The Investor Goddess’ Secret Sauce for Success in Real Estate
“I define financial freedom as when you have enough passive income streams, that it equals or exceeds your expenses. I wanted to help women get to that level. What’s the best way to do that? It’s through education and creating a community of support and mentorship.”
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. We have an amazing guest for you today, but first please make sure you have subscribed, if you haven't already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings, and reviews. Today, Abigail has a conversation with Monick Halm. Monick Halm the investor goddess herself shares her introduction into real estate and her passion for sharing her knowledge with women specifically. After finding herself to be one of few women in the industry she made it her mission to inform, mentor, and support at least a million women in real estate, Abigail being one she has impacted. Stay tuned for her secret goddess sauce and how she guides women to success. If you found any value from today's episode, then please share it with a friend and help us grow.
Key Topics
Tell us your background
How did you get into syndications?
Where did your passion for coaching come from?
What makes someone a "Goddess"?
What does the American Dream mean to you?
Connect with Monick Halm:
website: www.reigoddesses.com
Instagram:
@reigoddesses
@monickhalm https://www.instagram.com/reigoddesses/?hl=en
Facebook:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/m
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Abigail Thomson 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean will discuss how you can take your American dream to the next level, their real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish their goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream.
Abigail Thomson 00:34
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream podcast. We have an amazing guest for you today. But first, please make sure you have subscribed if you have not already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings and reviews. Today I have a conversation with Monick Halm. Monick is the real estate goddess herself. And today she shares her introduction into real estate and her passion for sharing her knowledge with women specifically, after finding herself to be one of the few women in the industry. She made it her mission to inform mentor and support at least a million women in real estate, myself being one she has impacted. Stay tuned for her secret goddess sauce and how she guides women to success. If you found any value from today's episode, please share it with a friend and help us grow. For more information on our sponsor, visit thomsonmultifamilygroup.com to start taking your American dream to the next level through passive investing.
Abigail Thomson 01:34
Hello, how are you?
Monick Halm 01:37
I am great. Thank you.
Abigail Thomson 01:40
Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. I'm super excited to interview you and talk to you more about what you do because I love your entire platform. But let's get into it and will you give me a bit of background professionally personally tell us who you are? Sure.
Monick Halm 01:59
So money calm. I am the founder a real estate investor goddesses. My mission is to help 1 million women create financial freedom through real estate investing. And though that is not at all where I started, I'm a first generation American I have awesome parents are super supportive always like Monique you can do and be anything you want. But in parentheses it was like like, as long as your doctor lawyer Professor engineer. That's what they knew of a success and a year you're lucky you grew up with family that got real estate and entrepreneur. Mine was like you get it. You go to school, you get a job, you you put some money into a retirement account, you work till you're 6570 you get a gold watch. You play golf for years you die like that was the only thing I'd ever been taught about real estate is to buy your own house. So what I was dutiful daughter up my four choices. I decided to do law and became a lawyer. I was a miserable as a lawyer, but that's a whole other whole other conversation. But for an event. Yeah, eventually I got out of that. But the real estate I fell into by accident because I wanted to buy the house that I'm supposed to buy because that's all I was taught. And I've been practicing for years. It's like alright, I guess I'm gonna buy that house. But I live in Los Angeles, which is a super expensive market. And a starter home in a semi decent neighborhood was upwards of 600 $700,000. This is back in 2005. Yeah, so I had a decent six figure salary, but I couldn't do that by myself. So I ended up buying a duplex with a friend. So the original idea was that he'd lived on one side I live on the other side because you know we could afford half a house. But we ended up falling in love with this old craftsman like 1950s They had a bigger unit downstairs a smaller two bedroom upstairs and then they had a converted garage. It was a third unit. So we each ended up taking a bedroom in the bigger unit and renting it or upstairs running under backpass running out even ran out our basement and we started house hacking before I knew that was a thing. I was like this is awesome. These people are paying my mortgage. Right? But that was no and that was really the plan. It was just kind of accidental and you know that was happy thing. I still didn't think of it as a way to replace my miserable attorney job. I just thought okay, well this
Abigail Thomson 04:44
is some awesome passive income. Yeah, this is
Monick Halm 04:47
the way I'm able to afford the house that I'm supposed to buy. And then when I met my husband, he had a duplex and we got a single family rental together. And then after 2008 when the market crashed Crashdown a bit on our heads, it was not a good time. But we did, we were able to sell one of the duplexes and we which had a lot of equity and we use that and start to flip house and houses were on sale at that point about 2015 houses were not so in sales getting really competitive, and I wanted something more buy and hold or passive, I didn't want to have to flipping his job. I wanted something where I could buy it put in a tenant and just get get that passive income. And but so we started looking for a four Plex in LA and nothing made any financial sense like nothing cash flow, I'd be spending $2 million plus for this four Plex with like zero cash flow, right? Or if I'm lucky, if I'm lucky, it would break even have like, a cash flow. So I ended up at that point, I was like really frustrated, not quite sure what to do. And at this point, I left law until a whole other conversation. But so I ended up meeting or being connected to this guy who, at the time told me first he was like, he's a host of a major podcast that needs done hundreds of million dollars worth of real estate. We had a mutual friend, as I was telling him what I was doing. And he said, Yeah, you know, I always say La is a tough market live where you want to live, invest where the numbers make sense. Yeah. And oh, he said that. I assumed you had to invest where you lived, where you your property, touch it. So manage it, it didn't occur to me, it crossed my mind that I could invest in other places that weren't so expensive. Or currently. I went oh, so that opened up the world to me. And the next thing he said was, and you can buy that four Plex by yourself, but you're limited to your own capital credit. Alternatively, you could bring a group of investors together, and you get a 100 or 200 unit apartment building, you start telling me about the benefits of that. And I was like, my brain exploded. Like, what? That's a like you can do this. Like, yeah, syndication, you started telling me about that. And until, until he said that I know. I literally thought you had to be a billionaire to get into apartment buildings like that.
Abigail Thomson 07:28
Yeah, we thought the same thing. We thought you had to be a REIT. Are these massive hedge funds? Yes, don't. There's ways to do it. Not like that, which is awesome.
Monick Halm 07:39
It's so awesome. But yeah, and I had this whole like full body like, yes. I like that. I do that. So I came home that night, told my husband like guys, this is called syndication. groups of investors together. Let's do this. And they were teaching is a syndication seminar. So this was October of 2015, there was a syndication seminar happening. January of 2016. We signed up to be next we signed up that night, but the tickets and prepared them the book, the hotel. And then in 2016, we started that. And we're able to really scale by partnering with other people. So the beginning of 2016, we had two doors at the end of 2016. We had 1012 doors. Wow. Yeah, by by just partnering with other people. So some of those we passively invested in three of the deals we syndicated. And it was, it was amazing. And I've been doing that since. And and then as I like got more and more into real estate. Yeah, I was seeing how mail it was a meme around, I had actually joined this high end mastermind real estate mastermind, that first syndication seminar, and for most of the time I was in that mastermind, I was me and 19 men. And I'd go to these conferences, and we were lucky if would be 10% of the room. I like it came as this divine download after one of these events as in the hotel gym on the elliptical. And as divine downloads like bring women into this room, bring women into the room, between being a lawyer and doing real estate full time I had become a coach and I was actually doing abundance of money coaching for women. Anyways, I was already working with women around money and abundance. I was like they need to be investing in real estate. This is perfect for women and who are busy and you know this, but they don't know about they're not in this room. And so that mission to help 1 million women came to me at that point. And I was like, here's your mission should you choose to Should you choose to accept it? It just came in? And I again had this full body like, yes. I know know how, I don't know how but yes, this like it just felt so right. And so that's what I started doing. That's how real estate masterclass was born. It's like how do you do like to bring women in but not just to do real estate? But how do we do it from the feminine? How do we do it as a human, right and in use our, like, our feminine gifts and talents so that we can do this process with ease grace and flow?
Abigail Thomson 10:34
Absolutely. I love that. That's your mission. As a young woman in real estate, I walk into those rooms, and it's like, whoa, you feel almost out of place. And those, those almost like small doubts and that imposter syndrome just gets cultivated so much when you don't see representation on that other side. So that it's hard to keep going. Entrepreneurship is difficult. You have to keep your purpose very, very much in mind and having people around you that also share that and share that passion is so helpful. So you doing investor, real estate investor goddesses is incredible. And I know has a massive impact on the amount of women in real estate right now. It's insane.
Monick Halm 11:25
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I get that been in that room. It's like, Wow, I feel like unicorns really stand out. And the nice thing is, there's never a line to the ladies room. There's like a line to the men's room. And that's the only good thing about it. And I think I am willing to wait in line if if we can get more women here. But that's one of my events. It's just it's all women. So I wanted like I feature women on the stage. It's like all these like amazing women, all different ages and backgrounds. And there's definitely with all of the variety of women that come. There's somebody on stage that males can look at go Yeah, yeah, see? If she can do it. I can do it. I can do it. Yeah, I can do this. Anyone that looks like you. You're like, well, I guess I'm not a white man. I'll work for me. Like, I'm not a silver haired. You know, maybe they won't take me seriously, maybe? Maybe it's not possible.
Abigail Thomson 12:31
All of the what ifs and maybes. Yeah, they started to creep in. So it's awesome that you're creating environments and rooms where women are prevalent and women are there. It's um, it's powerful, for sure. And really awesome. But you said a lot. That was really amazing, and so much to unpack. So you went from let's go back to a little bit more to the beginning. You went from law, to house hacking to full time real estate investing with your husband, which is really awesome. Was that just a natural progression that you guys would do that together? Or was there more of a sit down conversation like, Hey, this is a good idea. Let's try and figure out how to work it. What what did that look? Like?
Monick Halm 13:18
That's such a great question. So for us, it was it ended up being this natural progression, you know, we we sold one of those two plexes. And we we ended up having a nice chunk of money that we could do something with. And in part partly like this came from not knowing like you don't sometimes you don't know what? Yeah, well, we did see was all of these HGTV shows about flipping. That was was our conception of real estate investing. It's like, oh, you get things you flip them, like those flip and flop show.
Abigail Thomson 13:55
Make it look pretty. And then you sell it for all this money. And it's Yeah.
Monick Halm 14:00
Except our own houses, and, you know, we have a good contractor, let's do that, oh, we just started doing that. And then, and it kind of worked. But we were, again, you don't know what you don't know. And not having education and not having guidance and mentorship. And it was actually when we started the Syndicate, and we we got mentors and what we started to invest in education. And then we learned all of these things like, Oh, you can do that, you know? We don't have to use only our money. We can you know, there's there's all of these other things that we can do. So yeah, oh, I wish I'd known this before we would have done things so so differently. And so as when we got our education and then we started to run it like a business and then we started to think okay, how do we it's not just like oh, Oh, well, it was like these one flipping project one flip. But it wasn't. We were not thinking like how do we how do you create a business with defined roles? So when we started to egg it education, mentorship, and then start thinking, Okay, we're creating a real estate investing business, a syndication business, how do we create something that actually, you know, where we're not all stepping on each other's toes? So we had to divide up the roles we had to find, you know, build up, they're building a team business plan. We started to do it like adults.
Abigail Thomson 15:39
Yeah, running it, like a true Corporation and things like that. And it changes everything. And you mentioned mentorship. And you also mentioned that you were doing coaching in when you guys were doing flipping and in your law, and then obviously, you're doing the Goddesses, which is another form of education as well, what got you into wanting to help others? Was it just this moment of, I want to help women? Or was it a moment of, I know, a lot of stuff, I want to share my knowledge?
Monick Halm 16:09
Yeah. I think with regards to real estate investor crisis, it was that download of this is what you're going to do. But even before that, I'd always go for, I guess at that point, for seven years, I've been coaching, so I left law and I started a coaching business, helping helping people and then ended up you know, being focused on women and, and money and abundance. So I was already doing that. But this mission helped me to focus that on really, thing and then also to think about, okay, how can I scale it so that I can touch a million women, which, again, I'm still on the, I'm still on the path of that. But that's where that's, that's where that's what, how that started.
Abigail Thomson 16:59
Awesome. So would you say you have a passion for coaching, or does it kind of center in a more of a passion for real estate and you wanting to share that with others, both, both.
Monick Halm 17:09
I love, love, love, love, love real estate, you know, get clips and some of my own podcasts and book and so I love talking about it. Just being in it, but I also put that deeper mission to help women create financial freedom. And I define financial freedom as when you have enough passive income streams that it equals or exceeds your expenses. That's, that's financial freedom. So just getting, you know, helping women get to that level. Or, like how How's what's the best way to do that? And definitely, it's education is creating this community of support with mentorship. And also, you know, helping them have access to opportunities to invest. So all of that.
Abigail Thomson 17:59
So you mentioned earlier in our, in our conversation, how you wanted to answer the questions of how can women be in real estate and use our innate skills as females to be successful? Some sort of competitive advantage? Have you been able to clearly answer that question? Or are you still figuring it out? through observing your students and what you're doing in your own business?
Monick Halm 18:25
I have an answer for that. It's always it's, it gets refined, but there are I've been studying the feminine since 2004. So this was something that I've been I've been really deeply interested in and inspired by for a long time. So when when the idea came, like all of these things that I like the feminine the real estate investing with coaching, the personal development and the you know, the mindset piece all of that came together into into this and that's why I love it so much. And, and hopefully why it's our goddess is getting because great results. But I think for women, there are a few things so one, I call the goddess secrets. So one of the one piece is pleasure. So men were often taught in this culture like a patriarchal patriarchal culture like what we should do is have like, it's no pain no gain, you got a man up muscled through, it's like or like, you know, really hard work and if it's if it's like if you're if it's really if you're really suffering then you're probably no happy doesn't come easy and like you're gonna hard work but it'll pay off in the end, right? That's kind of the the lesson we're taught. Well, for women, it's not actually doesn't work very well for us to try to muscle through what works for us as to pleasure through and it's through really tapping into what feels good for us keeping ourselves pleasured and happy. And then you know, using that That what feels good is like is that compass and guide for what we should we should do that is that's very powerful for the other way ends up will get results, but you end up very depleted at the end of that. And and without the same results actually is that you don't get as good a result as you do when you go through pleasure, right, you get to where you want to get to a better place I find and you feel awesome on the journey and you know, at the destination. So that's the first part. The second piece is intuition. women's intuition is a real thing. Everyone has intuition. Women, the way our brains are wired, we have these connections between the two hemispheres of our brains that men do not have, that does actually make us more intuitive and more sensitive. So that that those intuitive capabilities that that aren't on a logical level, but let tells us like, who to trust and which direction to go in or restriction to avoid. Those are really, really powerful. That's a really powerful, I call it like a life GPS. It's such a powerful guide. And so part of that got a secret sauce is learning to really listen to your intuition that to hear it and to trust it. So that's that's the second part. The third part is is the mindset piece. Tony Robbins says success is 20 based 20% on strategy on strategy 80% on psychology. So what goes on between your ears, is 80% of success. I think it's probably even more than that.
Monick Halm 21:41
And because so much of what you do or don't do will happen because of the beliefs that you have in your head about what's possible for you or what's not possible, what's good, what's bad, what's evil, what's whatever. And so, we do a lot of work on that just having this mindset about what is possible. And even as women like what is possible in relationship to men. And then last but not least, is sisterhood. So women, we are biologically wired for sisterhood. There's a hormone oxytocin is a bonding hormone, and it floods our brain and feels good in our brain. And it comes when we are breastfeeding and we are making love and when we were around groups of other women, so all those things, that's our body going Yes, like, this is good. It's good for you, right? That's why That's why we're flooded with it. And, and especially when it's this, like a supportive group, which is how we're meant to be. So a lot of times in this culture, women may be taught that we have to compete with one another or that there's, you know, you can't trust other women. But the sisterhood, we created that real estate investor gases, like very specifically meant to me it's like non Catty, non competitive, judgmental, and it's cooperative because we co elevation is when we work together, we all rise. And that's really how we're meant to function. Absolutely. But even though that's not in our culture, and a silly tells us that that's how we we should be or how we are with around other women. But when you're in that group of when you're in a community where you just feel so support, where we cheer each other on where you can be vulnerable with one another, then so much is possible.
Abigail Thomson 23:39
Yeah, I completely agree. I also love how you guys call it your secret sauce. And those are four very, very good ingredients to have. And I agree with intuition is huge mindset is huge. And having people around you to support you and that you know you can lean on is all of those things are so powerful. And I think it's really funny. I think it was the first the first piece of the sauce, how you want to enjoy it. I see that so much in working with my dad. He's like, What if I'm scared of what's happening? That means we're going in the right direction. I'm like, not always. Okay. I trust you. So we'll keep going. But sometimes there's that there's that pushback, because it's like, Ah, this doesn't feel right.
Monick Halm 24:30
I don't know. So this is such a good point because there's a subtle difference between like, pleasure, does not equal comfortable, right? You in this process, you will be pushed out of your comfort zone. And there probably will be things that scare you because you're pushed out of your comfort zone. So it is uncomfortable. That does not mean you cannot like it shouldn't there shouldn't be pleasure as part of it. So it's like pleasure. Really, especially when, but even like having pleasure makes women uncomfortable, because we're not taught that it's okay. Yeah. Or we're not taught that it's okay to feel pleasure when we have to prioritize everyone else's feelings before ours. So yeah, you can feel good. But after kids after, like, after everybody else is good, then then you can get like, no, no, it's the we have to flip that switch. But it's not, that doesn't mean that there's not parts of this, that won't feel scary, and that there aren't parts that will like that are like it will push you out of your comfort zone. So that's part of the intuition piece is really learning. Like, what is the what is the part of you that what's the voice? That's like, the ego part that wants to stay small and safe? That is, like going no, no, no, like, Don't do this. Right. And then there's another part that's like the, versus the intuition that sometimes it's going to tell you don't do that. So it's like, how can you support as like, how do you know, like, which is that? Like, don't do that, versus the? No, it's scary, you know, like, I'll give you you know, that's part of the process is learning how do you how can you distinguish those voices. And, and I can give you a quick way that I do it, one way is generally the initial your initial gut reaction, that's going to be your intuition. So it's going to be that first voice, the first thing that comes up, and then this other voice is going to come in. And that other voice will often have a lot of reasons why you should not listen to that first voice. If they give you a very, very compelling logical reasons, very compelling, because that voice knows exactly what to say to you to stop you. Go, it's gonna be like very, very, very compelling reasons about like, and they're gonna be outside of you. But it's like, yes, no, this voice will say, No, don't, this is not the person to work with. And the other voice will say, No, but that person has very good reviews, and has been recommended by so and so. And that person, you know, and they'll give you all of these other reasons why you should ignore that first, that instinct intuition. And your intuition is never going to logic you, it's kind of comes from a different part of your brain is not going to give you reasons. It's not going to explain itself. It's just gonna say, Don't do it.
Abigail Thomson 27:39
And if you don't listen to me, you'll see why. I won't even
Monick Halm 27:43
say that, I'll just say don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. And then the other and then the other side. No, no, but you really should do it, because and so, you know, often it's just like, Okay, I'm getting all these logical. So then you get to hear and the more sensitive you get to it, the more you learn to go, okay, that's my intuition. And it's giving me this message. And you'll, you get to notice, like how your intuition will speak to you.
Abigail Thomson 28:08
And that's where your mindset comes in, is just really understanding yourself and understanding how your brain works, and what it's going to respond to what it doesn't, how it responds, things like that. And so I think all of those things are just, they're crucial in women's success, which I think is huge. And I'm going to now start calling it my secret sauce, which I think is amazing. Also, I just thought of this, I when I met you at fin con, you mentioned this phrase as your zone of genius. And I now use that in my everyday vocabulary, very regularly, I think is the most amazing term, because so many, especially women, and I've seen this in my own life and a career. So many women think that they need to be doing the same things that men are doing within even their secret sauce capabilities, even if it's not their strength. And then if it's not their strength, they try and convince themselves that they can learn it or not. It's not to say that you can't learn a new skill, but you can almost like change who you are to adapt to that skill or whatever it is, instead of just embracing your zone of genius and traveling on that path, which I think is incredible that you call it that. And I now have this whole new shift of perspective in how I approach entrepreneurship and my business. That's awesome.
Monick Halm 29:42
Now I cannot claim that phrase Zona genius. It comes from the book, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks I highly recommend it. So he talks about two four zones, zone of incompetence and a competence zone of excellence and then your zone of genius, and the importance of spending as much time as possible in your zone of genius. I wish I wish I could like claim it. I did not make it up. But I tried to live by that. And that has been game changing.
Abigail Thomson 30:08
And it's game changing for has been game changing for me for the past? What has it been two or three weeks. So it's really awesome. And now that I know that it's a book, I'm definitely gonna go read that big leap. Because I think that's pretty incredible. Okay, so on to another little shift. You mentioned, you're an author, what is your book? Is it centered around women as well? Or is it real estate in general?
Monick Halm 30:33
Yeah, I have a couple of books. One of them is called the real estate investor goddess handbook. And so it's like how to how to get started in real estate investing as a goddess, another one called wealth, it's a wealth for women conversations with a team that creates your dream. So there's a bunch of different incredible women that that support investors in different ways that we, you know, have have interviews with, and I have another one coming out soon called invest like a goddess advice from most successful women in real estate. So that yeah, all these books all geared towards supporting women in real estate. That's amazing.
Abigail Thomson 31:15
Okay, so I'm gonna go to our traditional next level American Dream question. And you already mentioned a lot of this, you come, you came from a family that's first generation American, they were very focused on you becoming the high income earning professions and you ended up going into law. So that's more of a traditional form of the American dream. And clearly, you have definitely redefined that for yourself. So what would you say your definition now where you are in life is of the American dream. So
Monick Halm 31:55
I think, well, the dream for me, I think for most people is to be able to do what you want, with who you want, when you want. Freedom, to end to end to make the into contribute, though, and to make the difference that you were born to make. So having, you know, being able to, like be in your zones, like be in your zone of genius, have an impact love what you do with who you do it with have that freedom that I think is the that's the American that's the next level American Dream. Yeah. Having that your finances handled so that you know passive income, you can never have to work doing anything you don't want to do again.
Abigail Thomson 32:43
Absolutely. And are you using your syndications and your coaching business and all of the things your mission, your purpose, your business? Are you using that to cultivate and accomplish that dream for yourself?
Monick Halm 32:56
I am and I feel pretty blessed that I'm pretty much there. So I get to do what I want. Like I love I love the life I get to live it's really amazing. Yeah,
Abigail Thomson 33:11
I wake up every single day just grateful that I have even the opportunity to do what I do. Because it's it's really living the most amazing life and it's awesome. Yeah, I'm glad that you're already there because that's where I'm striving.
Monick Halm 33:28
I feel so blessed every day like thank you God.
Abigail Thomson 33:31
Right? So you have so much going on you have an education business you have syndications, you have books and podcasts. Where can people find all of this information? Where can people find you or connect with you if people resonate with what you're doing?
Monick Halm 33:49
The best place is to go to my website www.reigoddesses.com for Rei for real estate investor goddesses calm. And there you can connect with our anywhere for the fascinate all of the blog, the podcasts or programs or events and our social media, all of that they're
Abigail Thomson 34:11
Amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much, Monick. This is an incredible conversation. I know I highly enjoyed learning about your background and what you're doing and how you came about to where you are now. And then I loved getting to know your secret sauce. I'm glad to get to share it and you have a ton going on that I can't I personally cannot wait to connect with. So thank you so much for being here and talking to me today.
Monick Halm 34:36
Thanks for having me. This has been fun.
Abigail Thomson 34:38
Absolutely. Thanks for joining us for another episode of next level American dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today. Want to contact the team directly or interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room. Head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com. Before you go Please leave a review your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy