thinking, and when your mindset shifts, your life responds. Alright, guys, so let's get practical. If it's something in you is waking up right now and it's saying, Kirby, I want to own a piece of America, but I don't even know where to start. I got three simple steps for y'all. I got three simple steps. So I hope you got your notebooks and I want you to write it down. I want you to write down the truth. What does that look like? Tell the truth on paper. What do I bring in each one? What do I bring? Write these things down, don't judge it. Just tell the truth. Owner tells the truth to themselves. You have to own. Own your mindset. If you want to own a piece of America, you have to own your mindset. Owners tell the truth. So let me repeat it. I want you to write down tell the truth on paper. That's step one. I want you to tell the truth on paper. You're gonna write down what do I bring in each month? What do I spend? What do I owe? See, this is the foundation of every financial and real estate move you will ever make. Y'all, I had to write, I had my financial advisor force me, but I'm so glad he did. But he forced me to fill out a what do I spend sheet? And y'all, that sheet about scared me to death. It was just too much. It was so overwhelming. But when I took out time to fill out that sheet, it told me the truth. I mean, it was the truth. We already know. You already, if you think about it, if you go to Starbucks, you go to McDonald's, just add up the little things that you like to do every day. And when you add those things up, you add up those things, and you look at what you spend, it tells the truth. And it's reality. Hey, it hurts, but hey, when you are made aware, you can make better decisions. But when you're made aware of what you're doing, you can make better financial decisions. Step two I need you to check your starting point. Check your starting point. That means your credit, your savings, and it's not to shame you. I oftentimes find out people are so scared to apply for a mortgage loan or any type of loan because their scores may be bad. And I think we've all been there. I mean, if it's in the 400s, let's let read let's pull this band-aid off. Let's sit down, let's talk with a lender, let them look at what you have going on, and let's fix it. So let's see where your score is. Let's see how much is in your savings. Y'all, when I obtained a financial advisor, and when I had to take accountability, I had zero dollars in my savings. Was I ashamed? I was. There was no reason to be ashamed because I had to start somewhere. I had to have a starting point. So whatever that number is, that's just your starting point. If your score is low, we're gonna build it. If your saving is little, we strategize. But we cannot fix what we will not face. I'm gonna say it one more time. We cannot fix what we will not face. Step three, I want you to decide on one ownership move you will make in the next 12 months. See, for some of you that might be saving a specific amount for a down payment, paying down one credit card, or sitting with a realtor or lender, a financial advisor, a counselor. For others, it might be setting up a budget for the very first time. Let me tell y'all something. Budget scared me too. And sometimes I think it still scares me if I can be honest. But when I have to set a budget, it brings me back to reality because you have to tell your money where to go instead of your money telling you where to go. So when you budget and you say, okay, this week, this is what we're gonna spend on this, and this is what I'm gonna spend, or this month. It's better to do it by the month so you can know where everything's going. But set your budget for the first time. Some may be trying to decide if they're gonna if rent will continue to be their forever story. But here's the key. Ownership is not just about this one big moment at a closing table and getting keys or deed. It's made up of thousands small decisions that we make every day. Those thousand decisions that say I'm not renting my lifestyle anymore. I am going to own it. I want you to put that on a sticky note, and I want you to say it every day. I am not renting my lifestyle anymore. I am going to own it. I'm gonna own my lifestyle. Education plus action. That is the formula. If you have the education, if you have the knowledge, you have to take action. See, oftentimes I read books, I listen at podcasts, I talk to people that do the same, and we can get all this knowledge, all this wisdom, and we do absolutely nothing with it. We talk about it, but we do not execute. So just because you have knowledge, a lot of people, I mean, I can't I don't agree, knowledge is power because if you got it and you don't do nothing with it, then it's powerless. So, education plus action, that's the formula. Knowledge plus action, that's the formula. I'm gonna get the knowledge and I'm gonna apply it. It's a daily alignment between life, finance, and real estate. You have to be the CFO of your life. Do y'all know what CFO means? If you guys don't understand what it stands for, and many um corporations they have this thing called C-suites, and you got the chairman of the board, you have the CEO of the company, you have the chief financial officer. The chief financial officer makes sure the company runs smoothly and financially sound. See, we never talk about the CFO of our own lives, and you are the CFO of your own life, you're your own personal CFO, and we're gonna talk about that because chipping the mindset and reshaping your mindset and to understand life in real estate, you have to be the kind of CFO in all those areas of your life. You got to become the chief, find out what you want in life, find out where you're going, and that means you got to keep going, keep pushing, keep strategizing, keep and learning to adjust, keep running your life smoothly and balancing financially. But we'll talk about that more. You know, we'll get the professionals on here to give you a little more insight on what that looks like. So, guys, listen, this show is all about life, finance, and real estate. And I have enjoyed uh sharing life finance and real estate with you. So I need you to tell a friend, tell a coworker, and until next time, keep building with purpose. Bye for now. See you soon.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Before we go, I just had one question. Oh, you got a question? Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

Okay, we got a question, y'all.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Um, as a 24-year-old in college, what would be your first step into financial literacy?

SPEAKER_04 29:17

As a 24-year-old in college, your first step into financial literacy. Yes, ma'am. I would say your first step into financial literacy is if I'm understanding your question correctly, I would say it starts with that first step I gave you. And that's writing down what I spend. Like looking at you're gonna dissect your finances. You're gonna write down everything that comes in your house and everything that goes out, and what it's gonna take for you to live. And when you can get a shape on like this is what it's gonna take me to live, and this is what I need to do to save, that's a start. And once you start there, then just call me. I'm gonna help you out. But once you start there, everything else will fall in line, but you gotta stay accountable, you have to hold your own self accountable, get an accountability partner. Sometimes, and sometimes we want things and it's not a need. So I teach my boys they're 11, and they'll say, Mommy, I need, I need, I need we sit there and I say, Do you really need it, or is it just something you want? So we give them money, but when it's things they just want, I put my hand out. And then they're looking and they're second guessing, like, oh well, never mind. But see, they have to change their mindset, like, okay, no, I just want it, but if I if I just go buy this$20 jacket I saw, I'm only gonna have$100 left. Because I got one, I one of them, honey, if he can just spend all your money, he's good. But the moment you tell him he has to spend all his money, he don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

You know what? I got a little brother, he's he just turned 20, he's just like that. He would spend my money, my mama's money, and the minute he's trying to spend his money, he he'd rather not spend it. Change his mind.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

But see, he has that they have that mindset, but we have to teach them like you can't spend everything you have. Because if you don't teach your money where to go, your money gonna it's gone. So you we have to give our our money instruction. And it, I mean, to be honest, I'm I'm 100% transparent. I am just learning this over the last two to three years, and I'm 40. So I'm trying to cut the learning curve for our listeners and just for people I'm in connection with because it shouldn't have taken me this long. But hey, it's never too late to get started, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Amen to that. Well, you heard it here. WJMG 92.1, WGDQ 93.1. It was a pleasure. You heard it here. Kirby Herrell, the realtor. Life, finance, and real estate.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Thank you for tuning in to Life, Finance, and Real Estate with Kirby the Realtor. You can catch us every Thursday at 12 p.m. on 92.1 WJMG, 93.1 WGDQ. And also you can listen live at 921 WJMG.com or 931 WGDQ.com. If you happen to miss the live recording, don't fret. We'll replay it at 6 p.m. tonight. Thank you once again for listening to Life, Finance, and Real.