DNP 242: Sharon Lechter

The DreamNation Podcast With Casanova Brooks

DN 242 - Sharon Lechter

(Transcript of the podcast has been edited for clarity and brevity.)

[00:00:00] Casanova Brooks: What's up family. Thank you for tuning into the Dream Nation Podcast. My name is Casanova. I'll be your host and I'm excited to be bringing to you, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and trailblazers from around the world. Stay locked in with us because we're about to go on a journey that will change your life.

What's up DreamBuilder we are back again and today's episode, as you always know, I say that I'm excited to bring it to you, but this one I'm truly excited because we have a pioneer and we have a pioneer of someone who does not only talk the talk, but definitely walk the walk and taught thousands upon tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands through all of the books that you've wrote.

And millions of people, I would say financial literacy, and so without further ado, please help me in welcoming my friend, Ms. Sharon Lechter to the show. Sharon, you want to go ahead and say what's up to Dream Nation?

[00:01:01] Sharon Lechter: Thank you so much. I love Dream Nation. What's up Dream Nation, and thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be with you today.

[00:01:03] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be a lot of fun. Now. I always love to start off these episodes and I compare us as entrepreneurs to superheroes, and the reason being is because we're constantly flying around the world, and I know throughout your career, you have been, and you're putting on your cape and you're trying to solve some of the world's biggest problems.

And so from the outside, looking in, a lot of people, they see you as a superhero, as the wonder woman or the superwoman. But a lot of the times, what we can't describe is on the backside when there's no cameras on who is that Lois Lane, let's say, so take us back and tell us when it comes to Sharon Lechter, who is that Lois Lane?

[00:01:45] Sharon Lechter: Thank you so much, and I, we can go dial back many years. I grew up in a very lower-middle-class home, neither one of my parents, even at high school degrees, and my dad ended up running the engineering school for the Navy. So, totally self-taught brilliant, man. But we live in a little tiny house between my mom's beauty shop, my dad's used car lot, I was embarrassed with where we lived. I wanted to be a professional. I wanted to have, my friends had parents who were CEOs or military officers, but we also own a lot of rental properties that I had to go scrub out bathrooms between tenants and orange groves. So, I grew up in an environment understanding the value of assets and expected that everybody else did too.

And so I followed my dream. I got my degree in accounting. I started my career with Coopers & Lybrand where the very first women in public accounting many years ago, and I was very successful, but I thought at the ripe old age of 25, I was like, gosh, I'm working really crazy hours. I'm not in control of my own life. This is, and this is my future forever, and I had a client invite me to join him and buy in a company out of bankruptcy, and I still remember going back to my condo in Atlanta, Georgia, because I was having a great time, young, single, and yet not in control of my life. So, I did the old, yellow legal pad, because this was before PCs or cell phones, pros and cons, and it didn't help me a bit.

I could argue both sides, but my hand took off and wrote across the top of the page. Why not? Why not do something different? Why not take that path less traveled? And that's still my philosophy today, and that's, I think ties in with true entrepreneurs. Why not solve a problem or serve a need? Why not do something, someone else hasn't done? And that's really still my mantra today. So, I left public accounting. It actually was a really bad business decision at the time, but had I not made that choice, I wouldn't have met a young man named Michael Lechter and we've just celebrated 41 years of marriage.

And so continuing on, I started the children's talking book, industry books and had the sound strips down the side. I met the inventor of that and helped him build that. Understood the essence and learned so much about the power of association, cause we had the technology, the kids back then. I know dinosaur days, they didn't have screens, they didn't have no electronics, and so here I am with this thing, I said, how can we get parents to trust us while we aligned with little companies like Disney, Warner Brothers, Sesame Street, Marvel comics, and allowed us to explode that company around the world, and we sold that four years later, and then as my husband moved down to Arizona, and our oldest son went off to college and came home at Christmas time in credit card debt.

And that was December of 1992, and that's when I dedicated the rest of my life to financial literacy, financial education, fast forward, a few years, working with the school systems, hence the white hair. My husband called me one day and this guy had come into his office in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with an idea for a board game, drawn-out with crayons on a piece of which a black paper, his name was Robert Kiyosaki. So, Mike brought us together for the first beta test of the cashflow game, and I'm the only one that got out of the rat race, and I volunteered to help Robert commercialize it because it agreed with my philosophy of investing your time and buying, building, creating assets, as opposed to chasing money, time for money instead of exchanging time for money, lets than invest your time to build the asset that will generate the money.

During that process, he told me he wanted to charge $200 for the game. I said, its kinda pricey. We're talking in 1996, and I said maybe we should write a brochure that explains the philosophy that people will then be convinced to spend the $200, and that's when he asked me to become his partner, and we were equal partners in the company for 10 years, and we wrote 15 books together. But that little brochure that kind of started it all was named Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Most people don't know that, that it was written to sell the game, and we thought we were writing one and done one book and said, people wanted more so said we'll do a trilogy. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant, Rich Dad’s Guide To Investing.

But then over the 10 years that we worked together, we had 15 books and in 2007, the height of our success, we were no longer aligned with what we wanted. So, I made the decision to leave. People thought I was crazy, but sometimes, and I want your audience to hear this sometimes you have to close one door for other doors of opportunity to open and had I not made that decision to leave Rich Dad, I wouldn't have gotten the call from President Bush. I had the honor of serving on the first president's advisory council for financial literacy for both President Bush and President Obama, and in March of oh eight, I got the phone call from the Napoleon Hill Foundation, which has been an incredible relationship.

They asked me to help reinvigorate Napoleon Hill's teachings during the financial collapse in 2008, and so I wrote Three Feet From Gold, Think And Grow Rich For Women, Outwitting The Devil, and Success and Something Greater with the foundation, and it's just been an incredible working relationship, and then I had incredible honor earlier this year to release the book, Exit Rich in cooperation with the Inc magazine to help people understand most people start a business new and say, do you want to start a business to work until the day you die? Or do you want to start a business to build financial freedom for yourself to get your time back?

Everybody says B, but the vast majority of them do A cause they don't understand how to build the structure and the basic fundamentals of building a company, and so in Exit Rich, I go through that and help them, how to build the successful business into one that sustainable, scalable, and saleable, and that kind of brings you to here. I'd try to do my Cliff Notes version for ya.

[00:07:44] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, no, you did a phenomenal job and there's so much to unpack there. I, hopefully I can do a lot of justice cause I know that there's a lot of people that's watching or listening at this, that they're ... They have a lot of questions. So, I'm going to try to go back in my mind, and first off, I guess I want to know, as a young girl, you said that your parents didn't have high school diplomas, but then you go off and you then start working as a CPA. For you, why did you not follow the path of entrepreneurship early on? Because your dad, you said he had rental properties and everything else. Why did you decide to take a different path? What did you not like about it in the beginning?

[00:08:26] Sharon Lechter: We've heard the phrase, the grass is green on the other side, and that's my friends, their parents were CEOs, and I was the first generation to go to college and I wanted to become a sophisticated professional. I thought that was the path to take a higher level of financial success, and once I got into it, and it was a true gift to go into public accounting because all of my clients, I saw how companies did things correctly, and I also saw how companies did not do things correctly. So, even though it was not an entrepreneurial path itself, it allowed me a window into many hundreds of different entrepreneurs to see how they were doing things. So, it really helped me prepare for the next chapter of my life.

[00:09:10] Casanova Brooks: Got it. No, that makes sense, and then you decide that you don't want to do this anymore at 25, and I can only imagine that your parents were probably up in arms because up until this point, you've been a golden child, right? It's your daughter. She's the only person to go to college. She now has a great job. Why, I guess what was the reaction when you told them, Hey, this isn't what I want to do anymore?

[00:09:32] Sharon Lechter: I have an older sister, so she's the one that was following the pathway. She was in a corporate job, stayed in the same town. I was the wild child and I'm the one that left Florida and went to Atlanta, and then I went to New Hampshire, met my husband. So, they were not always sure what was happening in my world, and I tell them, but, my parents, every night growing up, my dad would ask me, Sharon, have you added value to someone's life today? And he's been gone 16 years, but I still ask myself that every single night and they were always supportive of whatever I chose to do. They were a little surprised when I left public accounting, but they were never judgmental. They were always there to support me and basically their message to me growing up as you can do or be anything you want to, if you just put enough effort and energy into it.

[00:10:29] Casanova Brooks: Got it. I love that. I love that. Have you added value to someone else's life today? That's something that I'm going to start to implement into not only my life, but also to teach my son that and definitely to teach my daughter that as she gets older as well. Let me ask this as you, I think where a lot of people struggle, especially millennials is we understand the power of collaboration, but sometimes when you're talking about getting into partnerships with people, buying companies, as you said in the beginning, there was someone that said, Hey, this company is bankrupt.

We can buy them out. How were you able to be comfortable with doing a partnership early on? Did you just not know any better? Or did you have certain rules and parameters that if we're going to partner, we're going to do this? What did that look like for you?

[00:11:19] Sharon Lechter: I do a lot of counseling with people that are going into work together, and a lot of times their friends or their family, and that's that's a recipe, blood and money is a very difficult thing to mix, and so it's really important. I sit down and do a little counseling ahead of time when I go, plan the divorce before you plan the marriage, because when you're together and you're looking at what you're doing, you're all very excited about it. You respect each other and it's a good time for you to say so let's, maybe in five years, one of us isn't going to be as excited as the other. So, let's talk now about how we're going to separate while we are still excited about the future while we still love and respect each other, because when you have high emotion, you have low intelligence and what happens?

I see so many times people go into business with somebody they're all excited about it, and then things one of them becomes disinterested and it causes a seizure in the family or in the friendship, and so it's always better to think about that upfront so that you can preserve the relationship and maintain that even after a business relationship is over.

[00:12:23] Casanova Brooks: I love that plan, the plan divorce before you plan the marriage, but for somebody who's listening and especially for you, someone who's been profound when it comes to personal development in the law of attraction. What if someone says, isn't that really looking at you're attracting the plan B or the negative, because in the back of my mind, then I know that like, when I don't like something, I don't have to stick it out. It's hey, we already got this plan B over here, I can get to going.

[00:12:54] Sharon Lechter: The plan B is a plan of respect. It's not negativity, it's not attracting negative results. It is saying we are so excited about working together, but let's be realistic. Our lives may not stay on the same path. One of us may have six kids and we want to do something different, or one of us may end up wanting, needing to move out of town, and so what if based on those things and our mutual respect for each other, how are we going to deal with that in a professional and adult way that will help us preserve the relationship, and so it's really not attracting the negative. It's actually creating an opportunity for maintaining the relationship, no matter what happens with the business, cause typically businesses can be hugely successful and then there are problems, and so people's expectations are all almost always different. So, it's better to clearly outline the relationship, the agreements and what those expectations are.

So, for instance, you may go into business with somebody and they end up getting married and that spouse is somebody that you don't want to ever be in business with. If you put that in the agreement ahead of time. So, if one of us. Ha becomes incapacitated or heaven forbid one of us dies. That's not attracting the negative. That's just being prudent and planning out the business and preserving that business because that spouse may not know anything about the business and all of a sudden they're going to step in owning 50%. No, you want to put that in the agreement ahead of time and say, how this is going to work. How are you going to compensate that spouse for the value of the company, but maintain the ability to drive it forward.

[00:14:36] Casanova Brooks: Hey, Dream Builder. If you are anything like me, you know the importance of setting goals and achieving those goals, and anytime you find something interferes with that, ultimately interferes with your happiness and if that's you, or if you're in a rut right now, I want to encourage you to check out betterhelp.com. Now Better Help is not a crisis line. It's not self-help, it's professional counseling, that's done securely online. Better help will assess your needs and they'll match you with your own licensed professional therapists. You can send a message to your counselor at any time, and you'll get timely and thoughtful responses back.

Plus, you can schedule weekly video or even phone sessions all without having to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room, regardless of you're dealing with depression, grief. Anxiety or anything along those lines, there's a licensed professional, just waiting on the other side to help you, and of course, I want to help you as well. I want you to start living a happier life today and because you're a part of the dream nation tribe, and as a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor, betterhelp.com/dreamnation.

Again, that's betterhelp.com/dreamnation, and you can join over 1 million people who have taken the charge of bettering their mental health. Now let's get back to it.

Yeah, no, it was phenomenal advice and a lot of wisdom there. I'm sure somebody is agreeing with me and saying, I never thought of it in that manner. And that could be for business. That could be for real estate. That could be for a lot of things, and I know a lot of our listeners, they are in real estate, so that's something hopefully they'll put in their back pocket. The next time that they're thinking about going into a partnership. Now let's let me ask, because you come in Florida, which is not, where are you from a small town?

[00:16:22] Sharon Lechter: At the time I was, I grew up in Orlando. I left, I graduated from high school the year that Disney opened. So, it was very different city today than it was back then. But we moved there. My dad retired from the Navy. I was eight, so we moved to Florida and we lived in Orlando. I was there from eight to 18, and then I was in Tallahassee going to Florida State for four years. So, I was in Florida from eight to 20.

[00:16:48] Casanova Brooks: Got it. Okay. So, not, I guess where I was going with this, because I wanted to see if you were a small town girl, because you've always had a big mind in everything that you've done. New York Times bestsellers and it seems like you've never said no to yourself. You always just thought the why not, and I know that you said that earlier, but I guess how did you get your mindset? Too early on in the beginning, since you didn't come from big businesses, how did you get that to saying, Hey, I have to focus on collaboration over competition.

[00:17:24] Sharon Lechter: That is an excellent question. So, let me try and unravel the question a little bit, because we, as I said I grew up in very humble beginnings and both of my parents, families were from farms in Alabama, and so I didn't live in Alabama, but I spent summers there with my grandma. I had grandmother who did not have indoor plumbing. So, I, I understood coming from poverty, coming from not having anything, and I had this in inside hunger, as my friend Les Brown says, you gotta be hungry, and I knew I wanted something better. I knew I wanted to elevate myself, and I knew that I could not do that just simply by myself. I had to get the education.

I had to meet the right people. I had to find the right mentor. All right. I had great mentorship with my parents. My dad was brilliant, my mom, but I needed that additional umph of getting to that. My eighth grade English teacher told me I'd be a famous writer. Now I was into math. I thought she was crazy. My house mother in college told me I'd be on stage speaking. I thought she was crazy, but again, always seeking that mentorship and challenging myself to step outside my comfort zone, and today with all my clients, I'm constantly challenging them, and I was asked the question. When was the last time you did something for the first time, cause what happens is we get comfortable in our lives doing the same thing and we don't find new associations. We don't expand our business. I have something called the personal success equation. You can find it a personalsuccessequation.com as a free download, and it's something that I released in the book Three Feet From Gold.

And it talks about combining your passion and your talent. Now my passion came from anger because we're teaching kids about money, but your passion could be love what you do what you love, plus your talent, your education, your life experience, and we combine that, and most of us stop there, thinking we have to do everything on our own while the personal success equation takes up plus T and times A power of association. Do you have the right people on your team? Do you have people on your team who are strong, where you are weak? Do you have the right mentors? Business is a team sport, too many of us try to go it alone. So, your passion, your talent times A power of association, times A taking action.

How many times do we know what we need to do? We just don't do it, and so we hold ourselves back, and then the last element is plus F and that is faith. Faith in yourself, faith in what you're doing, faith that is needed and necessary faith, that you will succeed. Successful businesses, solve problems and serve needs. I think we have a few of each today, and but many of us that F is fear, not faith, and it holds us back fear, paralyzes us, or motivates us. 99% of the people fear holds us back. We are paralyzed, and that's my goal. When I start working with people, when I write books is to address that power of association and that fear and turn that fear into energy, into faith for yourself.

Okay. Make sure who you need to align with to help you go to the next level so that you can magnify your impact. I have something called the Play Big Movement, which has been number one in your field, live your legacy, which means every heart, every single day, every heart you touch every single day as part of your legacy and create maximum impact, and you do that with the right association.

[00:21:09] Casanova Brooks: Wow. So much wisdom in that, and I would definitely agree so many people right now are living in fear rather than faith for you, how have you been able to continuously align yourself with bigger players that are in your field and your mentors, because for a lot of people that are watching or listening, they may say, Hey, but you know what? I don't necessarily know how do I get around the Les Browns? How do I get around the Robert Kiyosakis? How do I get around people like that? And because I listened to them, but at the same time, we also know that there's more than needs to be done in there in terms of actions. For you, how have you continuously, or I guess even from the start, how were you able to get around these people? Like Robert Kiyosaki, when these opportunities came your way?

[00:21:58] Sharon Lechter: I helped create Robert Kiyosaki. When we first met, when he brought that game in to my husband, he was living in a small condo and had two small apartment complexes. He talks about it and retire young retire rich. So, we, I helped create the intellectual property with him and help build that business to get him to the point where he had a larger platform and a bigger voice. But I think each of us you want to focus on, who's been where you want to go. I had the experience to help shape that and create the rich dad company and help it scale. My husband helped us with the licensing strategy to go global, and so you want to seek out the people that can help you go to the next level, and too many times people just become fans and they want to glom on to somebody. You want to be in service. You want to have reciprocity. You want to support somebody. They want to see somebody like a Les Brown. If he sees that you've been there supporting them, you're showing up, you're sharing his stuff.

It's going to be a lot easier to get into contact with them, but learn from our books. Learn from our programs. I have a Money Mastery Program. That's very inexpensive because I want people to get themselves out of financial distress. To where they can at least start thinking, because when you are distressed about something that impacts every aspect of your life, and you can go to mm.sharonlechter.com. Very inexpensive application to my money mastery program, which is on my website for $1,500. But I want people to have. $97 and it's something I want you to take control of your own life. You are the CEO of your own life. Too many people want to have the easy step one step from, I want this. I'm going to be there.

You really have to earn the right. You have to put in the work. You have to be of service and show, be there share information study because all of us we've written books. We've got programs, take the time to invest in yourself, and as you do that, and you continue sharing information, you get closer and closer to the source, attend events where they are, take the time, wait patiently to be there, be of service, and it's very important for you to understand what you want and setting your goals. I'm in a new company, I just aligned with this year, Oola is something that I reached out to me and … Sharon Lectar. It helps people look at every aspect of their life, their family, their faith, their fitness, their finances, their community, as well as having fun and assess where you are and where you want to go.

And then give you the tools to get there. The specifically designed for you. It's all AI driven, and I love this company. These two guys that put it together are just brilliant, and it's something that I've used. My husband and I have used, we each lost 30 pounds. It's something that allows you to have fun and being accountable to your own goals and dreams, particularly for millennials, they are loving it, and I think it's something that I want you to choose to put the stake in the ground and say, I am the CEO of my own life. I am in control. Don't say I can't do it unless I have somebody like a superstar. No, you are the superstar, you were born perfect, just the way you are.

Just take the actions to get yourself to the next level, and the road to success is not a straight line. You're going to have some setbacks, but get back up and keep going.

[00:25:36] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, and I think for a lot of people, when they first think about, hey, I can go invest into these programs or I can join this mastermind or whatever else. I think the first off they get very excited in the beginning. But then what starts to happen is they go back to their tribe or they go back to someone else, and I know that I've even had this happen to me when I've said, Hey, I'm investing into a retreat. At entrepreneurship retreat, and then we've ever, you're going to spend that amount of money to do that.

And so I think that's what holds people off, but I think that's where it goes back to having faith. Understanding that something that I always say in the beginning, they'll ask you why you're doing it, but in the end, they'll ask you how you did it. So, you have to have faith of what you were talking about, and if you have that unbreakable faith or that unbreakable mindset, I think that will get you over the hump, at least in sticking with it in the beginning, as you build your foundation.

[00:26:35] Sharon Lechter: Well, a lot of people say, take a leap of faith, and I was, I said let's change that word because when you take a leap of faith, you cross your fingers and close your eyes and jump. I want you to take a leap with faith, with your eyes wide open, having faith that you will succeed having faith of what you're doing, and when you do that confidence goes up. So, when I talk about my personal success equation is that power of association, of faith that usually my clients need the most help on, and they go hand in hand when you have the right people around you, your self-confidence goes up cause they won't let you have a bad day.

And so, ask yourself, where do you need help? Passion, talent, association action, faith, and start focusing on how you can take that next level. Expand your association, go to the next level, find the right people that will support you through the process.

[00:27:27] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, I would definitely agree. Let me ask it from the outside, looking in, it looks like you've been able to manage multiple businesses. Over the years, you've been able to have your hands in many different things, and I would love to hear your take and your opinion on, a lot of the times people say focused on one thing, for follow the one course until successful, which is the focus. But for someone like you, who it seems like, again from the outside, you've had your hands in a lot of things.

Maybe you've just had teams in every single one. Do you follow that strategy of I gotta have my hand in one thing until it's going or are you. No, I'm going to do multiple things because I noted on my time is limited. So, that's my greatest asset. So, I'm going to do everything, but I'm just going to find more partners?

[00:28:16] Sharon Lechter: It's a great question because and I think is a very valuable question. Yes, I'm involved in a lot of different things, but I didn't start that way, I think, but let's talk about real estate. When I have clients that come to me and they have money in storage money in three twos, money in multifamily, its like, whoa, let's get focused in one area and become an expert because that expertise is what allows you to get the best deals, and yes, my husband and I invest in lots of different kinds of real estate, but we've earned the right. We've been in it a long time. So, we understand where the opportunities are, but you do want to focus on getting that expertise so that you can become an authority in what you're doing, and it's very important to do that.

Now. Yes, I'm involved in multiple companies where we have teams that help us. We have our guest ranch, cherrycreeklodge.com. I'm into cattle ranching, and hospitality. We have a guest that people can rent for retreats or for family reunion. I have a team that runs that I do very little related to that, except I just got back from hosting my own business retreat there, and so you want to make sure you have the expertise, but you can own a business, not be in the business. All right. I can work on my businesses without working in them, and from many years of experience and being able to do that. But when you're first starting out, you want to fine tune your skills and know that you are doing the best you can to accomplish success in the area that you are in, and then go to the next one.

[00:29:52] Casanova Brooks: Hey, Dream Builder! Are your home and auto policies almost up for renewal? If so, and you're looking for a lower rate. I believe I have a solution for you, and it's called Policy Genius. Policy Genius makes it easy to compare home and auto rates in one place, they can help you find home and auto coverage similar to what you have now, but at a lower price, and the best part is they've saved customers on average $1250 per year over what they're already paying for home and auto insurance. Getting started is super easy versus just head on over to policygenius.com and answer a few questions about yourself and your property, and then policy genius takes it from there. They'll compare rates from America's top insurers from progressive to Allstate to find you the lowest quote. So,, head on over to policygenius.com to get started right now. Again, that's policygenius.com and you can find out when it comes to insurance, how they help you get it? Let's go ahead and hop back into it.

Got it. Yeah, no, that's a great point, and I think that someone will be able to listen at that and get a little bit more confidence in just niching down and focusing for you. Do you ever feel like that you had a point where you were lost on who exactly is your ideal customer? Because of the fact that you're in a lot of different areas, personal development, financial literacy just business and marketing, your phenomenal marketer. So, did you ever get to a point where you felt like you were having lack of clarity?

[00:31:44] Sharon Lechter: Another great question. My goodness, actually, a few years ago, we retooled my website because it was like, I was… I have three major arenas. One is financial literacy for people who … in that there's two arenas. One is people that are financially distressed, and then there are people that truly want to take their business and scale to a much higher level and they're two completely different audiences, and then I have my mentoring clients who are high level high dollar clients, that we step into their world and help them build their business. Then I have my speaking business where people want to bring me in to speak. So, those are all very different audiences, and so you have to tailor your messaging and make sure that you are reaching the right audience with the right message.

[00:32:20] Casanova Brooks: Okay, and do you feel like that was hard for you to grasp that concept in the beginning because you have been already doing all of the things with it. So, do you feel like you fought that for a while? Or do you feel like it was, you already knew this is what you needed to do? Do you understand the question? Am I explaining it the right way? Do you feel like that was a, I don't want to do this… Like I'm me, I'm Sharon.

[00:32:46] Sharon Lechter: Yeah yeah, you can be a jack of all trades, and certainly another arena that I specialize in is women and money, and but that's all part of the financial literacy. I think it's really understanding I don't think I ever struggled with it. I always realized it was an issue and we had to be more real, more clarity, because you want to, and people use the word funnels. I talk, let's have a customer journey. You want people when they come to your site to find what they're looking for, and so you have to provide that environment when they get there as to, okay. I want her to speak. I'm looking for help. Financial I'm like, I really want a mentor. So, you want to create the ease of the customer journey.

So whether you, yes, I can do all of those things, and sometimes you have too many too much expertise, and so you have to say, how can I create the message? That's the right messaging for the person coming to give them the ability to make the choices of your best for them.

[00:33:51] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, I love that. You said that about the customer journey, and I think far too often, as we are coming up with all of our talents or our passions, and we're writing those down or putting them into Evernote or whatever we don't think about what is that customer journey, and at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter about you. It matters about how can you serve someone else. The more people that you help, obviously, the more people or the more that you'll get, it's like that Zig Ziglar quote that we've all heard before. So, yeah, I'm glad that you said that and hopefully somebody they write this out and they say, yeah, what is my customer journey, for whatever product or service that I'm trying to offer at this point.

Let me ask for all of the books and especially you now being a part, like you said, of the Napoleon Hill foundation, and as I told you about a month ago, I read that Outwitting The Devil, and that was phenomenal. But for you when you were, or even now when you turn for inspiration or you're looking to read is there any books, now when you're mentoring your clients outside of the books that you've written, are there any books that you tell people, Hey, if you're starting out in your journey, make sure that you're reading or listening to X.

[00:35:01] Sharon Lechter: There's lots and the list keeps growing. But I love How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I love Good To Great by Jim Collins. I love The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. So, then those are classics, right? I also love The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stoval, and it's an incredible book about teaching young people about money. It was a great book, The Ultimate Gift.

[00:35:37] Casanova Brooks: Yeah. What are your thoughts now being in financial literacy for so long and obviously, one of your co-authors is big on Bitcoin and everything like, have you started, are you on the Bitcoin train and the blockchain train?

[00:35:52] Sharon Lechter: I have a lot of companies that come to me, wanting me to be a spokesperson for them as they have him, and I've chosen not to do that because my expertise right now, I'm focused on certain areas including overall business building, scaling as well as real estate, and so I have not chosen to become an expert in Bitcoin. I own Bitcoin. I've been part of it. I understand it probably more than most people, but I have not really. I'm not going to become a spokesperson for it anytime.

[00:36:25] Casanova Brooks: Got it. Okay, cool. This has definitely been a phenomenal conversation. One last question that I have for you is for all of your success through everything that you've done to get yourself to this point to accelerate your journey and your dream of where you are today, if there was one thing that you wish that you would have implemented sooner to accelerate that process, what would that one thing be?

[00:36:53] Sharon Lechter: Well, thank you. I get asked that question a lot and my response is always the same. I wouldn't be who I am today, if I hadn't experienced everything that I've experienced in my life. So, I don't like to look back. I don't want people to look back. I want people to know that your empowered to make different choices. We are all where we are today because of the choices we made before today, and if you want something different, something better in your life, just start making different choices. Don't waste time looking back, I have the definition of the word, worry to worry is to pray for what you don't want. It just wastes time and gives you, it makes you physically sick.

So, when you find yourself worrying about something, just catch yourself and say, instead of focusing on what I don't want to have happen, let's focus on what I do want to have happen. It's magic because it does this full circle into the power of law of attraction. Instead of a attracting negative results, lets focus on positive, focus on what you do want, focus on the future, focus on what you can do today to make tomorrow better.

[00:37:53] Casanova Brooks: Got it. I love it. I love it. So, to be clear on this, and that's the it's so funny and anybody who's watching it listening, I'm sure they're smiling. I just like I am, because I used to ask that question. If you could go back and you would have changed anything and people always say, I wouldn't change anything. It made me who I am today, and trust me, I've been through a lot of adversity. But there's still something, there's some things that I would change. I wouldn't lose my mom. I, and I think I could have still been to where I am today without losing my mom.

[00:38:19] Sharon Lechter: I lost a son nine years ago. So, obviously if I could go back and change that I would do that too, but it also made me… I actually went into my world of numb and to neutral for several years and I stopped playing big, and in fact, almost retired. Got a lot of pushback from family and friends, and I actually think my son was in my ears saying, get over it, mom, there's more for you to do, and so it's really helped me crank up my message to play big again. I launched The Play Big Movement, the Facebook group, and it's because I want people. I said, okay I'm going to play big again. I want people to come along with me. I want you to be number one in your field. I want you to live your legacy.

I want you to create maximum impact because people need to hear from you. Everybody watching and listening to this. You've had something that stopped you in your tracks. It could have been a death, a divorce, a financial setback and illness, but you're still here and you're still here for a reason, and what you've been through, you can help others going through it now. By turning that mess into your message, you have the opportunity to help other people and add value to other people's stuff.

[00:39:28] Casanova Brooks: Love it. Love it. Again. This has been such a phenomenal conversation. I want to be the first one. If no one else has told you today to say thank you, and I appreciate you. We will make sure that we put all of the links to your courses, your Facebook group, and your website in the show notes, but for anybody who wants to know tell us where can they stay directly connected with.

[00:39:51] Sharon Lechter: Please connect with me on Instagram at Sharon Lechter. I'm on my professional page for Facebook, Sharon Lechter, Author Sharon Lechter, and of course I'm also LinkedIn Sharon Lechter. My website is sharonlechter.com. So, it easy to find me if you can spell my name and then reach out to me directly [e-mail], I would love to hear from you.

[00:40:14] Casanova Brooks: You're not on tiktok yet.

[00:40:17] Sharon Lechter: No, I haven't. I haven't actually, I am, people have put up fake accounts on tiktok, but I personally have not gone to tiktok yet.

[00:40:25] Casanova Brooks: Yeah, no worries. Again, thank you so much for your time. This has been a wonderful conversation, and just as she said, Dream Nation, you have to take action because if you do not, as we all know that dream that you have, and we all have a dream without any action, that dream will only merely be a fantasy. That's all for this one. We'll catch you on the next. That's all we got for this episode.

Thank you for sticking around. That truly means a lot to me, and hopefully that means that we delivered massive value on this one. If you haven't already, the way that you could say thank you to myself, and the team is just by heading over to iTunes and leaving a review. That's what iTunes loves to see. That's how we get out there even more, and I would definitely be grateful for it. I know the team would as well, do me a favor and head on over to dreamnationpodcast.com.

That's where you're going to be able to find all of the resources that we talked about in today's episode, as well as more exclusive content, and you'll also be able to sign up to our email list, where we have more exclusive content. We always love to hear the feedback from you all, because you're our tribe. So, remember ‘in the dream we trust’, we'll see you on the flip side.

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy