Breaking Barriers: Women Conquering Male-Dominated Industries with Guest: Big V

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Three, two, one.

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Welcome to another episode of Shit that goes on in Our

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Heads. Today we are joined by a very special guest. This is Bizzle's

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mom. Bizzle's mom, I know that's not your stage

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name. What's your stage name gonna be? Big V. Big

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V, big V. I love that.

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Love club. So you have a funny story for how this name came out. I

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do. When I was in high school, actually, maybe college, we had

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a whole group of friends, and one of them started one of the

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men started calling me Big V. And I didn't realize for a long time he

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was talking about my cleavage,

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which now he might be talking about my backside.

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Close.

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You weren't ready for this, G. Rex. You were not ready for

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this. Transformed into V, so

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okay, well, we're. Going with big V. I like it. We're going to go with

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Big can. I can just see Bizzle right now

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listening back to this when he edits, and he's going to be like, oh. God,

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why did I let her come on this?

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I know. We're working our way through all of our family and friends. No, I'm

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just kidding. We just happen to be blessed. We have a lot of very interesting

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people in our lives, and they have very interesting stories. So thank

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you for joining this. Thank you. I appreciate you having me

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on. Yeah, we love doing this

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podcast. This is our therapy. And when we don't record

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for a couple of weeks, it's kind of sad, but

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life kind of got in the way. I turned 60, had a big

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happy birthday. Birthday party in Toronto. Happy

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birthday. Yeah, it was awesome. And how we made it this far

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is, I don't know, beyond me. But grace of

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God, I'm just going to go with that. We just show up every day. We

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do. I don't know what we're doing still after all these

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episodes. Well, we just keep showing up, getting listening again. And I

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could see huge progress. Oh, thanks. That's cool. We

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try. We finally stopped saying each other's

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names. Yeah, that took a while. It took a couple of episodes to. Get

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that because we kept getting yelled at. Like every week. We would

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get yelled at. Yeah. Bizzle can't help it.

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I know. So

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I see that for those that can't see, big V has got some

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notepad paper with some stuff written on it. She is very

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prepared. Unlike G rex and I,

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we just show up. I know, right? So I like to start

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this off asking, what is it that you want to share with the world about

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you? So what I have discussed with you and Bizzle

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is perhaps career changes. And then I

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want to have a little time at the end to talk about,

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I'm a few years older than you. Happy birthday, girl.

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So I can see that a lot of things have happened in my lifetime

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that's history. And some changes. So a couple of

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things maybe about women in the workforce and

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a couple of things like that. Okay, cool. I love that.

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I have a random question to get us started. What was your very first job

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working. At Tupperware Home Parties? It was

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in high school, and they had these big jubilees, and I had to take

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these tickets and count ten and put a rubber band around, and that was my

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job all day long. So in my sleep, I was counting tickets, and

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every time I got to ten, I would wake up.

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Oh, my word. Yeah, that was

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Tupperware home parties. Yeah, it was fun though. Their jubilees

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were awesome. Yeah. So from Tupperware Home Parties to where you are today, what's your

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current occupation? My current occupation is

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realtor real estate professional. Yeah. But it wasn't a straight

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path, I would imagine. It was not a straight no, no. When I

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went to college, I got several degrees. I started out in psychology and ended up

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in engineering. And then I started working in the defense

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industry at what's now Lockheed Martin. I guess I could be

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like Mr. M.

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Yeah, I could be like Mr. M and talk about the

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big entertainment that now it's a big missile factory.

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Instead of giving them the credit and saying them by name. So you used to

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work for a big missile factory? Yes. And so most of my career was

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working on the industry side of military,

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Department of Defense, and I did work for the government side a few times, and

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it wasn't very much fun. Yeah. Were you the only

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female? When I started out, I was very

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few and all the way through, actually, I used to get bored and I would

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do statistics, and I never saw more than 3%

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females until my last job, which was at the government

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side. And not to be political here, but it was really weird

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because we would hire anybody that was a minority, a female.

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But we didn't see that many people come through the door on the industry side,

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but on the government side, it was very diverse

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between everybody. And I never have understood exactly why

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that is. Maybe interesting. I don't know. But anyway, yeah,

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so I really loved working there from the standpoint that

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I made my own jobs, I thought what was interesting, and then I would find

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a way to create a job to do that. And one

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of the things, when I switched into real estate, I had to come to terms

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with time and money, because when I worked for the big

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company, I had a good salary and that paycheck showed up every

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two weeks, and I worked on my projects. But now in the

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real estate world, you have to worry about when's that property

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going to close and am I wasting you never waste

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time with people, but am I spending too much time on this person? That's not

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going to make a move or am I better off doing something

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else? Wow. That's crazy. First of all, that

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is a wild departure

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from Tupperware Girl to now working with

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military missile places and know where you are today.

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So my question is how did you even get into the military

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side of it or the missile place? I

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was looking through the career resource people at school and they

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were hiring in Orlando, where I was

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and almost this is back in the day, this was in the late

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70s, early 80s, all my peers

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from graduation from school were going to work at, like,

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Caterpillar or Tennessee Valley Authority or in

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the fields or something, making probably 14 a

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year, which was a really good salary. And this military

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company offered me 18 to start. Wow. So it was

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close to home. My boyfriend lived there, and I said, okay. And I'll never

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forget laughing. On my way into my very first day, I had on

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this bright yellow knit dress.

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This is where Big V came from. Well, what's really funny is

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a few years later, I started dating this guy that was there, and

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he called me the yellow breasted mattress threshold. Oh,

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my. From and I

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hope Bissel doesn't listen. To oh, he's totally going to listen to

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this. Kidding. Anyway,

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that guy was from Texas, so he had names for everybody.

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Well, Texas.

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This is awesome. This is priceless. I love this. Okay.

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You love it because we know that Bizzle is going to be like,

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why. Did my mom come on here? I love it because

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he's going to be so red when he's like, doing this. I

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wish that maybe you can have a camera on him.

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Yeah. Live reaction. Because I

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will die of laughter. Literally. All the crap in my chest

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will go away so hard.

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Yeah. So you walked in with your yellow knit dress. You had your interview. It

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must have went well. Yeah. How long were you there for? Oh, in my interview.

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This is so weird. The guy took me through the manufacturing facility. They

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had vats, big vats. One was gold and one was silver that

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they use for plating things. And the guy that was interviewing me said,

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oh, yeah, this is a great place to pilfer. What does that

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mean? Means stealing little things off the wow. Off the floor. And then

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later on, my dog got

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out in the apartment complex where my boyfriend lived, and it went after

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that guy's bird. Oh, my surprise. I got hired at all after it

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went after his bird.

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Wow. Oh, my God. Tweety has been eaten by a

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dog. I know. So you

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went in. So I went in and I went through a series of I stayed

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there for, like, 13 years. I learned a lot. And then I

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went between several other smaller companies, and then

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I ended up for most of my career at north of Grumman.

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Got it. And I worked on all kinds of

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stuff. A lot of things I did on the

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halfway through the beginning, it was all missiles and weapons, and then the

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second, probably half a time working there was for training. So we did

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a laser tag and we did simulation games. I did a

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program on future of learning for the air force that was really interesting.

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Wow. I know.

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Yeah, I worked on some Star wars stuff back in the

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day. Wow. That's a job. You need

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me. Yeah, you need to get a job like that. Just playing video

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game. Yeah, that's how I interpreted

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that job. I know that that's not what it was. Yeah,

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that's wild. So when

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was this? What year was this when you started kind of getting into this industry?

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Early 80s. So I was through the 2015

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or so. Wow. How was

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it being there, like, being a

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woman in that industry?

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There wasn't when I first started, actually. They must have been having complaints

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because somebody from outside the company came and was interviewing

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all the women about, and HR popped in at the time I was

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talking to them. I grew up on a ranch,

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and we were treated like the guys that worked

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there. We worked the cows and did all the stuff. So I really didn't think

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too much about male and female and what you could and couldn't

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do. So I think I had an advantage over a lot of females

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because I would just go put my elbows out and jump in and do whatever

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had to be done. Yeah, but back to the history

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part of this, that was a long time ago, and

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I don't think women were raised at the time to be

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managers. And I thought a lot about did they

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discriminate against women because they were women, or were

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women just not prepared to be

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leaders at that time? I mean, I think they are now. I think our society

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has allowed women to evolve that way. But back in the

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day, I'll never forget this one meeting I was in, there were probably 100 and

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150 people there. I was the only woman in the room.

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And the guy that was given the

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presentation, this was for a missile to be launched off a

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ship, and it had this covering over the top,

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and it was supposed to perforate when the missile took off, but the

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guy said, yeah, when it took off, the covering didn't

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perforate, and it looked just like a big condom. Oh, my God.

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They all turned around and looked at. Me expecting some sort

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of reaction. That's wild.

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My brain can't even fathom being in that type of an industry. It's so

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different. But I think that I had a really good

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education, so I think that the fact that I worked hard and

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just brought up good ideas and stuff, I think you had

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to kind of prove yourself twice as much. But once they realized

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that you were contributing member then? Actually, some of the

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ones later on kind of looked out for me. That's good. Like, big brothers or

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something. Well, those are mostly the West Point guys that like I felt like I

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was in a fraternity. I was a little sister for the fraternity.

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Wow. But you know what's funny, big V? Is that still kind of happens today.

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Right? Even though we've come so far

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with equal rights and everything, I think that still

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kind of happens in today's in industry today.

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Fortunately for me and for dirty Skittles, if you know

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your shit, you know your shit. They kind of

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let you go and let you do your thing. But I think about the

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people, the kids that are just coming out of college and stuff now, they have

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far more of an advantage than you and I had when I

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came out of high school 40 years ago.

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I think that we're advancing, but I don't think we're advancing fast

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enough. Yeah, I don't think we're there yet, but at least we're

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and I think part of it is a growth factor on everybody's.

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Um, and the other thing, I think sometimes guys might be a little

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intimidated. I remember one of the conferences I went to,

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the kids from UCF. Kids from UCF. I walked up and asked

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them a question. The girls popped right up and started answering the

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boys. Men that were young, men that were there sat in the back and they

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just I think they were afraid of these strong

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women. Got it. Strong, wild women. Yeah.

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So there's something that you mentioned your

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upbringing and how you think that that kind of helped you sort of jump into

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this industry where you're just like, we're in here to get our feet wet. Like,

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just jump on in. What was that like? You grew up on a

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ranch? I did. I'd

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know nothing about growing up on a ranch. Just FYI complete city girl. So

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I apologize for our listeners if this sounds like silly ask questions,

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but what did you do? You know what I mean?

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Well, it's funny.

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I took over the ranch after my father and mother passed away. I

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thought I knew something before then. I didn't know anything until I was in charge.

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But basically what I did as a child is that we would get on our

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horses and we would go the area that's Lake Nona. Now,

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we leased that, and it was 8000 acres. Wow. So I had free rein

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of that beautiful lake, and I would go skinny dipping out in the lake.

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Nobody was there. Walk around in the woods

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barefoot with my gun. And then I'd go, oops, I'm just going to shoot my

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foot.

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Well, there might be snakes, a

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gator. You never know that's. The biggest Gator I've ever seen was on that lake.

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It must have been 15ft long. It was after my dog.

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Basically, we didn't live there. We lived kind of about

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ten minutes away. So we would take the horses and we would gather up the

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cattle and put them in the chute. And then you'd sometimes

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part out the ones that were going to go to market, or you'd separate the

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babies from their moms when it was time to do that. Or you would run

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them through the chute and you'd put medicine on them,

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different kind, like for flies and all that stuff.

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And then sometimes you made steers out of the little

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bull calves.

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After I took over the ranch, we would

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have child labor where

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Bissell'sister had to go help, too. And he was

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in about third grade the first time. And they went back to school and did

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show and Tell, and they also did pregnancy testing on the cows

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for show and tell. He went back and started telling about show

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and tell. Can you imagine?

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And the teacher was telling me, and I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't

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mean him to come tell all that stuff. She goes, well, that's okay. The one

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that went after him was telling about the rabbits at the pet zoo. Oh,

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my goodness. So show and Tell was short that day.

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Can you imagine being another child in that class? And your classmate gets

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up to do, like, pregnancy testing on cow. I'd be like

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my eyes would be like, wide open. Tell me more.

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Yeah. So what I figured out and this kind of relates way back to the

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career thing I figured out that when I had

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the cattle, that you don't grow cows, you grow

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grass. Because if the grass is good, the cows

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do well, then otherwise you have to give them hay and feed and

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all that stuff. So I figured out in real estate that you don't sell

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property, you sell yourself. There's a lot more

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marketing than there is the transaction

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part. And it's really a lot like being a lawyer, though we're

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cautioned every day, don't practice law without a license. But there's

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so many things that can go wrong and so many ways that you can

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guide it to be to your clients advantage. But most

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people don't think of it that way because they just think you're like selling

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cars or houses. A product man

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a commodity, and it's not that at all. And you can get in so much

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trouble. I know you've heard this week about some of the shenanigans that can

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go know. I know. Yes. Big V is here this

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week in Georgia helping us with a little nugget. Is he easier

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than working on the ranch or it's kind of the

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same. You're

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hurting the cattle. But they didn't talk back quite so much.

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No, he's really very good.

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But I have to remind me that I'm old,

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which is why I felt okay talking about the way things oh, I have to

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bring this up. This is something else on my paper. So when I was growing

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up, we talked a lot about I mean, when we were we were hippies

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because I'm probably almost a decade older than you. G.

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Rex

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we thought we were the ones that came up with all the rebellion and the

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new way of thinking and all that, but not at all. It was the beatniks.

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And if you go back and study what they were in, they were anti

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materialism, anti conformist, and

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more about experiences in life than they were about. So

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they were against the man and the machine. And there's a lot of really good

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literature written about during that time about

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people's innate integrity versus

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being part of this big machine. Man really

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interesting. And I don't think talking about what's changing,

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that set in motion, even some of the things that are going on today, it's

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still evolving as part of what the Beatnik started in the

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50s. Yeah. Did you think we would be farther along as

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a society than we are now? Back then? I didn't

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really think about it. The one thing that I will say is Slide

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in the Family, Stone and all these songs where we are family.

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And she wasn't my

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class president. The vice president in the 70,

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72 was a black woman, and nobody thought

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anything of it. We loved her. Yeah. Interesting. But I think it's gotten

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worse since then because at that time, everybody was

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not everybody. Most people were starting to embrace the

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fact of inclusion, and I just think it's gotten worse,

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and I don't know, and I don't want to go into why. Yeah,

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it's a scary thing. When I

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graduated, I thought, oh, the world's going to be

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better, blah, blah, blah. It got really good, and then it got

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really shitty really quick, and

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I'm hoping that the pendulum starts swinging back the other way.

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I think it has to start with us. Yeah. And I don't think it's just

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going to happen overnight. Hopefully by the time I'm 80,

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things will look a little better. I'm going to give it 20 years.

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You'll still be working during skittles. I will not be

00:20:34
working. So let me ask you guys, and not to interrupt

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you, G. Rex, but I talked about my transition,

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so I know both of you, you transitioned from

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Pastry Chef. And, G. Rex, you transitioned into being

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retired. Right? Retired, and then I went back to work. I started

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back to work last week. Oh, okay. So how has that been for you

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two? I'll let you go first. Your ex. For me,

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it was really good. I needed that four months

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just to

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decompress. I worked for 40

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years, and just having four months of not having to

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work and not really having to worry about it, I got to travel.

00:21:20
I launched our podcast and made it super successful between the

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two of us. I found my center, and for

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me, that was really important. I needed to find my center. But

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going back to work. I'm really excited because the company

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that I'm working for really wants me. They want me for my

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knowledge and being able to impart that onto the next

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generation, that's really important to me. And I think as we get

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older, that's kind of our job, too, is that we should

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be giving back to that next generation because we wouldn't be where

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we're at today if we didn't have people that helped us along the

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way. So, honestly, I just want to take that

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knowledge that's in my head and give it to somebody else. Absolutely.

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And if I could say something before you so I feel like that you

00:22:08
asked me how it was growing up. I had some incredible

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female role models, and it made a lot of difference. I didn't think of

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them as role models until much later, but one of them was Brownie Wise. That

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was the marketeer that made, you know,

00:22:23
Earl Tupper developed it, but she's the one that made it into a

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brand and a family thing, and she was a family friend.

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There was another lady, Wilma Overstreet, that was a

00:22:34
female ranch wife, but she ran the

00:22:38
business a lot, and there were just quite a few women like that that I

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could see were very strong and business

00:22:45
minded. And they were still female in the female

00:22:49
role then, but, well, Brandy wasn't, so I think that

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made a huge difference. Yeah, mentors are huge.

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My transition well,

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yeah, I still actually today think about

00:23:07
being a pastry chef is totally different than what I do now,

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but there is some foundational

00:23:14
knowledge that carries through. So there are often times where I'm

00:23:18
doing what I do today, and I work in the software industry, I manage

00:23:22
a team, but I will find myself in a really difficult

00:23:26
situation or a very stressful day,

00:23:29
or like, I have to complete a task or something, right? And

00:23:36
the very first thought is usually like, oh, I don't want to do this, right?

00:23:39
Like, how do I get out of this? How do I back out? How do

00:23:41
I avoid whatever this difficult task is?

00:23:45
But that kitchen brain kicks in where I

00:23:48
realize very quickly that that's not an option.

00:23:52
And my fight instinct kicks in and

00:23:56
I prepare, right? So I'm like, okay, well, doesn't matter how I feel about

00:24:00
this. At the end of the day, this has to get done. I have to

00:24:02
produce, I have to be responsible. I have to, have to, have to.

00:24:06
And I think that that's still the kitchen mindset in me is

00:24:10
doesn't matter how stressful it is. I still have a job

00:24:14
that I have to do and now more. So I have a team

00:24:17
that I'm looking out for, so it's just

00:24:21
not an option. So the transition

00:24:25
mentally, I don't think there's a big

00:24:28
difference, but the industry,

00:24:32
obviously is totally different. I remember starting in this

00:24:36
industry and crying because the very first

00:24:39
holiday I had off was Thanksgiving, and it had

00:24:43
been since I had started being a pastry chef. I never had a holiday off.

00:24:46
That just wasn't an option. And realizing, wow,

00:24:50
I have spent 15 years of my life not celebrating holidays. Now

00:24:54
I get a holiday off and I'm making more money than I did after 15

00:24:58
years in an industry. So that, to me, was like the biggest difference was

00:25:03
the pay and holidays off. But the mindset is still very

00:25:06
much that drive is still there, and the. Skill

00:25:10
set is a little different. Yeah, it's different.

00:25:14
Yeah. Now you have to take a walk to get that.

00:25:21
Mean. That's true. I sit down all day now where before I

00:25:25
was running constantly. Yeah. So it's a little

00:25:28
different. Yeah. Well, at least you snagged Bizzle out of the deal.

00:25:32
That's true. It's all Bizzle's fault.

00:25:36
All Bizzle's fault. And going back to what you said,

00:25:40
G. Rex, about giving back and when you're

00:25:44
older, I have met so many people, male and female. They talk about

00:25:47
the empty nest syndrome, but I have met so many people, maybe young

00:25:51
and old, that lose their purpose.

00:25:55
And I think a lot of times when people retire or something, unless they have

00:25:59
some great hobby they love, they really lose their purpose, and

00:26:03
the kids get older and have their own lives. So that's not your

00:26:06
life anymore so much. And I think you really have to

00:26:10
find something that sparks passion with you, that you love

00:26:14
to do, that gives you meaning. And that's what

00:26:18
the podcast is. That that's my passion. I think it is for both of

00:26:21
us. And if you asked me a year ago if this was in

00:26:25
my wheelhouse, it wasn't, right? And

00:26:29
now I get so excited about this.

00:26:33
And we have people from 60 plus

00:26:36
countries listening to us. Wow. We've had almost 70

00:26:40
downloads since February. People that are listening to us

00:26:44
and get a lot of value out of this and

00:26:48
love to listen to us, we're not

00:26:52
professionals by any means, but just telling those

00:26:55
human stories. And I learn something

00:26:59
new every time we record. I've seen some of

00:27:03
the ones, and I thought I was kind of worldly, but

00:27:07
when people tell what shit goes on in their head

00:27:10
yeah. You really realize there's an inner dynamic

00:27:14
that if you're not living that life, you don't really get it.

00:27:18
Yeah. It doesn't even cross your mind at all.

00:27:21
Yeah. We have some guests this season that

00:27:25
are totally different than any world I've ever known. That I'm

00:27:29
just like it blows my mind. It's really cool. Like,

00:27:32
your upbringing with your dad and all your

00:27:36
whole life story. I'm like, that is so different. It's so weird. It's so

00:27:40
interesting. It is different. And I'll just a little bit more history on

00:27:43
them. So my parents, obviously

00:27:47
were older and they grew up. My dad, especially around the time

00:27:50
of the Wild West, shows so before I was

00:27:54
born, they traveled in the Wild West shows that would

00:27:58
go around. And my dad had trick horses that would do this

00:28:01
whole desert scene reenactment. And the

00:28:05
horse would do all these he could do anything with the horse. It was amazing.

00:28:09
And my mom was a trick rider, and my oldest

00:28:12
sister was five when she was in the rodeos doing

00:28:16
trick riding. When I was born, they stopped because the three of us were ready

00:28:20
to go to school. So crazy. Yeah,

00:28:24
but it's so funny. I remember when we would be in the rodeo parades or

00:28:27
something. My mom taught me how to do the Royal Wave.

00:28:32
And we were so particular about making sure our outfits were

00:28:36
just right. That's so crazy.

00:28:40
That's what I mean. I can't even imagine what that's like growing up that way,

00:28:44
because that's so different than my upbringing. So I

00:28:47
just think it's really cool. Yeah, it was fun being out in the woods,

00:28:51
too. I'm watching G Rex's eyes. Dart what are you

00:28:55
doing? I don't

00:28:59
know. I did take some mucinx before

00:29:02
this. And I'm having a beer.

00:29:07
And I'm having a beer because if I don't take the mucinex,

00:29:11
I can't get three words out without coughing. I know.

00:29:15
I'm sorry, dear. It's not your fault. I don't know. I

00:29:19
think the Canadian fires had a lot to do with it. The pollution was

00:29:22
really towards a lot of pollution in Toronto. So

00:29:26
it just kind of like settled in my chest. That's right.

00:29:30
She just went Toronto to see Pink perform. Wow. It

00:29:33
was amazing. Like the best 60th birthday

00:29:37
ever. Like I said. How we made it this

00:29:41
far, I don't know. God.

00:29:45
Somebody's like, oh, yeah, you're going to be fine. We're good. Can I tell

00:29:49
you a side story? Yeah. The other night I was telling Big V

00:29:53
this. I was laying in bed and Bizzle was asking me, what do you want

00:29:57
to do for your birthday? And I'm like, I don't want to do anything. I'm

00:30:00
going to be 43 years old. Like, I'm done.

00:30:03
And he's like, you're not going to be 43. I'm like, what do you mean?

00:30:07
I'm like, what am I going to be 44? Like, how old am I going

00:30:09
to be? He's like, you're going to be 42. I'm like, no, that's not right.

00:30:13
He's like, Pull it out, do the math. And I'm like, I am going to

00:30:17
be 42. This is the best day ever.

00:30:23
I was like, I don't even need a present. This is everything

00:30:28
not going to be as old as I thought I was. Wonderful.

00:30:33
I had a whole extra year. I know. Perfect.

00:30:37
But getting back to your transitions through all of these different careers,

00:30:41
you have mentioned that having mentors was very

00:30:44
helpful. You talked about the one in the

00:30:48
tupperware. You talked about somebody

00:30:51
else, the ranch wife. Yeah. Did you have anything

00:30:55
when you worked for that company that makes. Rockets. Was there anybody?

00:31:01
I think there were a few people that I looked up to that were really

00:31:05
good at what they did and some of them

00:31:09
could be very arrogant. But now I realize that they get

00:31:12
I mean, I understand why they're so impatient. If they work hard and they have

00:31:15
this knowledge and everybody else isn't keeping up, I get the

00:31:19
impatience. I had a couple

00:31:22
of people that would talk

00:31:26
to me about guidance and maybe help me

00:31:30
figure out how to write my evaluations or

00:31:35
tell me how things kind of worked in the industry or boost

00:31:39
me along. Yeah. And so now in real estate, do you have a mentor

00:31:43
as well? Not really.

00:31:46
I could pay for coaching and I probably will at some point.

00:31:49
But I've known

00:31:53
some people that I started out in residential. Then I went and worked

00:31:57
almost exclusively on land. Now I'm kind of back 50 50 on the

00:32:01
land, and the land part takes a long time to get

00:32:04
it's more interesting because you have to figure out all the due

00:32:08
diligence of can it go there? Will the soil support it? Is there

00:32:12
wetlands? Can you get through zoning and all that stuff. So that's a little more

00:32:16
like the engineering side, the residential side. You get the

00:32:20
joy of helping people with their own personal

00:32:23
residence or second home or something like that.

00:32:27
You also get to figure out how to tell them that paint color really doesn't

00:32:31
matter because they're going to paint anyway. Drives me

00:32:34
nuts, but I will have to say this I'm with Keller

00:32:38
Williams and that has been the biggest

00:32:42
boost ever if it wasn't for them. Because you get

00:32:46
63 hours to ruin somebody's life. What? That means it takes

00:32:49
63 hours of school, plus take a test to get your real estate

00:32:52
license. You don't know anything about the business at that

00:32:56
point, maybe some of the laws, but if you don't have a good

00:32:59
broker and classes and then when you join at least

00:33:03
Kw, you have to take classes like twelve

00:33:06
different follow on classes in order to stay at

00:33:10
the company. And our broker,

00:33:14
man, I can call them anytime and get answers. And I

00:33:18
realize a lot of other real estate agents do not have brokers that support them

00:33:22
at all. I think that's been the

00:33:25
frustrating part to me. And I have to admit there's a little ego

00:33:29
involvement because you go from being an engineer working on all this really

00:33:32
interesting stuff to having to search online

00:33:36
for properties and it's just not the same mental challenge. It's a

00:33:40
different pace. Instead of working with things, you're working with

00:33:44
people. And I've had to learn a little

00:33:47
bit about people skills. Has that been the hardest thing

00:33:51
in your transition to where you are now? I think so. I think so.

00:33:55
Plus you have to make yourself accountable and that's always a challenge.

00:33:59
But I think understanding the

00:34:02
difference and understanding that

00:34:06
you get this pushback from people. Oh, you're just a realtor

00:34:10
because everybody's a realtor. But there aren't that many that I

00:34:13
have found that are really professionals that take the time to learn

00:34:17
the extra things that you really need to know to help

00:34:21
people. Because they can get tricky in a hurry and you can get in so

00:34:24
much trouble and cause people problems, or you can make it smooth and

00:34:27
easy. But it's a profession and a lot of people don't

00:34:31
view it that way. Yeah. So it's kind of like peeling the onion,

00:34:34
right? You have that first layer and then you got to peel it back a

00:34:37
little bit more and a little bit more. Yes, but big V, I have a

00:34:41
question for you. So you said you're probably about

00:34:44
ten years older than I am, so what made you decide to go back to

00:34:47
work? Were you bored?

00:34:51
So there's a couple of things that play into it that I won't get into

00:34:55
too much here, but I was working in a job that I

00:34:58
hated. Okay. Partly that was because I had worked

00:35:02
on the same program on the industry side,

00:35:06
and I was the assistant program manager and the lead engineer

00:35:09
at that time. And then I ended up going off the

00:35:13
program working. I was working on medical training, but the people above me

00:35:17
decided they didn't want our office to do medical training anymore. So they laid

00:35:21
off myself, my boss and my boss's

00:35:24
boss. So they laid off almost the whole office. And

00:35:28
so then I ended up going to work on the government side.

00:35:31
And because I wasn't really working for the government,

00:35:36
it's a whole long story. So it wasn't

00:35:40
very fulfilling because you're just supposed to do the grunt work and

00:35:44
you couldn't have any ideas your own. And so I

00:35:48
went from creating my own life know, and

00:35:51
so I had rental houses most of the time growing up,

00:35:55
and poor Bissell had to go work on those too.

00:36:00
But it hasn't hurt him much. He's pretty good at handy Dandy

00:36:03
here. That's how he knows so much.

00:36:07
So I just decided I would get my license and go into real

00:36:11
estate. And I didn't take much

00:36:14
time off in between, but I've had the

00:36:18
flexibility to take some, like here this week, I can

00:36:22
take the flexibility not to worry about it too much. Nice.

00:36:27
Is this your last stop? Do you think after this you'll retire? I

00:36:31
don't know if I'll ever retire, really. My dad

00:36:35
had the ranch until he passed away, and that's how I

00:36:39
was able to take it over. He scaled down quite a bit,

00:36:42
but he still had

00:36:45
300 head of mama cows at the time.

00:36:49
So I think I'll transition, kind of. My

00:36:53
goal is to get some investment property and do some other things

00:36:57
so that I'm not pounding the pavement myself, but I

00:37:00
just don't feel like I'll ever just not

00:37:04
work. Yeah, you and I are a lot alike.

00:37:08
I don't think I'll ever not work. The

00:37:12
podcast, to me, is not work. Right. It's my passion, but I

00:37:15
always need to keep my mind busy. When my mind's not busy, then it's not

00:37:19
a good thing. It's not a good thing for my wife, it's not a good

00:37:21
thing for me, it's not a good thing for dirty skittles. I need to keep

00:37:25
my mind busy, and the podcast helps

00:37:29
me do that. But also with my new job, too,

00:37:32
because I have a ton of knowledge in my

00:37:36
field, and I'm so willing to give that to somebody

00:37:40
else. Yeah, it does take a little I mean,

00:37:44
you can learn a lot of things from Google. I have this term that I

00:37:47
call people that certain clients are. I call them

00:37:51
Google Geniuses because they've studied Google and they

00:37:55
think they know everything there is to know. They studied Google.

00:38:02
University. Forgot about this and this and this.

00:38:06
But you do gain wisdom,

00:38:09
and I've thought about wisdom a little bit. What is it really? It's a

00:38:13
combination of knowledge and experience

00:38:17
about how it works. And I do feel like

00:38:21
and maybe it's just bizzle and dirty skittles, but I feel

00:38:25
like a lot of people now have wisdom younger than they

00:38:28
used to because you can learn faster and the world

00:38:32
is more dynamic. But I still think it

00:38:35
takes some years and some experience to really

00:38:39
get that insight. So I have one last question that kind

00:38:43
of ties into what you were just saying, but before I ask, do you have

00:38:46
any last questions? No, ma'am. I'm all good. So

00:38:51
with years of experience and the wisdom right.

00:38:54
On that topic, what has been the biggest lesson you've learned

00:38:58
so far?

00:39:02
Keep your curiosity and

00:39:07
keep your joy. I like that. Oh, I like

00:39:11
that. Yeah, I actually did think of one. I thought of

00:39:15
one. So, big Feet, what do you do,

00:39:18
like, either on a daily basis or a weekly basis for self

00:39:22
care and self love? I am a

00:39:26
huge Tony Robbins, Dean

00:39:29
Gracio, Matthew McConaughey fan, and

00:39:33
I read everything I can find on

00:39:37
growth, and I play with my

00:39:40
chickens. Okay. I have

00:39:44
dogs, too, but

00:39:48
I think the self care really comes from reading those things

00:39:52
and listening to the podcasts and stuff. And, of course, your podcast,

00:39:56
because it keeps me grounded in

00:40:00
it's a Big world, and it can be very pretty if you just don't get

00:40:04
mired down in the mug. Yeah.

00:40:09
Keep your mindset straight. Yeah. Thank you. I love

00:40:12
that. I love that. That's going to be our new model. Thanks.

00:40:16
Keep your curiosity and your joy. I like that. Amen. Thank

00:40:19
you. Well, thank you very much for hanging out with us. Oh, it was really

00:40:23
fun. Nice to meet you. It's so nice to meet you.

00:40:31
It's okay to be not okay. Just make sure you're talking to someone.