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welcome. This is our first official podcast. We’re so excited. This is going to be an introduction podcast. So we’re going to share with you guys a little bit about our life. So you get to know who we are, and you know where we’re coming from. So this show is going to be one that we’re going to get to talk about our life experiences, and share them with the audience. And so hopefully, it’ll be fun and relatable. And you guys will enjoy it.
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So here we when I listen to people, I like to know like their backstory, who they are, like, who am I listening to?
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I’m also big on like proof is in the pudding and do you have the street cred or not, you know, and so we’re just going to share, you know, what we’ve done since we’ve been married and stuff like that. So, you know, who we are, who you’re listening to, and it’s not just some random person that started a podcast and acts like an expert, but they’re not, you know, and we’re definitely like, we’ve, we’ve got a lot to learn in life.
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Obviously, we don’t know everything, but we can share where we’ve been, what we’ve And hopefully this is just going to be very relatable and raw. I think it would be cool to just share kind of where we started in our lives, just a little bit touch on before we before we met.
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So yeah, you want to start before we met, we set up on a blind date in college.
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We’ll talk about your like your childhood a little bit. Where you came from?
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Well, I came from Piedmont, Oklahoma, and which is now a big town fast forward I own a business there, but that’s getting a little ahead of the game.
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You know from Piedmont small town graduated from there decided I wanted to go to college or didn’t want to go too far away Decided on swasu, which is in weatherford, oklahoma and um went there because it was just far enough away from home, but not too far away from home and small town kind of atmosphere and um You know when I went to college there was a butcher for four and a half years I think I made seven dollars and 25 cents an hour And uh worked around my college schedule and then after hours I had the pleasure of cleaning the butcher shop and made 20 bucks to um use a hot pressure washer and Clean the whole place when everybody was gone So that is true and that’s what you were doing when I met you you were a butcher.
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Yes So for me, I grew up in a small town called grace mott, oklahoma. We had about 400 people in town I graduated with 14 kids in my class So definitely small town oklahoma. Um, I was raised on a cattle ranch. So my
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is still a cattle rancher that’s what he’s done my whole life and my mom owned a hair salon for 25 years so she was an entrepreneur and so I basically grew up with two entrepreneur parents they got married my mom was right out of high school she was 17 so they got married in 1984 and so they’ve been married over 40 years now which is pretty amazing so I definitely grew up like sheltered very small town I went to college an hour away and that was definitely like a kind of a culture shock for me but also amazing because I got to be still feel like I was in a small pond and I’ve always liked being like a big fish in a small pond so when I went to college I really thought I would play college basketball I grew up playing basketball my whole life it was like it was my identity but my senior year after playing from basically third grade to 18 years old I was super burned out I was so burned out on basketball
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that I just, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I wanted to go to college and like see what else I was good at other than basketball, and just like have fun too. So when I went to Swasoo, I chose not to walk on the basketball team, and I just chose to be a college student, which turned out to be like the best decision I could have made, thank the Lord for that. Because I was able to get involved in so many things. I was able to get involved in student government. I was a resident advisor. I won homecoming queen my sophomore year. I competed in the Ms. Swasoo pageant. Like, I got to do so many things, and I really got to develop my leadership capabilities in several ways, and I got to focus on my classes, and I also just got to like make good friends and have fun. And I played intramural sports, which was awesome, because I got to play basketball for fun, and not for like how many points did you score this game? And stats.
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I got to play softball and flag football and I just got to have fun. So that was all like before we met each other Which kind of crazy we went to the same college for four years Mm -hmm, and we never met until our senior year. Yeah, we had seen each other. Mm -hmm But we didn’t know each other. No, so we were set up and we can dive into that in a future podcast So that’s funny too But we were set up on a blind date our senior year by two friends who were who were dating at the time They’re now married and they set us up. They almost set you up with one of my best friends at the time Oh, yeah, I forgot about that and when they tried they had already told you I think about her and I’ve tried to heard Them talk to her about you and before you guys officially like before you ask her out or anything They were like wait Ashley you need to meet Bronson not her and I had just come out of a relationship You
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Didn’t really want to start anything new and I think you were just kind of I don’t know. How’d you feel now?
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I mean I was ready for a relationship. I was trying to get married It was like September of our senior year I was in serious mode that is true.
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Yeah, so You they set us up. I think you asked me out on Facebook messenger Really? I think so which is kind of weird Facebook just started like our freshman year college But I think that’s how we first started talking. Yeah Another funny thing is like once they showed you my picture. You were like, I remember seeing that girl My freshman year.
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Yeah that and then you were also my You were in charge of some kind of like a station thing in the competition where I was involved in everything baseball bat and try to make a basket and with like a stuffed animal Yeah, yeah some kind of competition like the referee of the I Was basically involved in everything in college and you just went to class
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work. Yeah I was involved in that.
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So we were like total opposites and we still are and you guys will like find this out on this podcast. We are we have the same core values, morals, like the important things we are the same on.
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Yes.
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But personality wise we could not be more different.
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Totally different.
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Which seems to work well. Yeah. So that balances out but anyway when we when you asked me out I think I told you yes like I’ll go on a date with you but I have to be back for my student government meeting at seven.
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Yeah.
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Whatever time. So I was like I have like an hour and so we went out on our first date at a like an Italian food place in Weatherford.
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I don’t think it’s there anymore.
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It’s not there anymore but we did that and then you dropped me back off at my meeting and that went well and then the second date you cooked for me at your apartment.
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Oh yeah big old ribeye steak cut from the butcher. So my boss knew I was having a big date and gave me a nice crime ribeye.
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I forget what it was. For the second date. Yeah it was like a twenty.
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it was like a hundred dollar steak little did you know like steak is like my favorite food in the world now I grew up on a cattle ranch like steak was a big deal yeah and I was in an apartment at the time and I remember on unlike the breezeway outside and on the patio on the second floor I think we’re on something like that but I had a little charcoal grill like one of those little bitty Weber grills and that was totally not allowed to true and it took forever to cook yeah but it was good it was so good and I ate the whole 20 ounces yeah that’s what I knew I’m gonna marry her like I was different that’s what I’m talking about and I had no shame like I was like this is amazing and I just ate the whole thing she wasn’t like I’m just gonna eat salad now I’ve never been like that yeah never yeah never this is gonna be good yeah so that was we had a great second day and after that you asked me to be your girlfriend like right away yeah and I was like I just I’m kind of what I slowed
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down, like, you know, you didn’t kiss me or anything yet. I was like, I just want to like, let’s just date a little bit. And then you said, bye.
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I was in serious mode. I was looking for a wife.
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Yeah.
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And I was like, wait, like, I still want to date you move in that direction or not.
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You know, I still want to date you. I don’t want to like say bye. Well, anyway, you kind of retracted.
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Yeah.
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And so I was like, well, let’s just, let’s just date again. Like I am serious. So I think we ended up going dancing at the country club out there.
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Oh yeah.
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And I think you kissed me for the first time after that.
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That’s right.
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And then I was like, okay, like I really do want to pursue this guy.
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Yeah. And the rest is history.
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Well, we got, we got engaged six months later.
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That’s right.
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So we met in September and we got engaged in March and we graduated in May and then we got engaged the following September. So from meeting to married one year, which worked out great for us.
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Plenty of time.
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Plenty of time. So after we got married, that was in 2009. We rented a little apartment.
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Yes, 660 square feet.
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I think it was one bedroom. One bed, one bath. And we were so proud of it. It was in Yukon. So we got to have our own place. I got my first official job outside of college at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Yes. And I was a legislative assistant there and I loved it during session. I absolutely loved it. My degree was in political science and mass communications. So I got to like live the political dream and be in politics, like engrossed in it for February to May every year, which was super fun. And you were a personal trainer.
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Yeah, my degree was exercise science and my minor was in entrepreneurship. I knew I wanted to own my own business. I just didn’t know what. And at the time I loved working out
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to be a strength and conditioning coach and realized I didn’t really want to do that. So I became a personal trainer at a gym in Yukon. And yeah, I think I made like $20 every time I trained somebody and I had like my first client at like 430 in the morning. And then I’d have my last one at like seven or eight at night sometimes. And so and not a lot during the middle of the day. So just long days. Yeah.
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Yeah. And when I think back to that time, like, I feel like we lived very differently, even from the beginning. My first job, I made $36 ,000 a year and had benefits for us. And we thought like that was amazing.
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Oh, yeah. Like 20.
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You mean like 20. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So it was just but we but we were in love and we were happy. We had an apartment and we were just like we thought we were like living a really good life. And we were I think from the beginning, we prioritized the Lord. We said God’s going to be first in our relationship always. We’re going to prioritize tithing.
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That’s not something that most like 23 year old newlyweds do I think so that was something different we did Something else we did is like we never had cable on our TV. This was back in the days before streaming Okay, most people had like dish direct TV like Cocks table you had to watch football games every Saturday or whatever. Yeah, we never did that. We always had an antenna. Yeah Which was free. Yeah, and so that was something and and honestly like people thought we were weird back then this was 2009 10 11. Yeah, and people were like why would why why do you not have cable? We’re like, well, it’s like 60 bucks a month.
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Mm -hmm.
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We’re not doing that We cooked at home pretty much every meal. Oh, yeah, we would go out to inner urban for enchilada night on Thursdays There was like five ninety nine and you got two enchiladas rice and beans like chips and salsa and we would share that mm -hmm and would get water because
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would want tea and you would tell me no way no tea is like two dollars and fifty cents now fast forward now I get tea every time we go out that’s kind of a joke now gallons of tea for two dollars and fifty but at that point we didn’t have the money no like so we drink water so one of the principles that we’ll teach it in our podcast it’s a common thing you always just live on less than you make yeah we always did that and to live like no one else you have to live like no one else yeah and we’d get invited on trips with friends and family and we would say no a lot of times because we were trying to save money yeah we just had bigger goals than just living for the day oh yeah from the beginning so when we were married a year I think less than a year we were raided by our first house we bought a short sale property for a hundred and ten thousand in Yukon oh yeah I think today it was about 1400 square feet so today that house is probably worth more like 250 to 75 yeah it’s just crazy to think about crazy
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we even then we bought it below market value. We got a good price for it. It was in a little gated community brick home. Um, but it had been trashed. It had been trashed.
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That lady like cut hair in one of the rooms and went back there and it was like hair everywhere.
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And it was disgusting, but you know what? We just, we put the work into it and this was before we ever knew we wanted to do real estate. So we like flipped it basically, um, painted new flooring. We did everything ourselves because obviously we didn’t have any money. We poured a new back patio. We just made it much nicer. So during that time, um, when I think about how we changed during that time, we did live in that house for four years before we sold it. Um, during that time I went to work at Sandridge energy, which is a really, this was during the oil boom of Oklahoma city. We had just gotten the Oklahoma city thunder. It was a really big deal to like work downtown. So I worked there for two years. I was an assistant in internal.
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audit, which turned out to be a terrible job for me. Like, absolutely hated it. Talk about showing you what you don’t want to do. Hated it, like not good. And during that time, I think I also realized like, what do I wanna do with my life? We got pregnant with our first child in 2012. And I decided I need to use my skillset in a way that I can do something I love, and I can build my life around our children, because we knew we wanted to have a big family. I came from a small family. I have one brother, you have one sister. And we’re like, we thought we wanted to have four children. We’re like, that sounds awesome. We can have four kids and give our kids a big family that we think would be amazing.
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Decided to get my real estate license. I remember we were walking around our neighborhood. We saw a real estate sign in a yard This is just weird and you were like you should do that And I think it was a a younger woman on the real estate sign Yeah, and you’re like you could totally do that. I had never in my life thought about selling real estate And I was like really I wonder what that entails I’m gonna look at this and I got to looking at what does it take what what is the skill set for this? God just like laid it the way out for me. So I started studying for that While I was still working full -time Got my real estate license Had our baby in November. I think I got my license in October had our baby in November
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Took like a eight -week maternity leave from my full week time job Went back to that job and I was let go after 30 days So I did get like a severance package and everything which provided us a little comfort during that time Because I hadn’t really started in real estate I had my license but I wasn’t like ready to take off and make that my full -time gig But God like pushed me out the door So I did get a little part -time job for a few months until I figured out like can I do this full -time and So that kind of gave us a little bit of a cushion and then once I decided I can do this Like I quit that job and just went full steam into real estate. So that was the beginning of 2013.
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Yeah Yeah, and then for me I got into insurance in 2010.
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Mm -hmm.
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And so that was kind of a interesting leap of faith because I had no idea what an insurance agent even was of graduating college. I didn’t know nothing about that
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but I was working at the gym and the Guy bought the gym. It was a it was an insurance agent and an attorney they partnered and they bought the gym and I was like Man, these guys got it going on. They rolled up in a brand new pick up Just seemed like he had it going on. I was like, what is the insurance agent do, you know, and Anyway, they made me the manager of the gym and I worked underneath them for a year or so I don’t remember exactly how that worked Then I got to thinking you know what the insurance business is a lot like the gym business and You got it. You got to earn people’s business. They pay you monthly usually, you know I was like, but the insurance business that product is required by law. Yeah, you know people’s gym memberships They get them in January for their New Year’s resolution and cancel them by March when they quit Yeah, and that’s it. That’s tough You know business to be in
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And so I started looking around and thinking like, what would that look like? And I had a distant cousin that was a successful state farm agent, reached out to him, went and shadowed him at his office and saw what that was about and was like, man, sign me up. You know, and I found I got eventually got connected with an agent to help her open up a new location. And I remember interviewing for a guy in Yukon. And I wanted to work for him because it was right down the street from my gym. He had been in business like 30 years. I was like, man, this will be the right play. And boy, I gave it everything I had. And I remember the guy interviewed me two or three times and then he called me and he said, hey, man, I’m not going to give you the job.
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You remember that?
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Oh, yeah. And I was like, well, it’s like I’ve never not gotten the job. You know, it’s like, man, all right. And then and then an area manager called and said, hey, I know you didn’t get that job, but I got somebody else that needs you. You’ll be a great fit and you’ll actually help her start a new business.
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a new agency at a new location and it’ll be a lot better experience for you and I was like oh praise God like I’ll do that and and so we started that in 2010 yeah yeah and I remember starting there with like a stack of papers with just names and phone numbers no computer and a phone and it was like hey let’s call as many as we can and see how many people we can get to let us quote their car insurance yeah I think this is interesting because it really shows like where we started from like this literally like start started from the bottom yeah now we’re here yeah that we literally started at the bottom and I started at a small brokerage in Yukon I did not know many people in that area because we I was not from there right we did not go to college there I did not know much of anything of what I was doing but I was we were dedicated oh yeah we had a long -term view
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Yeah, I remember telling you as I babe I’m gonna get into this Oklahoma Grassfed Beef business. I got to go work for somebody for a few years I don’t know how long You know a state farm they have to select you to become an agent. You can’t buy in you can’t just start one It’s very very difficult.
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Yeah, and I was like, but we’re gonna make it happen We’re gonna make it happen and it was like definitely at the beginning was not easy So after we had our first child, I was working in real estate you was working we were working in another agent’s office helping her get started and we After sick our daughter was six months old Briley was six months old and I got pregnant with our second at six months And so they were gonna be 15 months apart. Yeah, you were in internship, right? Maybe at this time I think this was in 2013 yeah So you were an internship which meant at that time you were traveling back and forth a lot training Yeah, Missouri and I was pregnant and working. Yeah, and so we had our second -born our son Bowen in February of 2014
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So you were gone a lot you were training traveling and I had two babies at home and Starting a real estate career and that’s when I discovered the beauty of Mother’s Day out So I’ve really built my Oklahoma Grassfed Beef business on a Mother’s Day out schedule And that is normally Monday and Wednesday and it’s about nine to two So I had nine to two two days a week to get all my work done And that’s when I really learned I can get a lot done in ten hours Yeah, and I scheduled all my appointments my showings my Inspections my closings everything had to fit into that time because that’s what I had We do not have family like close by who can help us So we’ve never been able to just like call grandma over right so we have had to rely on Babysitters when we need help and programs like Mother’s Day out and so that was a thing That was a thing
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And you got your own agency ended up getting the one that we really wanted in 2015.
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Yeah. Yeah. And Edmund, Oklahoma. And so we opened up in 2015. And man, starting a business is hard. A lot of work. You know, some people use an analogy that it’s like a rocket taking off and it consumes a lot of fuel and it’s very expensive and you finally get it into orbit and then then all of a sudden it just coasts. You know, you just got to hit a little the boosters every now and then. But man, starting a business is so hard. But we started that in 2015. Went really, really well. And then in 2019, I got blessed with an opportunity to open up a second agency. At that time, it was in Surry Hills. We have since moved it to Piedmont and been there a couple of years now. And that location has done really, really well. So absolutely. Ten years now since we started.
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Yeah. And during that time, we had our third child in 2016.
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and our fourth child in 2018 Baker and Benaiah so if you’re keeping up at this point we have one girl and three boys I’m still working in real estate I started team during this time so I have the Ashley Schubert team I have a few agents working with me I hire an assistant to help me because I really needed it and then I’m still working on that Mother’s Day out schedule our kids are not really in school yet so they’re with me most of the time and you have your agencies up and going so this is all kind of pre 2020 yeah yeah yeah and then I think what do we start next some real estate investing we started a little bit of real estate investing at that time we decided we like real estate yeah and so we bought a little rent house in Oklahoma City and fixed it up painted it new plumbing I don’t know stuff like that and rented it out we also sold our first house moved into our second house which was also a short sale that we got for a really good price did the same thing with
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like put some work into it, lived there two or three years. And it was a really great investment for us because it allowed us to sell and take the profits from that house and buy a house on 10 acres, which we thought was amazing because we always wanted some land. And the kind of you’ll find the theme of what we do, what we’ve done is we buy houses for less than their value. So for our third home, which was our Rockwell house, it was a long white ranch style house on 10 acres, had a beautiful two acre pond. But we got this from a situation of a couple getting divorced and they were just ready to get rid of it.
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Yeah, I love those situations.
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When we heard that, we’re like, oh, we might be able to get a good deal on this. So we did. We got that way under market value.
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And it needed some work.
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It needed work too. We paid 625 for it. And they’ve done a lot of work, but we did have to put more work in. We made the front and back porch.
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is amazing. I painted the kitchen cabinets white which you didn’t want to let me do for a long long time and I don’t remember why you finally agreed to this.
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Who knows?
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But I think I actually like made a deal with you. I have made a lot of deals with you over our marriage. One time I really wanted a new washer and dryer. Oh yeah. This was at our second house because we had like a hand -me -down from whatever and I was like I really want a new washer and dryer and I like the pedestals and I want them to be white and I don’t know I think you were like why would we do that?
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Yeah we had a washer and dryer that worked just fine.
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And I said here’s the deal I’m gonna earn $100 ,000 in real estate this year.
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Yeah.
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And when I do that we’re gonna get a new washer and dryer and I think you probably agreed because you were like fat chance.
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Yeah I was like if you go do that then let’s go buy one you know.
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And I remember I pushed myself so hard and then I got to dis…
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and I think it was like, well, I’ve got to sell five houses in December to hit this. Yeah. And if you, if you don’t know real estate, that’s really hard to do.
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Yeah.
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That’s a very slow time. Um, I ended up selling five houses in December and I earned $100 ,008 that year. This was about 2000, I don’t know, 16 probably something like that. And so I did it. We got my first washer and dryer. It was amazing. And then I did have to sell that the last time we moved and it kind of broke my heart.
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Yeah. But you had used it all up.
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I had used a lot and it was amazing, but we did sell that with all our kids, the washer and dryers getting abused. But I was so proud of that. And I think it might’ve been the same thing with the kitchen cabinets. Like I kind of set a goal and I’m like, I will pay for this if I can hit this goal. So we painted our kitchen cabinets white, but that was such a beautiful house. Um, we ended up having our fifth child right before we moved out of that house. Barlow was born in 2020, June of 2020.
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I remember this because we just I think I called you one day and I was like babe We’re gonna we need to put our house on the market. Yeah, and you’re like why and I’m like well I actually already did. Yeah, I put it on the market.
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Thank you.
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Don’t tell me twice I think I have I’ve sold it like without telling you Yeah, well anyway, that was a godsend because the first buyer that came and saw it like the next day bought it Yeah, the problem is I was like nine months pregnant So every time we’ve moved I’ve been pregnant Yeah, I mean so I remember having Barlow coming back home with him We pretty much had packed everything up, but we left our recliners in the living room and like essentials And so I slept in the recliner with him for the first few days And then we went directly to an Airbnb for 10 days Yeah, because our new house was getting painted and the new house we bought after that was on 40 acres This house in 2020 when everybody was scared of
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and all that stuff and you know and this so this was about June 2020 and yeah we found an opportunity to buy a really expensive place for and get another good deal we got a great deal everybody and the people had already moved out we got a great deal was on 40 acres such a beautiful home it was an Arcadia which took us east of I -35 which we’d never really wanted to transition to the east of 35 before but we did it and that was an we hosted so much there we had a pool we had a giant barn and we loved it there yeah it was beautiful and during that time I started a real estate brokerage with a co -owner
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So I had a friend and then we joined forces, started a brokerage together. And that was about 2020 when we did that. Yeah, and so we had that together for a couple of years. So during that time, things were just going good, I think.
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Oh yeah, the real estate was starting to sell like crazy.
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I was, yeah.
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Race were low, people were buying.
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Yeah, like I was super, super, super busy in real estate, just like doing really well. We had five children. Both of your agencies were doing so great. Even though COVID was weird years, like it was actually really good for our businesses. So we added things to our portfolio. We bought more properties. We just started really diving into rental properties. We bought a commercial building. We started the carpet cleaning franchise.
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Yeah, bought a couple of carpet cleaning franchises.
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So we were just kind of rolling at this time, I feel like, and.
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then 2022. 2022 was not such a good year for me. So we got pregnant with our sixth child and things were going really well, like real estate was going good, brokerage was going good. My co -owner called me one day out of the blue and said, I don’t wanna be business partners anymore.
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Yeah, that was tough.
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I wanna dissolve the business. I was six months pregnant. And I honestly didn’t know what I was gonna do. It was just complete shock, devastation, six months pregnant. Basically I could either go solo at that point and just basically say, I’m gonna take the easy path. And I really considered it. I was very hard on myself during that time. It was very excruciating actually. But I chose to take a harder path and started my own brokerage.
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So.
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six months pregnant I started studying for the state exam and I studied the did that entire course which is supposed to take like six months and I think I did it in three weeks yeah and this is also summertime all the kids are home but I didn’t have it I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to take the path I thought was right for our family so I took I finished all the coursework I took the state exam thank the Lord passed it on the first time and started my own brokerage in 2022 during this time I also lost a lot of people that I thought were good friends and I thought would have my back and they didn’t and it was it was really hard the whole business got taken it was just the whole business got taken unexpectedly overnight and there was nothing I and I lost friends during that and I found out who my real friends were
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that and God told me during that time I can’t take you where I want you to go by leaving you where you are and I kind of fought back with them I’m like but I like where I am like I’m comfortable good spot I’m you know we’re profitable but I wasn’t happy I won’t say I was happy I always felt like I was being having to compromise what I wanted to please a business partner because that’s what you do partnerships are hard to partner and at that point I was like okay well now I can do what I want to do what is that so I started bricks and branches realty in 2022 started with six agents and a fresh assistant yeah and just went all in on that and let me tell you the first six months a year
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They were they were they were good, but they weren’t easy I’ll say that and then like the dam kind of broke and things got so much better God kind of gave us a vision for My real estate brokerages offices could be venues Yeah And so our Piedmont commercial property that we own had a space on the back of your office And I said what if we turn this this real estate office into a venue? Yeah, this is you know commercial building with a space in the front and a space in the back and it’s it was like man we could rent this out when we bought it and Remodeled it knocked out all the walls, you know for my office and then it’s like well, you know If I rented it to somebody it’s like they’re there There’s a door that connects the two and it’s like man, you know You better get along with them good because they’re gonna be like right there Yeah, it was like I don’t know that we want to do that like could we start a business over there to like, you know generate some
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money you know to pay for stuff and real estate office you know you don’t have to be there all the time for that.
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Yeah so we started the venue in Piedmont which turned out to be awesome it’s a small event venue it’s called Bricks and Branches event venue so I got to really partner that with real estate so now it’s Bricks and Branches realty and event venue. Yeah since that time I’ve opened another location in Chandler so now we have two locations at this point I have 18 agents and two staff which is a really sweet spot for me so it’s grown but very organically it’s not like I’m out there like recruiting agents left and right because I don’t want that I want to have a boutique brokerage and I want to still sell I want to stay relevant for my agents I want to be able to help them and selling real estate is still my main thing.
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so some of the other things that we’ve done during that time we ended up having our sixth baby branch in 2022 and we moved to our hometown now of Chandler which did not make any sense I woke you up on a Saturday morning and said babe we should look at rental properties in Chandler yeah you’re like what’s chant where’s Chandler what is that I know it’s up that away but I don’t know yeah so we went and looked at a rental property it was terrible but we ended up getting a great deal on it and I walked in and I said babe I think we’re gonna live here someday yeah this was like a I mean one bedroom was pink one was blue you’re like you are crazy they’d fallen apart you know I think we bought it for a hundred twenty five okay hundred twenty five thousand bucks yeah and uh well we were looking for real estate around Edmond Oklahoma City and stuff like that to start trying to remodel and stuff and it was we just couldn’t find anything you know and I you found that one in Chandler and it’s like well that’s not that far 45 minutes
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Right, you know, which was kind of crazy. Yeah, but we bought it. We ended up finding our land out here Which was our first 240 acres? Yeah, so we did sell our beautiful house in Arcadia Moved into the little house in Chandler, which when I say little we were living in a 47 square foot 4 ,700 square foot home. Yeah with six kids with six kids and then we moved into the 2300 square foot rental property. Yeah, which still sounds like that’s not that tiny But with six kids it was it also did not have a good heater Didn’t yeah didn’t work. We had sand in our vents. We were sleeping on air mattresses. It was January It was just a hard time.
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We had a flood one night We didn’t test the heater before it moved in.
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Yeah, so that was kind of a thing But we ended up buying our land out here since then we’ve been able to piece together more land We bought 160 acres and 160 acres and then 10. Yeah, so
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70 total we’re at 570 total so we ended up adding more cattle we actually started getting cattle in 2020 so we are ranch really started in 2020 y ‘all are crazy ranch but once we moved to Chandler we expanded it we got more cattle we got sheep we got goats now we have some ranch dogs to help us manage those and that’s that’s the ranch now so we bought a little cabin out on the ranch last year and so it’s on 10 acres which allows us to live on the ranch in the country which is how we wanted to raise our kids yeah it’s just 1800 square feet so we went even smaller we’re in our little cabin of 1800 square feet right now while we build our house another baby and we had another baby in 2024 Baxter was born November 6 2024 so if you’re keeping up we’ve had a baby about every two years our oldest daughter is almost 13
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our youngest baby um is almost 10 months and so every two years we’ve had a baby. I’ve had one in me or on me for 12 years almost 13.
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Yes.
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So because we I’m very natural in my pregnancies and I believe very much that God made our bodies to do what he made them to do so I’ve also breastfed all of our kids I baby wear like they have been in me or on me.
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You’re always wearing a baby.
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So we have our seven kids now we have our 570 acre ranch now we’re currently building a home on the ranch and we also in addition to doing this podcast like we just believe strongly that our ministry is not all tied to our work right we’re very busy in our work and what we do and at this point we both get asked to speak a lot of in many capacities you speak a lot to like
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insurance world right and you wrote a book yeah what’s the name of your book yeah it’s a insurance 101 how to have a bad day and not a bad life so you can find that on Amazon but it’s just a simple easy read about high level you know inner insurance you know what kind should you have what kind maybe you shouldn’t have how does it work just stuff like that but it’s super simple easy it’s not like some long boring book about insurance nobody wants to read that yeah so it’s a little funny stuff in there and yeah yeah so you speak like more about insurance and leadership business business around the country around the country like you’ve broken a lot of times yeah in different capacities and then I wrote my first book in 2019 called raising a Oklahoma Grassfed Beef business and babies it’s still my most popular book and it’s really for moms who are trying to balance business
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raising children simultaneously and then since then I’ve written two devotionals and a standalone book called overrated and then a real estate workbook so I am at five books right now and then I also do speaking around the country we have been to Atlanta and Arizona all across Oklahoma and my main ministry is Christian women and small business owners women and small businesses those are kind of my fortes so we we see what we do as a huge part of who we are but we also believe in our ministry outside of our work so I had a podcast for five years called business and babies so you can always check that out if you want to hear content from other moms who are doing both simultaneously I did that for five years and yeah
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this point having the venues and Piedmont and Chandler I’m able to host women’s events regularly I did a program this summer called aspiring girls program where we brought girls in ages 8 to 14 and really like trained them in the way of the Lord and Just brought them up to just be encouraged and feel loved and valued so lots of ministry opportunities in what we do we believe God has given us Gifts he’s given us all gifts and we just want to share them with others.
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Yeah Yeah, and I think too. I think about that. We’ve made a pretty good impact on the town of Chandler since we’ve come here I don’t know how many houses we’ve bought here in Chandler and fixed up about ten maybe about ten houses and in in Chandler that were in really bad condition some of them getting ready to be condemned and bulldozed and We’ve purchased them fixed him up made him super nice kind of trying to trying to kind of build a
[00:41:18.400]
of nice rental properties for people where they can feel proud to live there and stuff like that and so that’s been a good blessing for that’s been amazing something else we’ve done is we started Airbnb’s yeah we haven’t touched on that yet but we started an Airbnb business and we now have five we have four in Chandler and one in Oklahoma City and that’s been a really fun venture for us we found out that we love setting up Airbnb’s we love giving them themes we love hosting them it’s been fun and it’s been a really good way to like make additional generate additional revenue yeah one of our houses on the ranch we decided to turn it into an Airbnb so we could you know maintain control of it control who stays and who doesn’t and if we want to block it off for family or friends to come visit we can yeah I had a client that stayed in one of ours last night yep so perfect we have been able to do that I also just wanted to touch
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on like, since we started in our careers, like where we are now, for me, starting in real estate in 2012, I have now helped over 500 families buy and sell homes in Oklahoma. I have sold over 110 million. Is that right? Yes, it’s gotta be in Oklahoma real estate. Yeah, crazy.
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Yeah.
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I used to say 100 ,000 or 100 million. Sorry. But now I’m crossing over that threshold of 110.
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Yeah.
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And it’s just like, what in the world? It’s just like our Oklahoma Grassfed Beef businesses have grown so much from where we started. God has blessed us so much. But in turn, now it’s about so much more than our businesses. Now it’s about how can we impact our community? How can we help others? How can we teach other people? How can we bless other people?
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How can we use the gifts God gave us?
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Yeah, and our businesses have been able to provide jobs for a lot of people and impact How many employees do you have right now? I mean in the insurance agency, I think we have like 22 I think and You know ranch has Two to three depending on the season and well sometimes in the summer Yeah, I mean we might have eight You know if we got real estate projects going on too, then you guys will get to meet our ranch manager at some point Get to meet John. Yeah, so it’s good It’s been a big blessing. Yeah, but I think too will You know, we don’t put our Oklahoma Grassfed Beef businesses above God or our family Right, there’s there’s people out there that do nothing but the grind and right, you know Talk about that and then their family falls apart or right, you know, their their kids don’t know whom you know And that’s not that’s not who we are We want to win a business and we want to win at home more absolutely, you know
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And I think that’s going to be an important you guys will see that in our discussions and stuff that we talk about because That’s not all about just winning with the dollar that that’s a mistake, you know Absolutely, and one of our kids wrote a report last night and it just made me really proud because she wrote about her favorite movie, which is The Greatest Showman and her lesson was Business can’t come before family.
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Yeah, and then one of them and she did she saw it from us And then one of our sons Baker was like I didn’t even tell you this yet He was like that’s what you guys do mom. He’s like business is important. Like you got to have money That’s important, but family is most important Yeah, and so we’re just trying to instill this in our kids But that means you have to say no to what the world usually says yes to
[00:44:59.800]
We’re gonna talk a lot about that a lot about living an intentional life and you know people ask all the time Well, how do you do all that stuff? You know, how do you have these, you know, all these businesses and stuff going on at the same time and it’s like Spinning a bunch of plates, you know, and I joke with my staff too about you know, you got the plate spinning this morning But to do that you have to live a structured life. You have to manage a calendar You have to do list very intentionally.
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You got to say no to a lot of things a lot of things And we’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years. Yeah, which they’ll learn from yeah And we’ll share them with you We will try to be vulnerable with that because it’s not always easy to share your mistakes, right or your hard times But we’re gonna try to do that Yeah We’re also gonna try to think back to what those were because a lot of times you are where you are and you’re Like oh like we did go through that right and it got us to where we are today So we want to definitely share that. Yeah So I think that is what we do
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I think that’s a little glimpse of who we are just to get this thing started. So we’ll be sharing a little bit each week about different topics and just experiences we’ve had. We will have some guests on sometimes that can share things with you guys too. So we are super happy to be living where we are. We never thought we would live here, didn’t even know where it was. So we’re in Chandler, Oklahoma. We have our dream ranch currently 570 acres.
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It’s awesome.
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We’re building our dream home currently. It’s about to get started so we can share progress with you guys on that. As we get going, we have wonderful businesses and we have seven really great kids.
[00:46:40.300]
Yeah, I don’t know if they picked up on this, but out of the seven, there’s only one girl, one girl and six boys, six boys, and we get asked all the time, are you going to have any more?
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And our answer at this point is, we don’t know. Maybe we don’t know.
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Who knows?
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We don’t know. So that’s where we are right now.
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I’m thankful. I’m thankful to be doing this together. I think it’s gonna be really good for us and I hope it helps marriages I hope it helps families. I hope it helps entrepreneurs and I hope it helps just people wanting to grow spiritually and As couples and build stronger families.
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Yeah, that’s the goal.
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That’s the goal So thank you guys for joining us this week and we will see you next time