MindForce: Mental Fitness, Leadership & Life Stories
Welcome to MindForce: Leadership, Life Stories & Mental Fitness — hosted by Nate Scheer, a Christian dedicated to exploring the power of faith, resilience, and personal growth. This podcast dives deep into the real-life stories behind leadership, healing, and navigating adversity with purpose. Through honest conversations and biblical perspective, Nate connects with guests who have overcome challenges, built mental strength, and found meaning in the mess. Whether you're in the military, ministry, or simply on a journey to lead yourself and others well, MindForce will encourage you to lead with heart, live with hope, and grow through every season.
***The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individual(s) involved and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other agency of the United States Government.***
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MindForce: Mental Fitness, Leadership & Life Stories
Mental Fortitude: Sharon Riddle on Navigating Entrepreneurship, Motherhood, and Life's Fires
I would love to hear from you!
Sharon Riddle shares how adopting a stoic mindset has transformed her approach to entrepreneurship, parenting, and personal challenges, emphasizing the power of focusing only on what we can control.
• Transitioning to entrepreneurship after 9/11 due to economic uncertainty in the aerospace industry
• Developing marketing skills outside her comfort zone as a numbers-driven analyst
• Navigating real estate investment challenges during the 2008 housing crisis
• Finding opportunity in property fires through insurance-funded modernization
• Evolving from parent to accountability partner with her thriving adult daughter
• Creating meaningful memories instead of material possessions
• Practicing daily meditation, affirmations, and gratitude rituals
• Using stoic principles to manage health challenges including Lyme disease
• Setting SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound
• Taking pauses to reset mentally and emotionally when facing difficulties
"One takeaway: Always assess where you're growing, where you're going, and what outcomes you want. Find the tools and techniques to help you get there, especially in your thoughts and words. Don't be harsh with others, and don't be harsh with yourself."
Hi everyone, I'm Nate Shear, your host, and you're tuned in to Mindforce, the podcast that explores love, life and learning, because your mind truly matters. Today we have Sharon Riddle and today we'll be talking about entrepreneurship, being the mom of a thriving adult daughter and having a stoic mindset, or having that mental resilience. So, sharon, we're going to start with the easy stuff, the four W's. Who are you?
Speaker 2:I am Sharon Riddle.
Speaker 1:Pretty easy right.
Speaker 2:What do you do? I am an entrepreneur and I would call myself more of a real estate guide.
Speaker 1:Okay, and why are you here?
Speaker 2:I am here because mindset is very vital for life and business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And where in the world are you from? I am from the great state of Denton, texas, well, of Texas, but I am in Denton, which is north central Texas. For those of you who really want to figure out where in the world I am in Texas.
Speaker 1:Denton, Texas. There you go. Yeah, it's always fun living in different places. I'm currently in the UK right now, and so trying to explain people that you can drive across the middle of Texas for 14 hours and still be in Texas is kind of mind blowing for anyone that's British or in Europe. It's pretty fun to watch their heads explode. Or I lived in California for a while and same thing, I think 13 or 14 hours up California and you're still in California.
Speaker 2:And you're still in the same state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's always funny Like you never travel. Well, we travel it. Just you know it takes a lot longer to get anywhere.
Speaker 2:That's why Texans are so attached to their vehicles?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you need them. You got to be able to get places, so we'll start with the warm up. Sharon, what inspired your entrepreneurial journey and how has it shaped your life?
Speaker 2:Well, what inspired and it's kind of an unusual situation is 9-11 was kind of a catalyst.
Speaker 2:So 9-11 here in America and part of that is because my business partner and spouse is in aerospace, so at the time he worked for Boeing in a plant in Corinth he does really A lot of people don't realize that Took a big hit, went down, and I was also at the time working for a transit company, dallas Area Rapid Transit very dependent on a formula, federal formula as well as a tax formula, so sales tax, and so I believed it was just a matter of time before there was going to be a layoff.
Speaker 2:I mean, just I was in more of a financial or business analyst role and so I just think in terms of numbers I'm like, okay, the clock is ticking here, and so that was really the catalyst. I mean it didn't freak us out doing that. We felt we had some skill set to do that. We sought out some coaches and we had been doing that for a little bit. And then I came from an entrepreneurial family, you know, wearing a lot of hats, running a business. I had seen that modeled in my parents' home, in the home of my aunts and uncles, as well as my childhood neighbor who owned the only toy store in Denton, texas.
Speaker 1:So you saw the upcoming change and got on board and shifted over with that change. That's good stuff. I had a question what's one piece of advice you'd share with your daughter that reflects your own life philosophies?
Speaker 2:Well, the mindset you can create anything. Got the right mindset because it's going to. You're going to put yourself in an emotionally resilient place, you're going to take inspired action and you're going to be a creator and you're going to create something purposeful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's powerful stuff. I think perspective is super important. You have, you know, the victim mentality where you could, you know, really, you know, go into darkness and things like that because you're not given the right hand, or you know your family life isn't great, or things like that, or you use it to, you know, propel yourself and get into change and try something new. You can have the exact same thing happen to different people and, depending on how they look at it and you know how they use that, they really change things around for the better or for the worse. So having the mindset like you said, I think, is super important. And the last question of the warmup is if you could sum up the essence of a stoic mindset in a single sentence, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Resilience is the way.
Speaker 1:Resilience is the way. Yeah, can you unpack resilience or not? Sorry, not resilience, but stoicism a little bit. I think you know a lot of people believe it means that you have no emotion and you're emotionless and kind of has I've seen in certain situations and certain people, kind of has a negative connotation. But how you know, if you had to give an elevator speech on what stoic is, how would you describe it?
Speaker 2:I would say well, it's not a new thing, because Marcus Aurelius wrote his meditation on that and he didn't even create stoicism, he had a teacher, a coach, that created it. He just wrote things down, and so we have a guide to go by because of his meditations. But I will also say that it's really important to have, and it's important to think about, controllables versus uncontrollables, and that is really very core to Marcus Aurelius' belief and what he writes about in his meditations, because he was an emperor king, supposedly, according to some historians, one of the good kings. So he utilized that philosophy not only in ruling the Roman Empire, but also in his family life as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny how you know timing comes together. I read the Daily Stoic every morning.
Speaker 2:I do too. I get the email, you get the email.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this morning was controllable. So that's really funny saying, if you're worrying about all these things and you're using up all the mind, you know, power and all those things, it's really easy. You just narrow it down to the things that you can control, and that's not not that far, it's just the things within your, within your brain, within your mind, even your health it mentioned like even your health you can't control. So you could worry about your physical body all you want, but you could come down with illness or different things could happen. So really all you have is that one thing, just your mind, and that's all you need to worry about. So it's a powerful one for January 13. But, yeah, I wanted to see if you had any questions for me, sharon.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the questions, one of the things that has been top of my head is what are your mind, what are your yeah, I think I've struggled throughout my life with certain things and I think one of them that's kind of difficult for me is I'm the happy-go-lucky guy and I love being the happy-go-lucky guy. But I think sometimes that gets portrayed or is seen differently from the outside and so a lot of times I feel like people think I don't care or things like that. But I kind of focus on like what you said is the controllables, like if I can't do anything, if I can't control it, if I can't fix it, like I'm not going to let it impact me or really take me down for that particular day. I lost my dad when he was 50. So he was still pretty young and you know lost him to lung cancer and didn't smoke and so a lot of things seem unfair and lost too early and things like that. So I've always been relatively happy and you know things like that. But I feel like losing him early and seeing you know him not being able to do the things that he wanted to do really kind of solidified that in my life, where there's not going to be anything that's going to take, you know the joy from my day.
Speaker 1:If it's like a, you know, minor inconvenience, there are larger things that have happened, of course, but I try not to let any of the smaller things take that time. I think there's that reference where it talks about all the seconds in the day. If you let one thing, like you know, ruin it, are you going to give away all the rest of that time? Because I think it refers to seconds as in money Like you wouldn't give away the rest of your money just because you had a bad hour or whatnot. Give away the rest of your money just because you had a bad hour or whatnot.
Speaker 1:I definitely try to stay within the stoicism and things like that and trying to focus on the things that I can control and not letting anything really bring me down too much and maybe I process and bottle on the inside a little bit, so that's probably not healthy, but I definitely try to focus on the things that I can control. So there are things that impact me and affect me, but outwardly I feel like a lot of times I look pretty happy. What do you think about that? How does that fit in there?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm kind of the contrast, because I'm kind of like, more serious, you're trying to add levity, and my business partner, who is also my spouse, does that too, so he's trying to inject some levity in a situation that's a little more serious, and I am probably more what my mother would term me. When I was a child. She called me her Vulcan child. So I'm just, you know, kind of getting into the seriousness, and so I have I actually have to work for more levity so, and what I try to do is have really more resilience in my mindset and emotions, so then I can interject joy into the day, and so that's one of the things that I really do work on and pause and say where is the joy I'm putting in this day. So I'm kind of on the opposite side of that equation.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good reminder to their spectrums on everything, and neither of them are right and neither of them are wrong. You know, they're just different. So I try to, you know, balance out and try and be serious when I'm supposed to be serious and you're trying to bring a little bit more fun and joy into things. And so I think being aware of where we are is probably the most important. Not that any of them are better or worse than the other, but just knowing, like, where you fit and how you can, you know, adjust the situation, and every situation is different, right, know your audience, you know what venue or whatever event you're at. Maybe it causes you, know you, to go one direction or another, but yeah, I think that's a good reminder. You know different ends, but you just got to know where you're sitting so you can take care of what you need to.
Speaker 1:Well, we're going to move into your three main pillars. So the first one is entrepreneurship. I want to know what motivated you to take that leap. We started to talk about it a little bit, but what lessons have you learned along the way?
Speaker 2:no-transcript. That actually was a mastermind mentor who kept talking about e-books you need an e-book, you need an e-book. And then, of course, my marketing team you need an e-book, you need an e-book. And so finally, you know, we're in editing mode regarding the real estate e-book and in some ways, I guess they kind of wore me down, but it was necessary, it's critical, and one of the things that I've also learned in entrepreneurship is to listen to your marketing team and if you've been a really data-driven, numbers-driven man or woman like me, marketing doesn't have to be a totally black box and you don't have to be fearful of it, because for the longest time, that's what I would tell my marketing team. I'd say, yeah, marketing is such a black box for me. You know that. You know because my whole training, you know because my whole training, my MBA, my jobs prior to my company job in real estate or financial analysis, or I was a senior business analyst. So marketing is like that was like the woo-woo stuff for me. I'm like.
Speaker 1:So how do you work on something where you have that certain specialty or expertise? How do you become, like, more well-rounded or get to understand the other side a little bit more?
Speaker 2:Well, I have to seek out people who are subject matter experts and see my marketing team. They are the marketing experts and I listen to them and now they've got me thinking of marketing a whole lot. So, especially when I'm on two bi-monthly calls with two different masterminds but with one of the masterminds, you know, they talk about marketing a great deal, and so I'm always bringing these other ideas to them and they're like oh well, you know, marketing was, you were talking about it being such a black box, and now you're bringing all these different ideas. And that's where the collaboration has kind of come, because I have been seeking out more education and more ideas, more creativity in the marketing quadrant. That we put that on YouTube Not just all the podcasts, but kind of what has been a challenging point for me and put that out there on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. It reminds me. One of my favorite books is Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott, and she talks about the beach ball method, or beach ball theory, where the different colors of the beach ball I got the red and the green and the blue and she tries to figure out ways to get everyone to play together and do things well, because if you're on the blue side of it and you look down, that's marketing, that you look through everything through, and so everything seems blue, and then the finance department or whatever is standing on red, and so they're talking through that specific lens, and sometimes the two sides can't get to an agreement because they're so used to. They need to be able to step out and maybe stand on the red or the green or whatever it is. That's a little bit different from where they normally stand, or they're just always gonna think of it from that one dimension.
Speaker 1:So that's a really good point to get out and absorb stuff from other other people and especially, like you said, subject matter experts, like they do that all the time. Let them do the thing that they do and you can focus on other things or, you know, bring different ideas and try and generate some other ideas. That's, that's all really good stuff. Throughout your your journey of entrepreneurship, what do you think is like the biggest, biggest flop that you wish you could redo? Is there one that just stands out?
Speaker 2:Well, I will say that mostly in the single family home arena, we didn't have a super big flop, but we did have a property that we thought was going to be a flip. However, market conditions changed and so this was, you know, around more of the 2008-2009 time frame, and so there were some properties that ended up going distressed in this neighborhood in northeast Arlington in Texas, and a home investor came in and bought a house. Well, that immediately lowered the comparable sales which affected our property that we had acquired. We had acquired, so we had to change our buy box for that property, or our buying, actually our selling strategy, our exit, and so we had to be a landlord for that property versus just selling it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Can you share a pivotal moment in your business journey that's really tested your resilience.
Speaker 2:I will say, when we were in the single family home business and 2008,. 2009 came around and there was just more of this crunch. So banks didn't really want to loan money. Even some of the community banks didn't want to loan money on real estate investments money. Even some of the community banks didn't want to loan money on real estate investments.
Speaker 2:Well, I had had in my back pocket the name of a coach who would coach people on working with private lenders. He was nationally known, been doing it for a long time, and so we went to Alan Calgill's boot camp in San Antonio to learn how to have that skill. All of a sudden, we were making money for one of my neighbors who's a nurse. We're making money for a friend who was a computer science person and a project lead. We're making money for a person who is a former banker, because they could come in and be our private lenders and we already had a real estate attorney so she could create promise summary notes, so we could make other people money. And that was our first opportunity to make other people money.
Speaker 1:That is a pivotal moment. How do you balance the demands of entrepreneurship with your personal life and values?
Speaker 2:entrepreneurship with your personal life and values. Well, it's challenging. I mean it really is, and I will say that quite often my thriving adult daughter has pointed out to me that I spend a lot of time on business. You know, I spend a lot of time on business, so I have to be super mindful of squeezing in more personal time or more fun activities. Like I'm an opera lover, so going to the Dallas Opera, so doing some things like that, and also interjecting in some other things.
Speaker 2:That a speaker that I'd heard many years ago that runs his own camp, a coaching camp, jesse Itzler. He's also married to Sarah Blakely, who created Spanx. For you ladies out there, you know what Spanx are, but anyway that you have some things that kind of are life-defining events. He calls them Kevin's Rules. So you're just doing something that you would never consider doing. It's just, but you do it, and you do it with somebody else, or you do it with your children. You know you, you go out there and it's, it's the best thing you've done in your life. It ends up being the best thing you've done in your life and it is a a life memory, it's a life event and you have one of those, at least one of those every year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way to do it. I really align with that and I want to get more towards that. I know that we just closed out Christmas. That's one thing that I think we really want to, and we'd love to shift over to getting rid of the toys and you know all the hard plastic that just sits around and they don't really want to, and we'd love to shift over to getting rid of the toys and you know all the hard plastic that just sits around and they don't really care about and trying to shift it over towards more events and and memories that go along with that.
Speaker 1:This year we moved over to the uk and so we were able to do the polar express. So there's an old steam train and it takes you around and they have like the fake north pole and things like that, and Santa comes on and gives out the silver bell from his sleigh and it's a great time. There was a hot chocolate and cookies and a lot of good things, and I'd really like to shift towards that. Well, hopefully they'll remember, you know, the singing and the dancing and the fun they had versus these, you know these toys that just kind of sit around. It's kind of even funny too, too, because last year my son was so into dinosaurs so we got all these dinosaurs and they make noise and they're all cool and whatnot.
Speaker 1:And this year he's into pokemon so he wanted to basically donate all the dinosaurs that he just got last year. So it was kind of funny and kind of reinforcing this thing where it's like they don't really care about them that much the next year. He's like we try to downsize and get rid of some stuff before we get into Christmas so that we can. You know, we try to tell them to donate stuff and let other kids play with the toys, so we try to fill up a bag or two and take that in before we get into Christmas, and so we try to do that. He's like I'll just give away all the dinos and I'm like those are brand new, they got batteries and they light up and all that. So just kind of funny. But yeah, I totally resonate with that. That's awesome that you know people are shifting more towards making memories. I think that's what's important. Life's only so long and you know life's pretty short, so we should enjoy the memories that we can, which I think really.
Speaker 2:In fact we did that the last two years with my, with my daughter. She lives in Washington DC. She has lived there for six years, and so we just pack up everything and we spend a week. We're not there. On top of her, we are in a hotel of our choice and we do bring the laptop. But you know, we just kind of shut everything down and we're just with them and we go to museums, whatever they decide to do. This year we went to a Messiah sing-along at the Kennedy Center. I would consider that kind of a Kevin's rule kind of thing. Haven't done that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's glorious. I remember the first time I visited DC I think it was a couple of years ago and I just was there in the beginning of December it always blows my mind that the whole capital what do they call the National Mall is all free. That's just crazy. To me, growing up in California, everything costs money, and so I remember the first time I walked through the Smithsonian and I was trying to find the ticket booth. I thought for sure. I was like, oh, where's the? How do I, how do I pay? And they're like oh, you're good, it's like what? It must be taxes or something. But the National Mall is pretty cool, pretty great to walk around. This last time I went through the one of aerospace with all the airplanes.
Speaker 2:Well, the aerospace is great. Yeah, dan has to go. He's gone there more than one time. He'll go there again. And then there's another great aerospace museum that's over at Dulles in Virginia, and so we've been over there too. So you know, you got to hit those because he's in aerospace and so you know, going to museums or air shows that kind of just comes with the territory being his spouse and business partner. So we've seen some cool planes. We've seen some cool planes fly in that are vintage planes. We've seen a V-22 Osprey fly in and Dan had to go over and talk to the flight crew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I have stationed out. With me is the CV-20. And when it shifts from airplane to helicopter it's just one of those things. I've seen it a bunch of times and every time you just kind of have to watch it just shift.
Speaker 1:Tilt rotor. Yeah, it's a bizarre thing, but the next pillar we have which I think this is a good transition is being the mom of a thriving adult daughter. So we talked about making some of those memories with her, and so what does it mean to you to see your daughter thriving as an adult?
Speaker 2:And how did you support that growth? Well, I will say it really is wonderful seeing her thrive and we actually kind of transitioned our relationship when she got out of high school, so she was kind of on her own. She decided to go to university out of state. So she went to the University of Denver Beautiful place, wonderful university. She was 12 hours away. To go to university out of state. So she went to the University of Denver beautiful place, wonderful university, she was 12 hours away. And so she actually called me more.
Speaker 2:So, you know, for social events, you know what do I do, what do I wear, you know how do you think I need to handle this situation? So those things kind of started cropping up during that time and it really hasn't changed the whole time. But I will say, one of the things that she and I kind of really work on a great deal mindset. She is a consultant and of course I'm a business owner, but we we really both work on our, our mindset, with different techniques, different ways, but we're always sharing those tips. It's kind of like tips and techniques. So we share that between the two of us. So it really feels great. It gives me a lot of joy to really see her thriving.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. So you said you know as high school and as an adult you know you guys kind of bonded over some of those things. But what are some lessons from parenting influence how you approach challenges in business and life. Were there things that you taught her earlier on in life that kind of set her up on that trajectory?
Speaker 2:Well, I did teach her to be flexible and I really work at being flexible, and one of the instances, way back when she was in Montessori school, required all of us to be really flexible. It was a science project, so a lot of parents are going to love this. So we were going to the science fair and Nora and her science project partner decided that they wanted to experiment and raise Painted Lady butterflies. We had to go have a. We had to find a vendor to get the larvae raise them up.
Speaker 2:Well, we had like three different lots. We had to go through the first two. The larvae died Different, totally different reasons, totally different reasons. So we had to kind of get through the whole process, but each time we determined what the problem was with. I was actually talking to the field biologist and so we were diagnosing what was going on and so they would send us these different lots. And then finally, they sent us the mature Penelope butterfly larvae, successfully raised them, conducted the experiment. Yay, we went through the whole scientific method and on the outcome, they got an award at the science fair nice, you never thought you would you got to be flexible?
Speaker 2:I guess you really have to be resilient too yeah, you never thought you would have been troubleshooting. Uh, butterflies, I never you know, you never learned that going through an mba program. I can tell you that uh, or parenting.
Speaker 1:Parenting is so funny to me. People always, like, when they have their first baby, come to you. You know I have like three kids and so it's like what's the tip? Like I don't know there's. There's no handbook really. I mean, there's been plenty of books written but you just try to keep them alive for like 18 years and then you have to find out if you did okay or not. I don't know if there's really you know. Just crazy to me it's like you know, wrap the baby, don't wrap the baby, it's good for it, it's bad for it. And then the next year it's good for it again. I don't know. Like, eat chocolate, don't eat chocolate. Red wine's good.
Speaker 2:Well, not for babies, but for us it's not good, it's like geez we can't figure out what's going on well, I think, in each step, in each, you do have to be observational, you really have to be observation and adjust like maybe that's the most difficult part.
Speaker 1:People want the a, a, b, c.
Speaker 2:You know this like nice roadmap they want the playbook, and sometimes you don't have a playbook or you need to throw the playbooks out that everybody's been giving you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely think that's true, because timelines always drove me nuts. You know, the walking, the talking.
Speaker 2:Everyone wants it to be yeah, all the milestones.
Speaker 1:It has to be, you know, 12 months, months, 18 months, I'm like. Some of them are like 24 to potty train or whatever, and some are six months. Sometimes they just get it and sometimes they don't. But it doesn't really mean anything. You just got to wait for the next thing, like you said, the next step, and then that I'll level out with the last one or whatever. But it is funny when people try to get hung up on certain things like that. One thing I love on the show is stories. I think that's the best way that we, you know, pass down information from generation to generation. So can you share a story of a proud moment that reminded you why resilience and mindset matter in raising children?
Speaker 2:Well, I do have a couple that I'm going to share today, a couple yay. Well, of course, nora's graduation from the University of Denver very proud moment for us all. We were there and cheering her on, everybody together in the auditorium, even though she was annoyed that only the engineering students had their names on the jumbotron. We got over that, moved beyond that. And then another proud moment is when I was at a mastermind event in Dallas with some of my mastermind people and I was having lunch with a couple of women and we all have adult daughters. One of them is a physician and the other one is an engineer and we were talking about having thriving daughters and what joy that gave us.
Speaker 2:Well, one of the moms who's an engineer, her daughter hadn't quite graduated, she's getting an engineering degree and culturally she was just kind of a little with the daughter. And here both of us moms are cheering the other friend on, saying you know, you can do that. I think you need to just loosen up a little bit. You know you're an engineer, your daughter's an engineer, you know. And then you know, she told us well, all Indian mothers have to be tough on their children and we're like but you are going to be the exception. You're going to be the outlier because we are going to harass you until you lighten up a little bit on your daughter and you're going to see on the other side of that that she is going to be a thriving and beautiful young woman, just like the daughters we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. It's interesting how we define success. It's always something that's really bizarre to me. What does that mean? Does that mean the car, the house, the you know whatever? If you got the family and you're kind and you take care of others, like that's successful right. So success I mean. How would you define success?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on what quadrant of your life it is in, because I have little different measurements for success. For my daughter it would be, you know, is she happy in her work, is she moving through her milestones? And even, you know, is she able to really do some of the personal things she wants to do, like this 10K run in Washington DC that we're going to be going back to Washington DC to cheer her on in her first 10K run? So it would depend on the quadrant, you know, is it the personal quadrant or is it the business quadrant? One of the markers of success that also is a little bit of a weakness right now, and I'm'm going to strengthen it up, is taking more personal travel, that is, international. My daughter has reminded me that I'm a little light on that. That's one of the things too, nate, you know, especially as your kids just keep growing and they get older, get closer to adulthood, they remind you of things that aren't quite where you want them to be.
Speaker 1:Oh, they get a little more opinionated, a little more strong.
Speaker 2:They do, they have many things to share with you, especially that aren't just quite where they need to be with you.
Speaker 1:Oh, they point out the weakness. Are they there to point out the good stuff too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, they do. You know, when we my daughter and I talk about some things, she said well, you know, you're improving in this area and you're really. So we actually do a little, almost a little, swot analysis. You know a little, you know the strengths, the weaknesses, you know all of that on the fly. So we kind of we can do that with each other too. So you know, we kind of say well, you know, how are you doing in this quadrant, how are you doing in this quadrant? So we're kind of accountability buddies in some areas.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. Always good to look at the opportunities and threats too. Right, yeah, it is. So the last pillar we have is stoic mindset, and I'm excited to talk about some mindset stuff. So how has adopting a stoic mindset or practicing mental resilience transform the way you face adversity?
Speaker 2:I will say it allows me to have some detachment from a situation and case in point with a couple of investments that we've had. There have been fires.
Speaker 2:Well, literal literal fires, ok, and one of them they had to totally rebuild the building. So totally rebuild the building. Arson, well, not arson. A lot of times it's Christmas lights or the staves or somebody is sleeping in bed with a cigarette Usually it's things like that, so it's not really arson, it's some accident of some sort that has been initiated by a tenant.
Speaker 2:But what I did is I leveraged my background, my history, because I had had a fire in a previous year, successfully worked through that, the property manager worked through that, worked through everything with the city, got the inspections done and on the back end of that, that property, within 30 months, gave me a three times return.
Speaker 2:So I am looking to see what kind of return these other two fire properties have done and on one of them they've really come along with the rebuild. In fact I requested a property tour in October and so I have seen how they have reconstructed some of the build to really even more modernize them, like going from the 70s to have more of a 2000 look versus a 70s look versus a 70s look. So you can do some things with some appliances and with some fixtures and especially if they're having to do some drywall kind of work and things like that. So now I'm trying to keep in mind that there are just more units that are upgraded and they're utilizing insurance because they were fire, so there should be some gain in that department because they're not using part of their capital expense budget. They were using the fire insurance money for that. So I'm trying to keep steady on that and remind myself of the progress that they're making and how they're utilizing the funds, just in a different way, in a different bucket.
Speaker 1:That's interesting too. I think that's a good reminder that everything happens for a reason, right? So you have a fire. You're initially thinking that's terrible, it's bad news. But you, just as easily, like you did, you reframed it and things are getting upgraded and it's going to be newer for the future. Even bad things have some light in there. So with the insurance, I'm curious do you? Is that all covered, or do you only get a certain portion of that? How does that work for insurance?
Speaker 2:It's typically covered. I mean if you, I mean if there's no arson in play. And with these there's no arson in play and they'll have an inspector go in and inspect it. Of course that'll take a while with the city to inspect and you know, because they've got to kind of got to go through all of all of their procedures and ensure that yes, it is, it was an accident versus arson, as you had said. And and also work with the insurance provider and make sure. Of course one of the things is the part the team has to make sure that you're adequately insured and that you have that protection during the acquisition side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. What are some key strategies or practices you use to cultivate resilience in your daily life?
Speaker 2:In my daily life I do take a pause. So I take a pause and I do a reset. We kind of alluded to that earlier, you and I, where you're. Just you stop what you're doing and you need to take a little different course of action so you can do a mental reset, you can do an emotional reset, you can even physically reset your body. You say, oh well, have I been sitting too long, oh well, I need to get some movement, I need to move a little. So you can kind of take a pause and just observe and then take a little different course of action in that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any daily rituals like coffee, journaling, meditation or anything?
Speaker 2:I do meditate, so I'm a meditator and I do use affirmations. So I use affirmations in the morning, I use affirmations midday and I use some affirmations at night, and I also have a gratitude ritual. Yeah, can you walk us through some of that? Sure, sure. Well, it's pretty simple. Every morning, after meditating, I think of three things that I am grateful for, and I speak them out loud. I say what I'm thankful for this. You know, whatever I'm thankful for, and I have three things every morning.
Speaker 1:Hmm, okay, yeah, it's interesting. I've seen some research and, as you're thinking about things, it's the same as if they actually occurred, which I thought was pretty wild.
Speaker 2:So if you're worrying about, like you know, joy, happiness, love, those emotions- those higher level emotions that are going to put you in that better zone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think is an important reminder. We think, oh, it's just kind of cheesy, I'm saying stuff for myself, but that research proves, even if you're thinking about it I mean the example I used was a negative example but it is impacting you the same way as if it were really occurring. So if anyone's like it's a little cheesy to you know, talk to myself or repeat mantras or whatnot, it it actually does it. It does what it's supposed to. So you know, build yourself up. You know a little self-talk. I think we do a lot of self-talk. The problem is we do negative self-talk is is the problem we're saying things all the time, but sometimes we're not very nice about ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes we're harsh Right, aren't we? Why don't we do that same thing with the positive? I don't know. And the last question I have in this section is can you share a time when stoic principles helped you navigate? A difficult decision helped you navigate?
Speaker 2:a difficult decision. Well, I actually have a couple. So one of those was when my daughter was diagnosed with Lyme disease and she's in a remission state and has been for a number of years. So some stoic principles helped me in that. But then later who was diagnosed with Lyme disease and so I am really on more of the back end of that. So I am very close to more of a remission state with my Lyme disease and I will say stoic principles really helped me through that because I had to really focus on controllables versus uncontrollables in every stage of the diagnosis, with my daughter as well as myself yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's uh from ticks, right, is that right? Yes, it's tick born interesting and there's a pals is that right panda? There's a p1 right pause that comes off of that as well. Maybe that's something different.
Speaker 2:Well, there might be more of a palsy.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay. Well, we talked about a lot of good stuff, Sharon. Let's try to bring some of these together. What's the biggest connection you see between entrepreneurship, parenting and mental resilience and mental?
Speaker 2:resilience. Well, you have to breathe. You have to take a breath some time, breathe in and say, OK, how am I going to approach this? Because you can just go, you know, in either one of those quadrants, you know, and that's not helpful. All you're doing is injecting unnecessary negative emotions into a situation and creating chaos. Breathe first, so inhale and exhale, and don't be a chaos creator, Kenneth. Kind of minimize the chaos, minimize the drama, and everybody will be very appreciative of that.
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. It's bringing it all together. And the final, sharon if there's one takeaway from your journey that you want listeners to remember, what would it be?
Speaker 2:One takeaway Well, you always have to assess where you're growing, to where you're going, what?
Speaker 2:kind of growth do you need and what kind of outcomes do you want? Find the tools and the techniques that are going to help you really get there, especially in your thoughts. In your thoughts, but also in your words. Use the right, the right words. Don't be so harsh with others and don't be so harsh with yourself. So, as we are in a new year, sharon, do you have any tips or tricks for yearly planning? Do you sit down and plan out what 2025 looks like? In fact, we even had a bimonthly meeting with one of my mastermind mentors and we were going over some goals, but what we're doing is we're doing a breakdown, so we're making those goals smart. People don't know what smart goals are. They're going to be smart. They're going to be sustainable Specific measurable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead and say them Nate.
Speaker 1:I think that's what they are Specific, specific, measurable, obtainable, realistic and tangible time, sensitive time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was the make your goals smart goals make them smart.
Speaker 1:Be specific, not I want to get better.
Speaker 2:That doesn't really get us anywhere, help anything you need, to be really specific.
Speaker 1:Something you can look back and measure right.
Speaker 2:One of the things my mentor really harps on is you know the relevant and the time sense. And if he's like, if you don't have a time listed on it, you know you're just, you're floundering forever. You know you can have this goal, but when's it going to happen? And he really is very he's really very frank. If you're not operating in that zone, Good stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for coming out. Sharon, everyone out there, I'd love your input. Share your questions or feedback on any of the various social media pages, engage with us and you might even hear your next suggestion on an upcoming episode. I love you all. See ya, thank you.
