https://youtu.be/vJwNUogoP4E

Highlights:

Introducing Nancy Brooke, the first female founder in the female founder entrepreneur series. (0:02)

Investing before selling -. (1:30)

Taking big risks and financial risks. (3:37)

What happened to me when I got fired from my first corporate job. (7:36)

Resilience is the death of complacency. (9:40)

Nancy’s powerlifting analogy to business. (14:31)

The art and science of manifesting -. (17:30)

Why it’s so easy to get comfortable in our complacency zone. (20:20)

Nancy’s book, “Cycling Wine and Men”. (25:02)

Nancy’s plans for the future. (27:03)

Podcast Transcript:

I'm excited to announce Nancy to be my first female founder in the female founder entrepreneur series. So Nancy, welcome to the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about you and your business? Oh, sure.

And thank you, Shelby, such an honor to be here with you today. So my name is Nancy Brooke. And my business is I am the broker and CEO at a real estate firm here in Billings, Montana called billings, best real estate. Yes, and you and you've been in the real estate industry for some time?

Yes, I have been in real estate in terms of an agent slash broker since 2015. Prior to that, I was investing in real estate. And that's really where I formed my passion for getting involved in things related to properties. Yeah, that's, that's exciting. And so it started with investing before you got into the selling. Is that right?

It did you know, the only regret I have is that I didn't start investing and being in real estate when I was younger, probably like a lot of people. I had a family and had obligations and responsibilities. And I thought it was a little foolhardy for me to jump into a full commission job at that point. However, if I look back to that lady, when she was in her 20s, I wish I would have jumped in when I was younger, got into the real estate investing field. And, you know, I think my life would have been different than it is now not going to regret where I am now. But it's just amazing when you think about those Inklings you have of your genius when you're young. And if you don't act on them, it can put you a little bit behind on the game plan of life.

Absolutely. And you and I have had many cups of coffee on this covers, about how we can how, how, but it's it's hard to take that step. But I think he talked about some interesting, interesting things. And I'd like you to explore a little bit more of your background. I know there's a background in marketing, and you were in corporate for a while, and then you decided to make the transition. But I think you've addressed some things that are that are, are pretty common. And not only and for entrepreneurs, just in general, in stepping out and going into a commission based thing. But I think it's I think it becomes a significant challenge to for female entrepreneurs, with families and obligations, and you need health insurance and those types of things. And it's, I think it's a significant challenge. So is more about that.

I think a lot of it depends on how you grew up. So I grew up in a family that I would consider maybe lower middle class family. I mean, we ate we had, you know, pretty much what we needed. We lived in a small house. We didn't I don't realize how small it is to think, wow, there are five people in that little house. But that's the way it was growing up. And I think taking big risks, and especially financial risks seemed out of my realm of possibility. When I was younger, it seemed so out of control and so reckless, that I just couldn't go there as a young person. So I did get into though, at CES, I think when my daughter was two so I was about 2425. And I did start my own business at that point. I was working at a hospital and PR and decided I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. So I started a home based business did graphic design. Basically back when computer graphic design was first getting started, people didn't have their own computers. So I did that from my house. And then eventually I had an office of my own doing this graphic design. So that was my first real entrepreneurial activity. From there. I ended up relocating back to Montana, which is where I'm from and started a newspaper business with my then husband and boy, things were really tough and all of my fears I had manifested so I ended up getting ahead of myself with expenses. My husband and I had some issues between us. And at the end of the day If the business failed, and I went down with a big crash, at that point, it was tough. I had to go back, find a job and rebuild my life from scratch. So I don't know that sometimes people see somebody who's successful and they don't see all of the challenges they've had, and maybe all the pain they've experienced in life to get where they're at. So sometimes I see you know, those fears still come out. When I think about growing my business, I can have freakout moments. Oh my God, I don't want to be broken pitiless. Can you have to just move forward and do so in a way? That's like, okay, yeah, I've been through it before. The one thing I'll say though, and I don't know if you've had this experience, but having failed in the past, I know that I'm a Phoenix and can rise above the ashes. And there is some power in that I don't want to experience the ashes again. But I do know that I can rise again and recreate my life the way I want it to be. So there is some empowerment in that. And I'd say to anybody who's had some bad luck, who's made some mistakes, who's had things that, you know, maybe have been difficult in their upbringing, we've all had some things, some of us worse than others. I'm sure many people have worse stories than I have. However, it's really up to each of us to determine what we want to create in our life, and you can really create whatever you want to be. And that's the biggest lesson I've learned in life.

Absolutely, gosh, there's so many tidbits in there that I want to talk about. But the the one, the one thing that really stands out to me is is the journey, and is yes, you are a successful entrepreneur, you are a successful real estate agent, and successful in investment. And all these other money, money ideas that you talk about to you are successful. But that didn't come without learning those things and failing sometimes, and I think that's a really important story for entrepreneurs, if the listeners to hear is that it's sometimes you're gonna fall, sometimes it's not going to work out, sometimes you'll invest everything that you have into something, and it doesn't work out. But then the perseverance, getting up being if I love that imagery, the Phoenix, you tell that you are in marketing, phoenix rising from the ashes, you know that there are there is something on the other side of that you just have to push through. And I think that is so important to hear. Well, and so that happened to me when I was younger. I mean, I was, I think I was in my early 30s. With that newspaper business that failed, rebuilt myself back up, ended up with a job pretty steady Eddie job working at a bank was vice president there had great salary got my yearly bonus, but I just felt like I wasn't growing. I wasn't growing in my career, I wasn't growing in my skill base. I had everything said I had a staff, I was well respected at my work. But I just really craved the growth. And so I moved on into a job in corporate sales, with the opportunity to travel around the US, which was exciting to me at the time. And also the opportunity to earn commission with having a great salary. That job was really amazing to start, but it sapped my soul. And I don't know, I don't want to bash corporate because a lot of people have to have corporate jobs. However, there's like a lack of there was a lack of compassion, and of really trying to connect with the individual employee, see where they were at. And I'm not talking about my individual boss or anyone like that, but just from the overall corporate standpoint. And so everybody before me, I had about six people on my team and everybody got fired, and I was the last one to get fired. And basically, it's setting unrealistic targets. And if you don't hit them, then you get fired, and you get fired right before you're supposed to get your big payoff on commissions. However, the great thing about that job is it did allow me to see what it was like to make big, big commissions. And it was like, life changing commissions, and I was able to get started investing in real estate as a result. However, when I lost that job, I just wasn't prepared. I was so devastated. I mean, I'm a high performer, but I'm not the kind of person that gets anyway. Yeah, that's insane. You know, not this person. So it took me a while to regroup and really, you know, I basically was not working for a couple of years and accumulating debt and kind of recreated a bad situation for myself as a result of it now I hung in there and this time I didn't you know, quite burned down to the She says, however it was, it was very challenging many sleepless nights, many nights of anxiety, wondering how I'm going to pay bills, wondering how I can do it. And through all that, I started this career in real estate. And so there's an I can't remember who it was. But there's a one of the great military people told his army to burn, told the Navy to burn the ships behind them, because there was no retreat, either win, or you are going to perish. And in a way, that's what I did. By getting into real estate, it was I had to succeed, because my only alternative was to go back to a boring job, that I was so sad, you know, this, this whole idea of being in your complacent zone. That's like the death of people. And I didn't want to go back to being complacent. And I didn't want to go back to this corporate sales role, which was really killing my soul. So I had no choice. I liked real estate, I was interested in real estate, I made it so I had to succeed. And I risked a lot of money, I risked my time, I risked everything I could to make it a success. And the scary, I'm not going to tell you it was fun. And it was easy, because if it wasn't it, there were a lot of times that weren't fun. And you know, that's the thing, when you start your journey, sometimes you just have to tell yourself, it doesn't really matter, I'm going to, I'm going to do it, you know, I just I have to, I have to do it, or I'm going to perish.

My question for that, and I know a little bit more about your background, and you have published a book and you have all these ideas that surround you with this wealth manifestation and building those building blocks that I think are so interesting, how, what are some keys or ways that you that you can tell our audience of how to have that resilience, because it really is, you've developed a resilience in it and a power through that. And it's, it's hard to have that. And that's why you and I have very similar stories. Well, not very sick. But you know, I was not stuck in a job. But I was in a job where I felt like I wanted more. And I wasn't satisfied. And I wanted my ideas to go somewhere. And I wanted to be a thought leader. And I just felt that that was limited and in academia where I was, and still am. But it's, you know, it's just fun to be on the outside and to discover those possibilities. But it takes resilience. And I'm just Can you talk a little bit about that or talk about some strategies to elevate above those challenges.

I would say one of the best analogies for me, and we've talked about this before Shelby for finding your inner resiliency has been powerlifting. So one of my hobbies is powerlifting. And you could do something else or keep could be running could be whatever your thing is. But the thing about powerlifting that I like is like you're constantly upping the game. And so you lift 100 pounds, and then maybe a couple of weeks, you lift 102 pounds, and then within four months, you're lifting 110 pounds. And on it goes. And one of the things I think about resiliency is you do the step by step activities. You show up every day, even if you don't want to some days, I don't feel like lifting weights, but I show up anyway. You show up, you do the day's work. Some days you don't do as great as you want, but you do it anyway. And you just live another day. And some days, it's just getting through and slogging through the difficult lifts that you have to do in life. So I would say that's the best analogy, you have to show up for yourself. And you have to do the work every day. And you also have to have this vision of yourself that you can do more than you expect. And as you start incrementally, showing yourself how powerful you are, you know that two and a half pounds means you're responding differently. So now I'm not I'm 110 pound lifter, I'm not this 100 pound lifter, and every time you show yourself that you can do it. It's reinforcing your self image and your knowing of who you are. So that's probably the best way to explain it. I Iove that you talked about your powerlifting I was gonna ask about it and I was going to insert it but I'm glad that you did because I think it makes such an incredible analogy for for business and having resilience in developing power and having confidence in yourself and showing up and putting the work in. All of those themes just resonate with resonate with entrepreneurship and they resonate Nate with how you attract people to your business, there's so many. So I think he's read books about that. But there's so many things that so many things that stand out in that story. And for those it for the audience, Nancy is, is a champion power lifter, she's a total badass. And I Yeah, total badass. And I love that you show that and your social media. And I think it's such an important part of your brand and such an important part of your presence and your power as not only an entrepreneur, but as a way that you use it. It's such a nice metaphor and how you balance your life with that, you know, you have to put the time in, you have to put the work in, you have to develop your strength to be able to move to the next level. And I think that's just incredible. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it really is an empowering thing. And again, it's not for everybody. But whatever your thing is, you know, anyone who's great at anything, has put in time, you don't become a great singer, if you just show up. Now, you might be good, you might be naturally talented, but you're not going to be great, you're not going to be a great football player, if you don't put in the reps on your passes. And it's that way with anything you want to do in life, you have to put in the work to be successful, and you're going to make mistakes, and some days aren't going to be great. And that's just the way it is and you gotta persevere.

So let's compare that to to business. Right, that we, you know, especially with and I know you as a successful business business owner, and having been within a few businesses, sometimes we hit that level where we're just, we just don't see ourselves maybe in the position that we are we don't understand what that next level is. I think there's a visualization piece to that, that you talk about. That's, that's been really inspiring to me, this manifestation, how do we had? Can you talk a little bit about that. So I don't know, many years ago, probably 30 years ago, I really got into personal development. And so probably part of the personal development started with maybe positive self talk, those kinds of things that are more common and standard and the things you learn about when you start trying to work on yourself. But what I did through the years is get in and study manifesting. And so manifesting is the art slash science of creating what you want, and bringing it into your life. And, you know, a lot of people will think of the law of attraction, which is part of it. So part of it is knowing what you want and attracting it. But then there's also this whole action piece of taking the action, I like to say you need to act to attract, you can't just sit on your couch eating bonbons and think that Mr. Wonderful is going to knock on your door. Now it could happen. Honestly, it could happen. I don't think it's likely to happen. So you have to have both parts, you have to have this whole visualization piece of what you want to create. But then you have to take action and not just you know, I know there's people that talk about massive action. Well, massive action is fine. But I like to say, more inspired action, you take the action that your intuition tells you is the right move for you. Now, this isn't always easy. A lot of times our fears get in the way our ego gets in the way, and we end up worrying second guessing what action we should take. So sometimes we do need wise counsel from others, whether that's a business consultant, whether it's an intuitive coach, I, I talked to lots of different people. I have script coaches that I've talked to, I've talked to you Shelby as a Strategic Coach, I have people who helped me in social media. So you don't want to just go into things blindly. You want to get wise counsel from people to who can help you with your blind spots. But the manifestation piece, if you think about people like Napoleon Hill, and before him, I mean a lot of the things that these they called them new thought leaders, but a lot of the things that these people had as inspiration are basically people from the Hindu religion from anti times Buddhists. These people are amazing manifest errs and you know, they they call them miracles, but I think there's an ability for us to create what we want in life. If we can stay focused and if we can take the inspired action and hold on to the tension. Don't let go of the tension big because oh, well, I really wanted to go for this. But instead, this will do settling. You don't want to settle, you do want to go for what you want. It's not easy. A lot of people want say they want what they want. But then when you see their actions, they're not moving towards the life of their dreams. So hey, I'm not perfect. I mean, I have my fears. But whenever I start doing something new or bigger for myself, like right now I have a new office, I ordered some new furniture, I have some new people who've joined the team. And it's scary. I'm not going to tell you it's not it is. It's scary for me, because I have to be bigger, I have to be a bigger person to step into this new role. And there's a lot of comfort in our complacency zone.

Absolutely. You are there preaching to the choir there is it's so easy to get comfortable. And you know, whether this was your job or your family or your money situation, it's easy to be comfortable. But it's it's hard to change. It's hard to grow. It's hard to transition because it puts you in an uncomfortable spot. And I was looking for there are so many really cool phrases that you said  there, you have to take inspired actions, you have to act to attract you. I love this hold on to the tension. Like there's a there's a magic in that. And there's a magic in in. There's a movement there. And I think that's really, it's really inspiring to hear that from

well. And one of my one of my great teachers would describe it this way. If you have a rubber band, can imagine a rubber band and you have the tension here. If the tension is going to resolve, okay, you're either going to, if it's stretched out, you're either going to decide, Oh, it's too stretched out, I'm going to release the tension. And so that means you're going to water down your goal, or give up on your goal. But if you hold on to the tension, it has no choice as you expand, expand, expand, the rubber band will eventually zing over to what it is. That is your goal. Because if you put enough tension on it, and you allow that tension to exist, it will resolve itself in favor of what you're going for. There's no other choice, either give up on it, or it results. And so 99% of the time people give up on their dreams. And you know what? Everybody in our life will conspire to make that happen. They're not bad people. They don't want to see us suffer. They see us like, Oh, you don't have to work that hard. It's okay, why don't you take a night off and come watch a movie with me. And nothing wrong with taking a night off or watching a movie, it's just that most people aren't going to support you as you're getting out of your comfort zone. Because they want to see you comfortable, they want you in the place you're at and, and they love you. I'm not saying they don't. But that's how people respond when we're trying to do something that's greater than where we're at where we are in our lives. I love that, we need to we need to spend more time together. That's so fun to listen to so many so many good pieces of advice. It's true that people want us to be comfortable that we there's a comfort in that, but then the people around us are family members are our friends. They don't want they they like they like our routine. They like doing these things. And I think particularly in, in, in our age with, you know, kids and aging parents and there's all these tensions it's it's nice to be comfortable spot but it's but then when you take that step and and you might not have that support. And so that's that I think gets more into the self empowerment and the resilience and all of those things that are so important. So I mean, my my mother was a very kind soul. And I remember I told her back when I was young in my 20s I was going to quit my job and start this business. She said well, that's your funeral. And she wasn't she really she was a very kind person. But she thought I was out of my mind. So even somebody who loves you appreciate you wants the best for for you will say things like that. And it's easy to get dissuaded. So you have to have enough of a purpose and you have to have enough people in your life who also can support you and be your cheerleader. So I think it's really important what you're doing here with your podcast and your your groups and, and your work. You know, being a thought leader in this area. I think it's really important that people Well, no, they're not alone. Thank you. Thank you. That's a Yeah,

it's an it's a, but it's hard to develop that community and hard to develop that. But it's but you got to say I talked to a gentleman earlier today who's a branding expert. And he, he was the CEO of Gold's Gym. So pretty big deal. And he had a lot of background to that. But he said, It's a feeling and it's an experience. And it's a true living your brand instead of just telling people, that's what your brand is. And you have you are a great example of that. And in your real estate business, in your investing in your inspiration that you give to others. So I think that's a, that's a really inspiring thought. And I hope that I'm doing similar thing.

So Nancy, tell us about where I, you are a published author, I want you to tell people where they can find your book and what your book is, and working on another one. So maybe you can give us an idea what that is. Well, so my, my book that I published back, gosh, I think it was 2012 I think it's been a while 10 years, or a decade ago, is a memoir. And it was about my post divorce dating journey. And my bicycle trip across France. It's called cycling wine and men, a midlife Tour de France. And the whole idea was really through the journey of post divorce, dating, and also cycling, which I was doing a lot at the time, I really discovered instead of Finding Mr. Right, I was able to find my right life. And so it really is a journey of discovery. Yeah, you have some fun, you meet some characters in France and had too much wine many times. And there's lots of adventure, but it's, it really is a book of self discovery. So it's has nothing to do with real estate, or really what we've been talking about. But that is my book. In terms of future offerings, I really would love to do something. Actually, I have a lot of sales book ideas. But I also really like to do something to help people understand how to manifest the life of their dreams, and particularly working with money manifesting real estate manifesting, those are the things that I think can make a difference in life, I, I have some agents who work with me, and one of my, one of my goals, personally, is to have everyone who works with me have the ability to manifest a six figure income. And that's really fun. That's what I mean, if most people, most people, if they make six figures in the United States, I mean, some areas are probably real expensive, you need more than that. But if you're able to make $100,000, it's a big deal. And I think it's really doable, especially in real estate. Now, obviously, you have to have the right path to be able to create an income like that. But with real estate, you do have that path. So that's one of the things that really inspires me. I'm not exactly sure what the writing and book will look like. But that's that's something that I'm excited to do. And you know, I think I've been thinking about me as being a real estate Alchemist, you know, turning real estate into gold.

I love that. It's so unique. It's so intuitive. And it's just so it's so attractive. I think it's, I love all that. Yeah, but you and I have talked about that many times. Perhaps we can revisit that conversation. I think there's a there's a lot of really, so much fun imagery there that I think is great. But yeah, but what about your real estate? If people are interested in Montana real estate or just real estate? You're a broker and experienced broker if they have any questions about building a real estate, where can they find you?

So yeah, probably the best way that you can go to my website, my real estate website is Nancy dot Billings. Best real estate.com But probably the best way is just to send me an email if you have any questions. Nancy at Billings, best real estate.com. So I actually love helping people who are interested in getting started in investing. I work primarily Billings Montana area so I you know, I'm not in Missoula Bozeman but in the Billings area, however, it's really fun for me to talk about market and what's happening in the market. Local Market is a little different, sometimes the national market so I find that interesting and fun. I also have real estate investing in Florida and Oh, Ohio and Kentucky. So those are things that I like to talk about too. So if anyone wants to reach out and have a conversation about real estate, yeah, I'd love to connect with them. That'd be great.

I will be sure to include all of your links that in, in the in the podcast post so we can be sure to find you. Nancy, what a great conversation, any, I think are so many great tidbits that we left for entrepreneurs and people that are thinking about stepping out of their role and facing the fears of entrepreneurship. Thank you for being my first feature, let's see how fast I can say this featured female entrepreneur, I think you addressed some of the things that that are challenging the balance of family, the balance of self, and how you take care of yourself and your business and your family and everything all at the same time. I think those are real challenges that we all that we all address, and I'll think about and I think it's important for entrepreneurs and particularly female entrepreneurs to hear, and thank you for being an example of what some what we can be as a female.

Well, thank you, Shelby, it's been really fun chatting with you, as always, and, you know, for anybody who's listening, and if you have some self doubts, just remember, it's normal. It doesn't, you should do foolish things and you know, waste your money and go bankrupt and lose your house over anything. However, just know that you're not alone. Just know that if you get into some challenging times that there are people who care and there are people out there who have been through the same thing. So listen to this series. I'm sure you'll meet some other amazing people as the series goes on. Yes,

thank you again, Nancy. You gave our listeners so many important things. And to your listeners. I look forward to introducing more entrepreneurs and female founders to you to inspire you to take that next step in your business.