Ep 152: My Origin Story. How I Got Started in Real Estate

In the spirit of telling more stories, I thought it would be fun to share how I started, so in this episode, you'll learn more about my background and

• How I met BP 
• The exciting opportunity that we were given
• The devastating news we got and what we did next
• Where I started in real estate and why I stopped being a Realtor
• How I got into helping real estate humans market themselves
• My ah-ha moments
• How everything comes full circle

I hope that this episode inspires you!

💛 Connect with Me + Resources

Follow me on Instagram

Grab your FREE 40 Content Concepts Guide

FREE Course! Unstoppable Instagram : 3 Steps to Help You Get Found, Get Followed & Get Leads

Transcript

[Chelsea Peitz]: 0:24

Hey everyone. Thanks so much for tuning back into the show. Today is going to be a departure from our normal social media and marketing. And it's going to be talking about my story of how I got started in real estate and, and also then moved into what I'm doing now. And, and like you listening, you probably think to yourself, well, my story is not that interesting. And for many years I've, I've literally never shared this story on the podcast. I've talked about it a little bit here and there on the stage at times. And I believe I made one post about this in 2018, but other than that, I haven't really shared my story. And in the spirit of telling more stories, I thought, you know what? Let me just share this story about how I got into the real estate world, because it actually was a life-changing moment for me. I can tell you that I never planned to ever go into real estate. I was never like, oh, I want to go into real estate one day. Probably a lot of you also had that experience and I never ever, ever envisioned that I would be a speaker, let alone a keynote speaker, a trainer, a coach, et cetera. And so I think that maybe if nothing else, I'm gonna try this storytelling thing. See, you're learning with me because I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is or walk the walk. I'm working on the storytelling. I'm working on creating more content that can make a stranger feel like they already know me or make somebody who feels like they know me a little bit. know me even more. And perhaps you're going to get the lesson or feel seen or an uplift or say, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Something like that happened to me too. Maybe something like what happened to me is happening to you right now. And this will be a moment where you can feel like you're not alone. So let's dive into the story. Once upon a time, there was a young 20 something Chelsea. And I was working in college. I went to Arizona State University and I was working in college at a gym, believe it or not. And I think it was because it was just like right down the way. And I was like really into, to working out. And so I thought, Oh, that'll be fun to work at a gym. And so I was, I was a personal trainer actually. And the owner of this gym, I ended up meeting with them and letting them know that I thought there were a few things that I could help change or improve. And it just sort of grew into this sort of mentorship where this person helped me learn how to sort of run businesses and try all of these new things. It was really cool. And like many of you who probably learned on the job, I learned way more there than I ever did in college. And so I got really good at that and sort of the business aspect of it. And long story on that, they ended up shutting it down. And so I, my mentor helped me get another job at another, uh, another national company. And there I met this really awesome guy named Brian known as BP, which is now my husband, that was 23, 24 years ago, 24 years ago. I don't know. We just celebrated our 19th anniversary. So it was a long time ago. It's 22, 23 years ago. And, um, he was working at a gym. So see, we met at work and I, I still remember what he was wearing yet. Uh, when I first met him, I was on the stair climber. Gosh. Can you even like imagine meeting your, your future, uh, spouse on the stair climber? I was on the stair climber and he had this white, um, polo shirt on and these little khaki shorts. And he just kind of bopped over like, yeah, this like bounced to him. And I just immediately knew that he was the one. Anyway, I digress. So we worked together there. And anyway, this mentor came back into my life a little while after I'd switched over to this company and met VP and said, Hey, I've got this opportunity. Would you be willing to move to another state and help take these failing companies and turn them around? and make them win and profitable. I'm like, heck yeah, that sounds amazing. And so the only problem is, is we don't have anyone to do sort of the sales side of it. We need a few other people. And I'm like, I know this guy who's really good at sales. Of course it was BP. So we end up moving and relocating to Portland, actually Selwood, if you're familiar with the area outside of Portland. It was me and BP and a few other friends of ours that we had connected with. So we actually move up there, it was four of us that moved out there and two people shared a house and me and BP shared a house. And it was really fun. Oh my gosh, we learned so much about the business and we had a great time and we were in our young 20s, just feeling like we were living the dream. We had like this super like adult cool job and we had a good time. So as I'm kind of going through, because I was doing a lot of the accounting stuff, I started to notice something was off. And as I started looking into it more and more, we ended up on this call with my mentor, who of course brought us out there. Believe it or not, he had actually stolen all of our money. I know, yeah, right? He took all four of the people, including me, that went out there, our entire year's salary. And so now we had no payment. And the people that brought us there, they couldn't pay us because they were in the red, right? And also all of the house payments that were supposed to be for both of the houses that they were renting for us for an entire year gone. And first I was shocked. Like, oh my gosh, like I felt like I really trusted this. You know, I was young and didn't know. I was like, oh, everybody's trustworthy. Like, I can't even believe this is happening. And then I was panicked. I thought, oh my gosh, we have no money. And then I felt terrible because I brought three other people with me and I was like, oh no, this is going to be a great adventure. And I just felt awful. So we didn't know anyone. We didn't have any money now. So we just opened up our doors and sold everything. Like literally I was like, here's a post-it note. This is $10. Take it. Like the chairs, the couch, the computer, sold my computer. I sold my KitchenAid mixer for And if anybody has any familiarity with Kitchen Aid Mixer, it was like literally the most expensive thing I owned. And people were like,$50? Oh my gosh. So it sort of like just became this like symbol for me because we'll get into that in a little bit. But so I sold everything. We packed what we could in our car, drove home, and we moved in with BP's mom, who's now my mother-in-law. I love her so much. Lou. And we lived in this little house, it was maybe like a thousand square feet, and we lived there for, actually we lived there a couple of times with her. And I was like, well, what are we gonna do now? And so BP says, well, you know, my family's in real estate, like maybe we should get our licenses while we're just, you know, figuring out where we're gonna go. We had no intention of going into real estate. So we get our real estate licenses. And then we thought, well, now that we have them, maybe we should do something with them. And I ended up, as did BP, we both ended up getting jobs in the new-build community. Ended that for a number of years and then I went into residential resale. And as I was getting into residential resale in around 2008, which was when the bizarre, horrible, whatever word you want to use about the market crashing, I ended up leaving being a full-time real estate agent because I was so sad. sitting in these kitchens with families that were losing their home and there was like nothing I could do. And just to let you know, we lost our home. We tried to sell it. We tried to short sell it. It was just like they didn't even do it. They couldn't even do anything. So we ended up losing our home. And that's when we moved back in with my mother-in-law for the second time. And my husband decided that he wanted to open up his own business. So why not? Why not open up your own business? And we were actually going to open up a personal training gym. See, there's like this gym theme. Like, why wouldn't we open up a disposable income type of business in like the worst market ever? But we did. And we learned a lot from that too. So fast forward. I'm like, you know what? I still want to stay in real estate, but I. I just can't do this. My soul is so sad. So I ended up taking a job with a national title company, which is Fidelity National Financial, and worked there for 11 years. And that's really where I learned how to help real estate humans market using social media. And that's how I started getting into it. I just started learning Snapchat and then Facebook. And one thing led to another, and I had a class of one. that became a class of three, that became a class of 30, and then 300 and went on from there. And so that's how I got into what I'm doing now. I simply started teaching a very small class that again led to a little bit of a larger class, led to a larger one. And then I started writing blog posts about things. And then I started speaking in classes. And that brought me to connections and community. And I eventually ended up speaking on the main stage. at Inman and then I ended up writing a couple of books. About 18 months ago, I launched my own company, which is the consulting company. I work with really large corporations and also individual human beings to train them how to use social media and technology to be more human, personal branding and social media and content. I really, truly have found my passion. did not know that I was destined to be a teacher. I love teaching. And one of the things that I thought was such a negative because it takes my brain a while, a few times, like I don't pick things up sometimes right away like a lot of other people. And I'm neurodivergent and all the things. And so I had to break things down in a specific way for me to understand it. I had no idea what I had originally thought was kind of a negative actually was going to be such a positive. And it helped me be able to explain things to people in a way where they had this aha moment and said, Oh my gosh, I never thought about it like that. So that's how I got to where I'm at today. Now I was going to tell you, I was going to come back to the KitchenAid mixer story. So, you know, fast forward all these number of years and BP says to me, you know what, babe, you should just get yourself a KitchenAid mixer. I know you keep walking by it and you always say every time you see it, oh my gosh, remember that time I sold my KitchenAid mixer for 50 bucks. And I just kept saying, no, no, I want that to, that's sort of like my North Star. Like every time I see that, I want to remember how it set me and you on this track and how we came and we moved in with your mom and that we got our real estate licenses. And it just sort of became this like symbol. and I just never would buy it. Plus it's expensive. I got the original KitchenAid Mixer as like a gift from my parents. So I didn't even buy the first one because they're really expensive. Anyway, when I wrote my second book, What to Post, when it hit bestseller in six different categories, BP surprised me and brought me the KitchenAid Mixer. Oh my gosh, I was so, I mean, I was ugly crying. He goes, you know what? He's like this year, it's time now it's come full circle. And at the, in the house that we lived in at the time, uh, the, the bedroom, the primary bedroom was, was literally, you know, you could see the kitchen down the hallway. And I, I positioned that KitchenAid mixer in the corner so that every night before I went to bed, I would see it. And every morning I got up, I would see it just to remind me that that was my North star. That's the story of how I got into real estate and some of the lessons I learned along the way. And just some personal side of me, you also kind of got to learn a little bit about how BP and CP got together and connected. So yeah, fun fact, we've worked together in the same company and or industry since we've known each other. We've either worked had our own company together that we own. So it's pretty unique and funny story. So if you liked this podcast that had literally nothing to do with what I normally talk about, let me know. Send me a DM. I mean, sometimes that's the only way that I know that anyone's even listening. And there's been many times where I've just thought, man, maybe I should just, maybe it's time to close up shop on the podcast. But then somebody sends me a DM and they're like, oh my gosh, I listened to this and I really needed it. So I would love it if you would send me a quick note, but thanks so much for listening and we'll see you next time.