Open The Gate
Breaking down Sacramento Real Estate: Our Favorite People, Places and Mindsets
Open The Gate
Ep. 12: Jacqueline Nance: Building A Brand, Navigating T1D and Selling Whitney Ranch
From the vibrant beats of rock music to the steady rhythm of a successful real estate career, Jacqueline Nance joins us to share her incredible journey of resilience and growth. Her tale begins in Southern California, a country music fan turned rock aficionado under the influence of her husband, and transitions to her life in Sacramento, where she shifted to a real estate force to be reckoned with. With the support of her family and an unwavering determination to connect with clients, Jacqueline's story is a testament to the power of personal evolution and the success that follows.
Our conversation takes a deeper dive into the mechanics of building a real estate empire with a sharp focus on branding and finding one's niche. She opens up about her experiences, revealing how zeroing in on a market like Whitney Ranch not only skyrocketed her business but also solidified her roots in the community. We laugh about chance encounters with clients during family bingo nights and reflect on the cherished connections that have blossomed from past podcast engagements. It's not just about selling houses; it's about the intricate dance of fostering lasting relationships while carefully balancing work and play.
But life isn't all about business, and we get personal discussing the complexities of parenting in the digital age. From managing a child's volleyball career through social media to caring for a family member with Type 1 diabetes, we explore the nuances that shape our lives beyond the office. And in a heartwarming twist, we ponder the beauty of contentment and the significance of embracing one's own narrative. It's a blend of laughter, memories, and invaluable insights, leaving you with a sense of gratitude for the paths we each walk. Join us for this episode; it's not just a podcast—it's an immersion into life's multifaceted journey.
All right, Dan, good morning. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Hey buddy, how are you feeling?
Speaker 1:I'm good.
Speaker 2:Just off the plane.
Speaker 1:Just off the plane, just worked a couple shifts in Seattle, just landed a little bit ago and then, priority number one, Get over and hang out with you and our awesome guest here did it.
Speaker 2:Be still my heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, this is where I want to be.
Speaker 2:So we're going to jump right in. Today We've got a really, really exciting guest. She is the owner and what lead agent with Nansen Company. She is co-banker, master's club president, elite and Azillo, Best Customer Service, Recognized Realtor here in the area. Let's play in Jacqueline Nance.
Speaker 1:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:We got some ladies that like to rock coming on this pod.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:They are rock chicks for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, super hardcore for a little of me.
Speaker 1:I love it, but we've, you know that's one of the favorite things about the show is that we send out you know a little questionnaire kind of just to make sure we, you know our guests, know what to expect and what we kind of get to know them a little bit better. And I always look forward to what that song is that come back and they've all been kind of shockers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it is, it's very, very I don't know. It piques your interest, right? Like it gives you a little peek behind the curtain. We, we thought a lot, we talk a lot about, like the name of the show, open the gate. It was predicated on a song that I really enjoyed. So so talk about tool anemia, Jacqueline Nance. Why, why are we, why are we listening to tool this morning?
Speaker 3:It's kind of funny. So, uh, I grew up listening to country my entire life and that's everything that I know. And then when I met my husband, ryan, he introduced me to a lot of heavy rock and I never liked it at first but it grew on me over time. And then, after I had Kenzie and I was trying to get back into the gym and get in shape, that was like my stair mill song, where I'd walk in, drop her off at the daycare, put on that song and I could bust it out on the treadmill for like an hour.
Speaker 1:I love that Nice. Yeah, it's still. Still holds to this day.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little about yourself. Um, you are. You are. You're like Blake and I. You were transplanted to the Sacramento area as well, Correct, so talk about where'd you come from, How'd you get here? Why'd you come All the fun stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I grew up in Southern California. Um, if you're driving down south, it's right at the bottom of the Great Vine in Valencia. So I grew up, season passes to magic mountain and you know that was home, away from home. And then, um, I met Ryan in 2009. He had been down there for a job transfer, um, working at a gym, and I met him at the gym. And then, his job needed to transfer him up to Sacramento, where he's from. He grew up in Roseville.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And so, um, after four months of knowing each other, I was like I'll go with you. You know, see what this, what this will turn into. And um, we moved to Roseville. We rented a one bedroom apartment for 695.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then they were going to raise our rent to like I don't know 795 or something. We were like, okay, absolutely not.
Speaker 2:So that's a reasonable e-brake. Yeah, how dare you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, but I mean gosh, it's a really interesting story, cause we had like no money at the time. We moved up here together. I think we had like $400 in our bank account and we started at that one bedroom apartment and we have just built this completely beautiful life together and, you know, had a couple kids and bought our. You know we've on our third house now and so we really just started with nothing and have totally built up. You know, from from when we first met.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, very cool. Now the real estate thing, though, is it has it always been real estate for you? Um, what did you do in a previous professional life?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think this is the yeah. This is my seventh year in real estate, which is so hard to believe. It's like flown by Um, but before seven pretty interesting years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and just you know, I, I, I will get into kind of how you and I met a little bit, but you do not have the presence in person or online or in sales of a seventh year agent.
Speaker 3:Is that good or bad?
Speaker 1:That is good in a good way. Uh yeah, I am surprised to hear that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mm, hmm, um. But before real estate, I was home with my kids and going to college and I got my bachelor's degree online. While I was raising both girls, they were little. And then, when it was time for me to go back to work, um, I was just finding that all the jobs were entry level, even with a bachelor's degree, like $15 an hour.
Speaker 2:What year was that?
Speaker 3:2014.
Speaker 2:2014. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so, um, my whole family, especially my husband, was like you know you'd be great at real estate, you know you'd kill it. And I've always loved people, I've always loved making connections with people. I remember people's names, their story, where they're from, and so, um, but I was really intimidated by the test because everyone says, oh my gosh, you know, I didn't pass the first time and it's so hard, and, and so I didn't really believe in myself. But I was kind of desperate for something better. Um, so I studied my butt off. I would drop my girls off at daycare at seven 30 in the morning, you know, study. After I dropped them off, study on my lunch break, I. So I went back to work part time for like an optician, um, you know, study on my lunch break. And then I, you know, finally I just did it. I took the test and I swear, if I didn't pass the first time I probably would have given up, you know, cause this isn't for me, or I just I didn't have the confidence, you know.
Speaker 2:But what wouldn't it what?
Speaker 1:wouldn't have been right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely that was me.
Speaker 1:That was a mortgage exam. I took it. I passed by one point.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm much better at my job now than that, but it's crazy because it doesn't have a ton to do with the job and I was like, if I don't pass this while I'm in the middle of the test, I don't think I should take it again because I'm not going to do any better than this.
Speaker 3:Right, Right, and it's really just all memorization. You know cause you don't utilize a lot of the stuff that's in the books. It's all on the job.
Speaker 1:What's a township?
Speaker 2:and like so many, so we're all aware I'm obviously the worst test taker because when I was back in the day doing my termite license, I think it took me three.
Speaker 1:That's okay.
Speaker 2:The. I'm the lesser of the academics here at the table.
Speaker 3:That's right. No, that's okay. You're the prettiest and I feel bad saying that there's a ton of people who don't pass it the first time, but you know, I commend them for going back and trying again and keeping at it until they pass, Like yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Was there a trick? What? What do you think? What was the? Uh, what was the silver bullet?
Speaker 3:Just the amount of time that you committed to it, or yeah, maybe just my determination, really Like I just really did not want to fail.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about one thing that I know has led to your success, and it's actually kind of how you and I or I kind of knew who you were when I first came to this area because I was in mortgage in Washington came down here, was licensed in California already, but then kind of started to branch out and try to find people, and you had this brand, which I thought was super cool and one that I have not seen really replicated. So what's your handle on Instagram?
Speaker 3:At selling underscore Whitney Ranch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do you only work in Whitney Ranch?
Speaker 3:I do not. I work everywhere.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 3:I get asked that question a lot Like are people going to not hire you because you're so, you know, hyper? I mark it and I brand myself to Whitney Ranch. But you know, before we moved to Whitney Ranch I was down in West Sacramento my family was, and so I started my real estate business down there. So I still have a lot of connections down there and all of my past clients are in the Sacramento area and I love on them like really hard.
Speaker 3:So you know we keep in touch and I just they become my friends. And so, yeah, like yesterday, I was in the Thomas um Folsom, you know UB city. I go everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Do you feel like even that, that's almost even like, um, it's almost like a loss leader, right, Like, oh, do you only sell Whitney Ranch because your handle is selling Whitney Ranch? It opens the door for that conversation. Does that? Is that part of the? Is that part of the tact behind it? Maybe?
Speaker 3:Um, you know what I actually have a lot of agents who have said to me oh man, I really wish that I had like a community, like a niche that you do. I really wish I could have a business model that way, and I know that what I have is different. And, um, you know, when we moved there six years ago, that was my goal. Like I would just want to be the go to Whitney Ranch realtor, yeah, and I think I've branded myself in that way with other agents and colleagues and then as well as my community. I mean like we were at um family bingo night last week at the HOA and you know someone walks out to me and just like oh hey, jacqueline, I'm like I have no idea. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1:That means, you're doing something right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But that's what you'll do, dan and I have talked about that before, like business success tactics that we're trying to learn and that you know our guests on here have have utilized. And one of the things we've talked about the last couple of weeks in a row is like having some kind of niche, and for me it's always been this fear, like Dan talked about of. If I niche in on this, like I do a lot of VA, home loans or work with first responders, a bunch people will think I don't do something else, but you're really proving that that is not the case. Like you, but you are also the person that I think of first every single time. I think of Whitney ranch.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 1:And that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That was my goal, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So what percentage of your? I mean if you could say off the top of your head, like what percentage is in Whitney ranch Cause it's a relatively large community, but you do a fair amount outside there as well.
Speaker 3:What was your question?
Speaker 1:Like what percentage of your business, would you say, is in Whitney ranch?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, probably 90.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:And then I recently calculated my market share in the areas that I farm. So for last year I was at 31% market share Um this year and we ranch Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we've been there for six years it is. I know that's huge.
Speaker 1:For those of you who don't know, who are not familiar, cause we, you know, we have listeners all over, but it's fair to say that when he ranches a master plan community, it's awesome. It's got awesome parks, it's got a big HOA that people seem to be really active into Um, and there's I don't know how many homes, but thousands of people that live there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Including some of our former guests and current current current host, and I'm one house away from being at your age You're looking at your on the other side of the I am, I look over and it's through the, through the bars.
Speaker 3:I'm an honorary rock living in close enough that you could walk to one of my open houses recently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Absolutely yeah. So Jacqueline actually has a house. One of my neighbors is listening to their house and I saw the sign and I go hey, I know that person. We're going to have them on the show soon, so it's awesome. Yeah, very cool. What, um from you know, being from Southern California and moving here and then West Sack and now up here. What are some of your favorite things about living here in Placer County?
Speaker 3:In Placer County. I love how it's just so clean and safe and it's all. You know young families and we're all trying to do the same thing. You know kids in sports and you know be married and raise the kids Like it's just um. You know we have easy access to all of the. You know stores in the mall and things to do with kids. I would say what I miss about living in Sacramento is all the food.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because in Placer County we have more chain restaurants and it's getting better, like now we have Rose Park Bistro in the fountains.
Speaker 2:you know we're getting some other restaurants but Sacramento really has.
Speaker 3:You know, my husband and I were, we're foodies, and so I miss being close to that.
Speaker 1:And it's not that close. I I'm, you know, I'm going to out myself as a transplant here more recently, because everybody that I talked to in Seattle I work with the fire department there they say oh like you live in Sacramento, I go no, I really don't, and I say that just because it's the major metropolitan hub. But like it's a good drive away, like it's a good enough 20 minutes 20 minutes easily, so like it's not just a jaunt down the road.
Speaker 1:So I would love to continue to see. Maybe like we could have somebody that opens an awesome barbecue place here.
Speaker 3:Hey, I know a guy, yeah, I know a guy could do that too.
Speaker 1:But yes, I think that was one of our things when we moved here too is not as many boutique options for eating, and I feel like people would really love that here. I wonder how we get that in a place that's significantly newer development. You don't have these old buildings, except for maybe you know there's some spots and you know old Rockland or downtown Lincoln that you could flip into those spots. But I'd love to see some more of that come in.
Speaker 2:I think. I think it's as the social media evolves in that genre, like it's becoming easier and easier because these big box chains, which you know I have a little bit of history working with in the past, it's easier for them because they have a reputation, they have a brand where I mean I'll just say, running a restaurant is really, really hard work and it's not cheap and the margins aren't huge. So if you're not busy all the time, you're probably going to be struggling along, but it is super exciting to see. I know you might be probably have more information on the new nugget project that's going in at the off ramp in Winnie Ranch there. But I would imagine that you know, if it looks like the one over on Blue Oaks, you're probably going to see some more unique independent concepts where we do start branching into some more of those unique, unique flavors and eateries.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to see that a little bit. Let's bounce back to social media for a second, because you know we just had some recent guests on here kind of talk to us about how they have utilized that. It's a really it's not free. I always say like it's really not free because this is a significant amount of time to do it correctly. It's also a significant amount of mental bandwidth Like all three of us, I think, participate in that. A fair amount and whether you like it or not, like it can be a mental drain. It's a commitment to stay consistent. How do people utilize that with you as clients? Like do you get direct messages? Do people just somehow recognize your name and then they see your signs or like? How? How would you say that your Instagram or just your social media presence in general, like presents those opportunities for you to grow your business, like you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say both of those. I'm very intentional about the way that I post, so I've gotten clients from SoCal based off of my hashtags, you know. Hey, we're looking to move up to Whitney Ranch. We've been following you for a while, you know. We've seen other agents that live there, but you really paint a picture of what it's like to live there, and that is my goal.
Speaker 1:I mean you really, you really do. Yeah, as somebody lives in the, you know, just over the fence, I go. Man, maybe I picked the wrong neighborhood, that's very cool. So do people kind of slide in the DMs and then you, you continue a conversation there and roll into the realtor role.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, and then I always take them by. You know, the ranch house, and the thing is is I can speak so confidently to like, I served for a year on the HOA events committee as the chair, so you know I, I have so much my feeder on the ground in the community, you know, so I can I'm able to give very detailed, like insider, information on you know what it's like to live there or things to look out for. And then, with regards to you know, seeing my name on a sign and then recognizing my social media, I, all of my marketing materials, I, you know, put my Instagram handle on there, but I'm very consistent with all of that too. And, like, I sponsor the school, so I have a banner in the drop off line. My face is on the homework folders, and so now it's at a point where I've become somewhat of a household name.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I don't mean to toot my own horn.
Speaker 1:No, that's, that's the goal right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That is everybody's goal in marketing. 101 is to be aware of the brand and think of the brand when you need that and tactically putting your brand where you think it's going to be best served right.
Speaker 2:Like we don't have billboards, obviously, but that would. If there was one, that would probably be something you're interested in. Obviously, getting down to the schools and like the local little leagues and things like that is super important, but there's also like a barrier where you're like, okay, like that's too much.
Speaker 3:Like that's.
Speaker 2:I'm not willing to make that spend because it just doesn't fit.
Speaker 1:It doesn't fit my brand or if it doesn't fit your niche or your ideal client, and it's not always return on ad spend or your ROI but, like, yeah, are these the people that I want to work with?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Every new season of sports. You know I get approached like hey, do you want to? You know, sponsor the little league or whatever. If my girls were involved in that, you know definitely I would, because then I would be at the games and making face to face connections and having conversations, you know, from a business standpoint. But at a certain point I have to pick and choose.
Speaker 1:You know what could be the best spend, and we all have kids, kind of relatively in the same range. I guess Dan's, you know significantly older than me, so kids are a little older. I think I got the old kids yet.
Speaker 2:Well, no, your oldest is not much younger than my, than my oldest.
Speaker 3:My oldest will be 13 this month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mine will be 14 in a couple days, so we run the gamut from two ish to 14.
Speaker 1:And you know, one thing that I have quickly realized and my kids are just getting into that school age time is that these are some of the most effective years, whether you're using your children or not. But through the relationships that you organically build with neighbors, with other parents that are doing sports, with school and PTA and HOS, that you are going to probably make the most connections. So with your girls, like right in the in the heart of that time, have you built some organic relationships, just as a as a mom also?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely. And then I think, just, you know, when I meet people, I really always try to connect with everybody on social, because you know the way I show up there, not just for my business, but you know showing what it's like to be their mom, and you know what our home life is like, because, ultimately, you know, real estate is a relationship based business, right? Am I in sales? Yes, I'm in sales, but I'm not out the relationship. So it's important to me to be able to connect with my clients who are also, who also have kids, you know, and are doing all the sports and balancing marriage, and so I really try to be very vulnerable and authentic with that on my social.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you do a really good job of that. Like, I feel like you know, none of us put our entire life out there, but I think when people are, you know, take the time to be vulnerable or actually post about their family or the things you're doing One of the things I saw you did last year, that was awesome. I've, uh, I feel like I've succeeded at one thing in life because both of my daughters, who are five and seven, like they. I'll just ask me every day on the way to school dad, can we listen to classic rock? And then they then they asked me like, is Taylor Swift classic rock? And I go, no, no, she is not classic rock.
Speaker 2:Well, blink 182 is which I. You know that that hurts.
Speaker 1:Well, we're just getting older.
Speaker 2:I don't know if Blink 182 is classic rock no Like, but they play it on the classic rock station. That's okay, we're just getting older.
Speaker 1:But all that to say, like I saw you and your husband do this awesome like duet of Motley Cruz home, sweet home right, yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit about that. And you guys, if you guys haven't seen this, you got to go. Is it still on your Instagram? You got to go check it down. Yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that was a really fun way for us to connect too, right. So he's an amazing guitar player. And then I played piano growing up for seven years and, um, quite honestly, I was just in a little bit of a real estate ret at the end of last year. I was tired and I was just like trying to find things that make me happy again. So I started taking piano lessons with my daughter and I remembered a lot from when I was a kid I mean, I quit when I was like, I think, 12, but I retained a lot of the information and then I would just pull up YouTube videos and like teach myself, you know a song from the YouTube video.
Speaker 3:Well then, ryan had a good idea. You know why don't we try a duet? And so we. You know he loves classic rock, I love it too, and you know we practiced in the evenings together and it was like it was so fun and then when we had the final product out, like we were so proud, you know, because I mean he killed it and I, you know, no, you guys crushed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you guys got to go check this out. So it's one of my favorite songs. It's one of my girls favorite songs. They're like dad because it shows up on like the little you know reader in the middle of my truck. And they're like dad play the song with the happy face and the sad face.
Speaker 3:If you guys don't know the album cover.
Speaker 1:You got to go look it up. But yeah, we watched that. I was like you guys come, because I'm trying to get my daughters to take piano lessons and I'm like you see, you could do this. They're like well, dad, can you play the guitar? And I go no, we can find somebody, though what?
Speaker 2:what are the girls into? What are they? What are they pulling you in direction? What are they into?
Speaker 3:Well, so it's interesting, my older one is, you know, she's approaching being a teenager.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm right there. Yeah, you're ahead of you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw something recently that said, like you know, these are the formative years between, like I don't know, it was like 12 and 18, where it's like the longest, slowest breakup. You know and like they, but they change and they don't need you as much, you know, and they're becoming independent and they want to try things on their own and experiment on their own and, like you know, make their own decisions. But you still kind of want to like parent them and guide them and but you have to like let go a little bit and that's been really hard. So, um, she's a type one diabetic and I know we're going to get to that, but she just went on her first trip without us and having to have somebody else manage her diabetes.
Speaker 2:That was the camp last summer, correct?
Speaker 3:No, she does go to diabetes camp she just went to Tahoe with her friends.
Speaker 2:Oh, got you. Oh, so not even like geared around the type one diabetes like she went with another family on vacation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had to like let go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we have to come back around to that, because there's a lot to unpack there for sure.
Speaker 2:So one of the other things that I saw that I used to really enjoy watching was you used to do the supper club. Oh my gosh, I know it's so fun and those were like super extra and I'm just like I would watch those things and I'm like holy cow, man, like my kids are going six different directions every weekend with sports. I'm like there's just no way we could do these and I would just, I would just sit there and watch them like total, like just stalker, but it was like.
Speaker 1:I was like man, this is so cool. So that's the point. That's good social media. Like anything that, like that my family does I mean tell us a little bit about that, because I'm in the dark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so cool. So, and the how we were all able to swing this every month, I don't know because, like you said, we all have kids and life's busy, but so it was five couples total and every month we rotated houses and it would be a themed dinner. So you know, we've had like Greek night and you know, just like American steakhouse, we've had like Asian night, and so then we all dress up, you know, according to the culture, and make the food according to the culture, and every, every get together was like a, you know costume.
Speaker 3:And so yeah you'd kind of never know what everybody's costumes are going to be. And then that's like half the fun of it, cause when everyone starts walking through the door like oh my God, you know, it's like, it's hilarious. We have a. One friend is named Travis. Do you know Travis?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Well, he's like he always goes all out.
Speaker 2:He's the risk taker. Yes, yes. Not afraid to wear spandex, probably right.
Speaker 3:That guy.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of like right.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm gonna make an entrance.
Speaker 1:This is the guy who coming from the guy who just showed up as Don Johnson to his last social engagement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A couple of times a a couple of times a year, I will bite the bullet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dan, there's no slouching. The costume department Relatively embarrassing it was. This year was pretty mild, so that was yeah that sounds like a ton of fun, and so did you guys do it where kids or no kids- no kids. That's the hardest part.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But probably the. You know I love being a parent but that's like the most important part for your relationship and your adult friendships and just to feel like yourself a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and just be able to let loose a little bit and have fun. You know, like of course we have fun as as adults, right, but this was like a form of getting to like play again, play, dress up, and you know. Then there's the decor. They go all out. Like our one friends, they actually built like a boat out of wood and then had like this backdrop. That was like you were in Italy, cause it was Italian night.
Speaker 3:And so we were all in there like someone had a paddle and we're all like trying to not, you know, fall out the boat.
Speaker 1:In your little gondola.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Man, your friends are cooler than mine. No offense.
Speaker 3:None of my friends listened to this, so that's okay, that sounds like a ton of fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I don't think and, like gosh, I wonder where, uh wonder where I'd I'd host the first one, cause then I'd be like I guess it'd be kind of fun too, cause you have to learn to probably cook some stuff that you're not used to cooking as well, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then it's funny because whoever hosts the first one is like oh okay, the bar was set pretty high.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, yeah, the one upper, the one uppers in the group are definitely coming out for that one For sure.
Speaker 1:You talked a little bit about the end of the year last year, so it's no shocker Anybody's listened to this as a little bit inside to real estate Like you've been in the industry long enough now to see. You know just a few years ago, crazy, crazy, you know huge appreciation Everybody wants to get in. Rates are super low to pretty much overnight the. You know when you hit the brakes the faucet turned off.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like a slow there was whispers in the wind but when it came it happened pretty fast. What were some of the biggest challenges for you, if you want to share about this last year?
Speaker 3:you know, what's really tough is like on the real estate part is just the frequent changing of the conversations and the dialogue and as a realtor you have to keep up with all that stuff If you're going to be advising your clients and quite honestly, like you said, one day it's one thing and the next day it's another. I mean, look at how people talked about how rates were going to go down in March.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then they went up and then. So I always try not to talk about rates because I don't want to be that like false promises, but you know all of those conversations on, you know what's going on in our marketplace and I always say I don't have a magic crystal ball, but you want to give people different scenarios on what. If you know, what does this mean for you and, as we're making this decision, really walking them through what that's going to look like down the road, and so I think it was just so, it was just so busy and in this job, you know you can work at 24, seven if you, if you let it overtake you, you know it will say that if you let it overtake you, because it will in any of our roles, really in any role.
Speaker 2:Really, it's pure sales environment that we've talked about. I mean when every time the phone rings, it's. It's potentially a paycheck right and and I think none of us look at it that way. But at the same time, we also all look at our families and the things that we provide and the things that we need to do, and it's like, okay, if I don't take this phone call, am I, am I selling my family short, or whatever? So there's, there's always that, that balancing act. I think it's.
Speaker 1:And like you talked about, jack, do you? It's like you're building relationships, how important those are. I think the three of us could all agree that we've built some strong partnerships and relationships with clients and that has, you know, continued to foster that. And when you feel that pressure to, I gotta be and my phone's got to be available, I've got to be online because it's it's not just hey, I'm going to get a paycheck from opening this text. It's, it's one more step to show my value in this relationship sometimes. And so it's hard. Like, how do you manage that as a as a mom and a as a wife and as a person that needs to stay sane? Cause it if you, like you said, if you don't, it can run away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's a really good question. And I think, like you said, you, dan, you know you have to balance it. It is a constant effort to balance it, you know. And so there are some times where you know I've got six, seven, eight transactions going at one time and like I just know that I have to put myself in work mode and get through it, and then I know it's always going to you know, it's not always be that busy, right? So then those are going to close and you know it'll slow down a little bit. In those slow times is when I really really make sure to um, you know, lean into my family and you know cause I know I've been absent for a little bit. And then you know, on the day to day it's like I I don't work after seven PM, like unless I'm negotiating something, obviously.
Speaker 2:but um, and then I do. I take Sundays off.
Speaker 3:I don't work Sundays, so um, and then I never answer my phone with my kids in the car, like if I'm just picking them up from school, like they need my full attention. I haven't seen them all day. You know they don't need mom, like taking a work call and making them feel like they're.
Speaker 1:I should be better at that. I should be too. It's stuff. I just watched something a couple days ago that was talking about just communication in general and like when you hold a phone, even if you're just holding it and you're just sitting there and you know, just stipulating with your hands, and you just never make somebody feel like they're the most important thing in the room.
Speaker 1:Or if you're at dinner and you set the phone on the table, even if it's doesn't ring or you never touch it, you're just signaling subconsciously like there's something more important than my time here, I've been, honestly, since I started in this industry, very challenged by that because. I've, yeah, kind of bounced back and forth between me. I really I really need to be available. That's one of my biggest traits is like people have, like my availability, but then my kids and my wife have paid the price for that sometimes, and then my relationships too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. I'm one of the I prescribe firmly to like I try and get an hour of my day done before I go to my phone. I was really really good at it for a while. There was like get up breakfast workout, say hi to the you know, spend some time with my wife, talk to her a little bit, get the kids up, get them ready for bed and then like, okay, cool, I went for an hour today without even touching my phone before doing anything, and then recently I feel like it's creeping, creeping back in more earlier and earlier and earlier.
Speaker 2:You know those emails are there and those notifications and all that stuff and you got to get through it and I think that the market kind of dictates some of that right it's been. We're not going to gloss over the fact that the last 18 months have not been easy compared to the eight. Not the 18 months that preceded them were easy, but they were a lot more lucrative.
Speaker 3:It was easy to say no to stuff back then, where now you're kind of like okay, like I have to consider every opportunity, yeah, as a really viable but, like you said, you know it's something that you have to balance and you have to constantly work at it, and so now you recognize it, it's like all right, maybe tomorrow I'll try for that hour again.
Speaker 1:During that, the shift or whatever I laugh because, like it was, it was coined as a shift, like this subtle movement, but really it was a complete change of the real estate market, where there's some things in your business that you had to realign because most of us had to either it's, you know, ad spend or different ways we've done marketing or reanalyzing our budgets, or what were some of the biggest keys that you had to adjust.
Speaker 3:You know well, being face to face with people, you know, I mean, I know a lot of people do a ton of stuff, wonderful things, on social media, but I think face to face is so important, you know, and I really try and do that with my sphere, with my clients, and you know that's how you stay top of mind is like I I truly deep down care and I want to talk to you and I'm interested in your life.
Speaker 1:But even more so, stepping that up, you know, as as time slow, yeah, that's huge, and Daniel and I have talked about that concept of social media, taking the online offline so making genuine connections with people and then taking those offline to just regular human communication kind of what we're actually built to do.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:You got any bizarre stories from online. Obviously you're pretty far out there, you're pretty open. Any crazy stuff online, any direct messages or anything. Funny stories.
Speaker 3:Well, I guess the one thing that stands out is I had my first Instagram page was we are Whitney Ranch and I got hacked and I lost years and years of content and videos and.
Speaker 3:I remember that yeah yeah, and I got this direct message that was like hey, from someone I knew, will you vote for me in this something, something contest? And I like just got into the office and I'm like my phone's in my hand and I'm like, yeah, trying to do everything, and it asked me for my login information as I was trying to get settled, and I just didn't even think about it and so I entered in my login information and I right after that I was like oh shit, so I went back. I couldn't access my page. I did everything I could to try and get it back. All these YouTube videos I watched to try and get it back, and it was the amount of time that I spent and money to get all those videos and the content and starting all over that was really, really tough. That had to be a little deflating. Yeah, big time.
Speaker 1:And now here you are again, you've rebuilt that. I mean not without a lot of effort and time and money again, but that's a choice you could have made to just like cash that in and quit and then not have what you have now.
Speaker 1:Right, I've worked too hard for that, yeah so that kind of stuff happens and I think the people that we have in this chair that you're sending today usually are relatively high caliber individuals that get stuff done, and that's one of the things that we've kind of seen over and over is like people that don't quit when they're going good stuff and I would say the fine tuning, the silver lining, the naming of the new Instagram, the selling Whitney Ranch is so much better than we are Whitney Ranch.
Speaker 2:We are Whitney Ranch. You were just a member of the community you weren't necessarily. You didn't have a call to action there with your new page. Like people know exactly what they're going there for. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:And so that's why, years ago, dan hacked your account, because he knew there was something better for you.
Speaker 3:Maybe it was one of my realtor competition friends in the neighborhood. I would have put a pass on.
Speaker 2:You know, what's funny is I've lived in Whitney Ranch for almost five years now and I'm embarrassed to say like we're just so not involved in the community, like we're just another neighbor, because we don't have time to plug in and dive into that thing. I would love to dive into Whitney Ranch and there's obviously business to be developed there for me, but maybe, you know, maybe when my kids are done with school and they're out.
Speaker 1:You guys are so busy Sounds like maybe the Marashi family needs to go to bingo night. That's what it sounds like.
Speaker 2:But then like my insecurity because I'm overly competitive and I don't want people to know like how big of a jerk I could actually be in a competitive environment when I'm trying to win.
Speaker 1:So I think if you bring your lady, she'll keep you in check. Yeah, she sports them. She's way more competitive. I baited you into that one.
Speaker 2:She's way more competitive. She doesn't listen, so it's okay. She won't listen, that's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1:Well, another thing that's pretty cool too is like so you and I kind of met and met is like a loose term online right Like from everything from like online dating to people you play video games with to Instagram, certainly. But I had known who you were just from that persona of what you put up, from selling Whitney Ranch, and so I remember being out I was at a work function for a mortgage company and that new Moxa barrel house and I was like I think that is her.
Speaker 1:And it's weird because you get like this local celebrity vibe. I'm like, okay, I don't want to be creepy, but and I think that's what I said I finally came up to you as you were leaving. I was like, you know, I don't want to be weird you out, but like, are you this person?
Speaker 3:Are you selling Whitney Ranch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're like yes, and I was like okay, well, we're kind of like Instagram friends and this is, and so it's really cool to like actually genuinely be able to make those connections and get to know people.
Speaker 3:I know I love it. I feel like I live for that. You know it's so I don't take that lightly. Like I said, lightly, I love the connections and like we wouldn't be here today probably. Well, maybe you would have invited me, maybe it was his idea.
Speaker 1:Dan and I are, you know, co-minded.
Speaker 2:You were on the list. You were on the initial list.
Speaker 1:On the initial list.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:But then, like a couple of months ago, you were at the park and you're like hey, I think I saw your daughter at the park, like you know, my girl's, just because of social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just because of social media and it's like this weird balance too, because I put my kids on social media too right. It's this odd balance and my wife and I have had this conversation too of like I kind of I have really cute kids Like, so I kind of use them a little bit for that, but I also use it a little bit because family's out there and wants to see them and then I get like protective of them too, of how much do I share?
Speaker 1:But the funny thing about like seeing your daughter at the park was I direct message you after that because you were just talking about like you have this almost you know teenager moving on, and she was there with her friend and I was like kind of eavesdropping and she was actually like saying cool thing, like cool stuff about her mom, and so I was like you got to know this, because there's this time that's coming, when that won't be all your interactions and I was like, okay, I got to tell her like her daughter still thinks she's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. It's good to know yeah.
Speaker 2:I love seeing the way that their generation utilizes social media, cause my daughter is actually pretty pretty, I would say more, way more introverted than me. She doesn't post anything on Instagram. She's kind of like an Instagram stalker. She just scrolls through and likes things but she doesn't post anything. Well, she has this volleyball career that we're trying to know, that she wants to pursue and do so.
Speaker 2:Now she has to put stuff out there, but it's like, yeah, like in our world we're like cool, like we'll show you what, we will show you the stuff, we'll show you the family, we'll show you all the things she's like. And I think she got into like a you know a junior high thing where it kind of blew up and so she had like this big pullback from social media. So I'm always curious to see like how the next, how the next generation, utilizes it, cause really, with us, like the Facebook and the Instagram explosion was all like in our prime, especially like professionally. So we utilized it so much professionally. I mean, you know you said 90% of your business came from, you know, in Whitney ranch, which probably all came from that.
Speaker 2:Instagram social media world, which is just wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you know it's a scary thing, social media these days with kids. My husband was telling me I don't know if he saw something or he read something, but you know there's people that will go up to your kids and this is so scary. I would say, oh yeah, your, your dad, ryan, you know, told me to pick you up from school and you have gymnastics tonight, right, cause I posted that we're at gymnastics at night, you know? Or making the connection? Yeah, you guys just went down to San Diego, right yeah?
Speaker 2:No, I know your dad. Flip side of that coin is so scary and so dark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah, it's very scary.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know what to say. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You don't have. You don't have a teenager yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is all. This is all just your education at this point. This is free, buddy, I get it.
Speaker 1:But that's you know. That's another cool thing that you get the opportunity to do as a realtor too is like you get to help people come into the community and build strong communities like that too, because I think that's the only way you combat that kind of behavior right. And like nothing is 100% safe, it never will be, and that's just, unfortunately, the nature of the world. But you are living in a community and building a community where, like you, want to have a community presence.
Speaker 1:You want people to know who you are. You want people to you know I've been very fortunate. One of my favorite things about living here is that we've built a network of friends who I would let my kids spend time with their family or, if they needed to like, discipline my children just because you're starting to, you know, build your life with people around you that know you and know your family and your and your kids know them, and get to see you interact with other adults and build their own community. So but yeah, that stuff is definitely kind of scary.
Speaker 2:Well, you remember, like when your kids are and not to say more, your age. But when my kids, like, got the kindergarten, like that was when the parties their birthdays and parties and stuff like that was when we got to stop choosing who was invited, so it wasn't just inviting our friends over and even to celebrate our kids' birthdays. Now it was like now you've got the kids that they're connecting with in kindergarten class or whatever, and you may or may not have anything at all in common with their parents.
Speaker 2:But guess what, Like they're coming, they're coming to your kids party now.
Speaker 1:So yeah, my wife and I laugh about that, because my kids go to a school with one class per grade and I was like, okay, man, these parents better be cool because there's no switching, like we're going to be. We're going to be with these people for the next like eight years, yeah, and luckily they're all pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, and again I think I think that that leans back towards like why we all kind of live where we live, Like we live in a, we live in a great area, the greater Sacramento area, placer County, rockland, all those I mean they're so great it's, it's why, it's why there's so many great people they all come here for for that similar reason, because they can raise a family.
Speaker 1:They can do all the things, so so obviously you're good at social media marketing. You're good at making relationship connections to other people. What are some of the talents that you would say have made you successful in real estate? Right Cause, marketing is just like the first spot. That has really nothing to do with educating people and closing transactions, like. What are some of the things that you think have made you successful in real estate?
Speaker 3:So you know, everyone always says, oh, like, communicate really well, and you know I'll keep you informed every step of the way. Like that's your job, You're supposed to do that.
Speaker 1:You know that's the bare minimum, yeah.
Speaker 3:But, um, several years ago, I noticed a recurring comment that sellers would make in my listing appointments, which was, you know well, my last agent. I paid them, you know XYZ, and they didn't do crap. And so that told me like, okay, number one is communication important? Yes. Keeping them informed along the way, yes, but really creating an experience for them, that's something that they won't forget. So, um, I hired an assistant Gosh, it's probably been four years ago now and I wrote out all the different ways that I would like to touch on the clients, love on them, before, during and after the sale.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 3:And so, um, you know I'm a natural great communicator. I'm going to keep you informed along the way, no matter what, Because if I don't, then I'm like it's 1030 and I'm like, oh shit, I didn't follow up with so and so.
Speaker 2:You know and I can't sleep, yep.
Speaker 3:Um, and then I have very high standards of the way that I would like to be serviced, you know, and I don't really have a lot of like I hate when you have, when you go out to dinner and you know your, the waiter takes like 15 minutes to even acknowledge you and then you order your drinks, but then your food comes first and then you don't.
Speaker 1:don't get your drinks till after, like I just I don't bring my appetizer at the same time as my food. Yeah, I want to perform. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not that hard, yeah, but anyway, it was really just my goal to create a uh, you know, a client experience where you know I don't as soon as I get off the phone with someone and I get their address, I send them a handwritten note. You know, that's huge, that's like the.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say it's the easiest thing to do, but like we can all do that. I mean I have terrible handwriting and I still do that. Dan does that, I know, but I feel like people really appreciate those little nuances yeah. And and lack. I would say even more so since COVID, since the I'm not COVID itself, but the shift that took place of so much remote, honestly a really big downgrade to customer service. I feel like people love that personal touch still.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:They kind of crave it probably more than ever.
Speaker 2:They almost they appreciate it even that much more, I think yeah.
Speaker 3:Because you took the time, like everybody's on after this, like you know, quick fix, instant gratification type thing, but like when you take the time to show and tell someone that you care about them, or you can't wait to meet them, or you know, it really makes a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the thing I love about like handwritten is like there's a tactile sense to it too right. Like you go to the mailbox, there's a thing there. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 3:You open it up Like you feel, yeah, it's not a bill.
Speaker 1:It's not a flyer from real estate. Yeah, it's exciting, yeah, it's not somebody trying to sell you pest control, but but if you do need that, I know a guy and you know you get to like read somebody's handwriting and like it sounds funny, but like you see the indentation of a pen or whatever it is, and like you have this thing that they held at one point too, and I think in this digital age, as cool and amazing as it is, things just seem, you know, more disposable than they ever did. Like do you remember when you were a kid and or maybe I'm dating myself a little bit like the disposable cameras where you had like 21 plus three pictures I don't know whether they just didn't make it 24. But then you're like you really took your time taking those pictures and they all sucked anyway when you got them, but like you took your time with every single one of those. And now we have this awesome computer, you know iPhone in your hand all the time and you can take these amazing pictures.
Speaker 2:That picture sucked Delete.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you just you take 25 of them, Are you like there it's just lost its value a little bit. So all that to say like sometimes those little nuances of like, how important those little touch points are, I totally agree Like very well received, and I'm sure your clients are enjoying that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and so I. I do get a lot of referrals. I track everything in my CRM and where all my business comes from, and so, yeah, I do still get a lot of referrals back to handwriting.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:I have noticed that my handwriting is really going to crap because I think we're also digital, yeah.
Speaker 2:Mine's always been craps, mine too.
Speaker 3:There's nowhere for it to go. Yeah, I'm like, oh my gosh, what's happening?
Speaker 1:But that is really interesting. Yeah, yeah, maybe because we're just texting and like it's like de-evolution.
Speaker 2:Well, it was always for me like it. I had the thought of hearing people say, oh you handwritten, handwritten. It was really good, and I was always so self-conscious about my handwriting. I'm left-handed, if I write an ink I usually smear it because you know if you're not left-handed you don't understand this.
Speaker 1:But like yes, my mom was left-handed. Yeah, everything she ever wrote was my handwriting is terrible.
Speaker 2:It's sometimes all caps, it's sometimes all mixed in a lowercase letter, like it's embarrassing and I'm like, but like that vulnerability actually transfers even better, for like, oh my God, dan's handwriting is absolutely terrible, but he still sent me this. Yeah, like, maybe it's in the law in the short running. It's, of course, on points.
Speaker 2:I think people like when people make an effort you know, and it's sometimes about the intention, not just the you know the outcome of what you get or like the you can sign up for this the place that'll have a digital pen actually scribe it for you and it's so perfect. I'm like nobody has perfect that perfect handwriting. It's like, it's almost like you. That's a try hard. Yeah, try to.
Speaker 1:Which is cool. I mean, it's an opportunity. I think it's like it's super expensive, but it's also, you know, if I can't take a moment to like hand write you a note and I think I think, now more than ever too, is there is more insecurity in the world than there's ever been. I think social media, on the flip side, is a problem of that. This is an industry that lends itself to a ton of comparison and self doubt and insecurity and imposter syndrome, like we've talked about a ton.
Speaker 1:So I think it one of the things that I've noticed in my own business that's been really pivotal is and this is just kind of who I am it's like try to tell people when you appreciate them, what you, you know, actually make a real connection. So you have an opportunity on that card to you know, tell someone thank you, thank you for your business, or really I really appreciate your referral. This is what it does for my family. You know, my family got to go to Disneyland this year, last year, and that wouldn't have happened without you know, referrals from people like you. We still appreciate that. My whole family appreciates that and that's genuine. That's true, and people love to be a part of man, what I did actually made a difference with somebody. Instead of like I'm another number, they you know, they don't care, and that is how you become. I think top of mind, too is people are like man. I feel appreciated or listened to or heard by this.
Speaker 3:Heard about a lot of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:All right, let's. Let's circle back to the, to the type one diabetes. I actually remember because I, like I said, I think you're you're so open. I remember, like our majority of our friendships and predicated online and you're so open. I feel like I know you so well because of your willingness to share and I remember when you shared that and your experience it was a birthday party and and how you guys found out.
Speaker 2:Talk to me, talk to us a little bit about that. How does that, how does it affect your business? Are you, are you working your business to support that? In addition Talked about, let's talk about T1D.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, um, my daughter Mackenzie. She'll actually be celebrating her fourth. They call it a a anniversary the day you get diagnosed with diabetes. So yeah, her birthday was, uh, march 29th and then March 30th. So my mom spent the night that night and I guess Kenzie got up to go pee like six times in the middle of the night and that's like a telltale sign of diabetes. And she also looked really thin, but I was like, oh, maybe she's just she's growing. You know, she's just turned nine and um, so I took her to the doctor the next day and of course they you know they did the finger prick and this is right after the shutdown. So that was four years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So they did the finger prick and they're like, oh, we got to send you the pediatric ICU, she's diabetic, and um. So we went down there and, like my husband and I couldn't go at the same time, they would only let one person in the room, so um.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean this was full blown. Masks, gloves, shoe covers, everywhere you go Like early, early onset, covid world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like dads weren't going into the births.
Speaker 3:Right, crazy stuff, I know, isn't that so sad?
Speaker 2:It is, don't stand close to each other in line, but even before, like, they told you where you had to stand in line, six feet apart, I know.
Speaker 1:So you guys, how'd you decide who got to go in Um Rock paper scissors?
Speaker 3:No, I think just always having mama there is different you know, no offense to dads, but there's just a different kind of like love that comes from mom.
Speaker 1:Some more nurture, more nurture Connection.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, um, yeah, they kind of rushed us through. You know, we were there for, I think, only a night, because my husband and I have like a nutrition background. But it really is a new way of living life when you have a diabetic, because it is a life threatening condition and everything revolves around what her blood sugar is doing, because basically her pancreas died so it doesn't have the wherewithal to regulate her insulin anymore.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And her blood sugar. So you know like she went to the. What's the jumpy place, skyzone.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:While she's exerting herself. That's going to drop her blood sugar. So I always have to have a conversation with the parent, like okay, she's a diabetic. Those are her normal numbers, 80 to 120. You know, I'll be able to see if she's dropping, but like I need you to pick up the phone if I call you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So explain that, because I think some of our listeners probably don't understand diabetes really really well and you don't have to give them the full breakdown, but like when you say I can see how are you, how are you doing that? So, because it's pretty cool and it's pretty new.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so she wears two different devices. One of them is her glucose monitor, so it reads her blood sugar 24 seven, and my husband and I can see what those numbers are from our phones. We have it hooked up that way, which is amazing, yeah. I don't know how people did it before this technology it's I mean.
Speaker 1:So as a parent, you'd say like, wow, super awesome. I can tell I can have eyes on my kids a little bit with this dangerous thing that they're. You know she probably does quite well managing, but like, not like mom and dad are going to Right, right, yep.
Speaker 3:And then she wears another device that gives her her insulin. So every time she eats she has to inject herself with insulin. We have to count how many carbs she's eating, yep, and then there's a little calculation, that's done, and then that's how the device knows how much insulin to give her every time she eats. So I think the hardest part in the beginning was, you know, in the really not understanding the dialogue. Or, you know, every diabetic has different trends and things that work for them or don't work for them, and it really was like learning a new language. And I would say, you know, technology has been amazing in helping us regulate that. I mean, like I said, I don't know how people did it before. You know, we can see her blood sugar 24, seven, whereas other people before that would have to just constantly finger prick, you know 30 times a day or more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, and I would say with my business, how that's changed is I don't want to. It was scary, you know. So I don't want to, like, miss anything. I want to be there, I want to be available. I don't want my job to take over to where I can't, because she needs 24 seven monitoring, and my husband's great too. But like I, just I don't want to miss anything. You know it's like once you have a child who has a condition, that's something that you it predicate your whole day, how you do your day, how you do your evenings. Where are we going to eat? Sometimes she can't have ice cream if it's late at night. You know it's like sorry.
Speaker 3:You know, and she's been a good sport about it. She, I mean quite honestly, you don't wish this on anybody, but it couldn't have happened to a better kid. She's very responsible with taking care of her numbers and managing them. She's still a kid, so sometimes I'm like you know, hey, your blood sugar is high, let's take care of that, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not like hey, you didn't clean your room and this is like hey, this is something you got to manage for your, for your whole life, right Like?
Speaker 3:it doesn't go away and that's another thing is she's going to have to manage this for the rest of her life. So if I have to do extra or not put too much pressure on her now, because she knows what to do, I just want to help her out for as long as I can because one day, you know, she's going to, like I said, this is a forever thing and I won't be as involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as that, as that, as that mom-and-bear figure, obviously your, your your fear level at onset. When you guys discover that your fear is probably, you know, through the roof versus now you got four years under your belt. You understand how, how well she monitors it herself. You're, you know the whole. Teach a man to fish feed him for a lifetime thing. Um, talk a little bit about that, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean in the beginning, um, it's so funny. I actually didn't know the difference between type one diabetes and type two diabetes. So when we went to the doctor, uh, they told us that she was diabetic and she's like mom. What does this mean? What does this mean? I'm like you can't eat sugar anymore. Yeah. That's type two. Yeah, she's like what you know. You tell a kid they can't have sugar for the rest of their life, so like, oh my God.
Speaker 1:So type one is a genetic predisposition. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Um so type? Well, they don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like nobody in our family has diabetes. So they think that maybe it, um, she had COVID back in the early you know stages and that her body attacked her pancreas and there's been a really big increase of type one diabetics since COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. Just I feel like I know so many more kids of my my kids friends that that have it and uh, yeah, when your daughter was being diagnosed, we had a good friend of ours, yeah, good friend of ours who, who was maybe six months ahead of you? And uh, yeah, just I learned so much through through watching the two of your kids.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it is interesting, we are a very tight knit community. You know, as soon as someone gets diagnosed with diabetes, it's like, oh well, I have this friend and they've had it for two years, and can I make the connection? Cause you have you ask questions that maybe you don't want to call the doctor and ask. You can just ask someone who's been doing it two years longer than you and you'll get your answer, you know.
Speaker 1:so it's really good to have those kinds of people in your back pocket and talk about that a little bit, cause there's obviously been a lot of big hard changes in conversations and things we've had to do. But like what are some of the cool things that have come out of this?
Speaker 3:Um diabetes camp.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she loves it Every time she goes. It's a week long, everybody who goes has diabetes, type one, so do all of the counselors, and there's 24, seven med staff and she comes home and she is just like over the moon, happy, had the best time of her life. There's no phones allowed, which is, I'm sure, part of it too. Imagine if you and I went into like the woods and we got to do all this fun stuff for a week.
Speaker 1:I might float off the ground.
Speaker 3:But she's made some really cool connections there and so every year they bunk, request each other so that they're going to be in the same cabin and these are going to be lifelong friendships. And I can see her being a camp counselor down the road for the diabetes camp.
Speaker 1:So cool so they have people like just like them to kind of commiserate with and nod their head about the same like acronyms and the way they're managing their day and I would imagine I'm the other cool thing about the like the world that we live in now, like they probably get opportunity to connect now outside of just the time they spend together and resources and friends in those hard times that they'll share from miles away. That's very cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been able to be a resource, for you know some newly diagnosed diabetics people that you know. They know Kenzie has diabetes and then they know this other person, so they'll put us in contact. I always send them a food scale because that's like part of your daily. You're going to have to measure your carbs literally every time you eat or weigh out whatever you're eating. So I always Amazon them a food scale because it saved my life. So you know, it's just like a little brand that thing up.
Speaker 2:That's you're missing an opportunity. Yeah, I think we got a good idea right there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We've been in the background with that and being a nutritionist and we've got something to go about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted. I'm interested. So we've talked a lot about your older daughter, but your daughter, your younger daughter, is the one with just this massive personality.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, you never know what's going to come out. What?
Speaker 2:about. But what about, like, going through all this as the younger sister? How is she? How has she taken that Like? How? What would you think her experience has been.
Speaker 3:She's the diabetes police. Okay, yeah, Kenzie, you're at. You know 274. Kenzie, you're low.
Speaker 3:Kenzie, you need a juice, Like I mean, she is on it and that's the thing about like all of Kenzie's friends and you know all of our friends who are, you know, in life with us. Everybody has learned like how often we have to say, kenzie, what are your numbers, kenzie, do you need a juice? And everybody's like on it. You know, if she's not feeling well, you know this little six year old boy will tell her. You know, kenzie, are you feeling okay, do you? Is your blood sugar low? Do you need that juice box? You know, and everybody just becomes so a part of the process and this part of her life that you know it's. They'll know, like if she's you know too high or too low and they're there to step in.
Speaker 2:That's so cool and introducing that maturity, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And just that sense of community that's so cool right, like without this challenge, which obviously I'm sure all of you would prefer not to have but as a result of it and how you've handled it and how she's handled it. Now you get to these opportunities to like see people really surround your daughter with love and friendship and support, and that's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah To come out of a tough deal, so loved yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that Very cool.
Speaker 2:Well, anything else you want to hit on on type one diabetic before we diabetes, before we move on.
Speaker 3:No, I don't think so. I swear I could talk all day about it because it's like real estate realtor's. They just talk about real estate all the time.
Speaker 2:Same with that, yeah we were really enjoying it because we talked too much real estate on this podcast for sure. But all right. So, jack, we're going to start wrapping this thing up. We have one question that we asked all of our guests. The last question we asked them, and what it is, is if you could be anybody for a day, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Speaker 3:Okay. So you sent me these questions prior to me coming in and I thought long and hard about this one and I even like Googled.
Speaker 2:What are other people saying? Did you ask AI? Did you? Have chat, but you know, ultimately I don't think I would want to be a real estate person.
Speaker 3:I think I would want to be anyone other than me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that answer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am so grateful and loved and supported and you know, I've had my own trials and tribulations in life and I've grown so much from that. I've gone through a lot, you know, but if I didn't go through all that stuff, I wouldn't be where I am today. I'm in a really, really happy marriage. I love my job, I love my community, I love my gym, like I love my friends. I'm just, yeah, I'm just happy. I couldn't imagine being anybody else for a day.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's I'm smiling over here, but that's a pretty, pretty cool. I want to be you now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I'm always waiting for someone to say they want to be me now. Why are my shortcomings?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for joining us today. This has been a blast. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, thank you.
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