Susan Hyatt:
Welcome to the Rich Coach Club, the podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and if you're determined to start making more money, this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt, and I am psyched for you to join me on this journey.
Hey coaches. So about 15 years ago, I walked away from a very lucrative career in residential real estate. And if you've listened to other episodes of this podcast, you may have heard me talk about this story before, because it's a key story about my life and my transformation as a person. At the time, people were floored by my decision. They thought I'd made a grave mistake and that I would circle back just as soon as all of this fluffy life-coaching stuff failed miserably. When it came to my real estate career, I knew that it was time to give it up and walk away, but when it comes to other things in my life, I know when it's not my time to give up. How do I know the difference? I'm breaking it all down in today's episode. Let's do this.
All right. I've got two stories for you. Two tales. One about a time when I quote unquote gave up and quit, and another story about a time when I wanted to give up and quit, but didn't. Let's start with the time I gave up my residential real estate career. So I won't bore you with all the details, but let's just say that in those years I became an anxious, workaholic, stressed ball of mess. I would come home every day and vent to my husband, Scott, AKA, the silver Fox, my few friends, and anyone who would really listen, my poor mother, usually over wine and a wheel of Brie. I would come home every day. I would plunk my kids down at the dining room table, usually for them to do their homework. And they were little. So these are like little worksheets. And I would heat up some Brie, pour some wine. Y'all I was really good at real estate, but being good at something doesn't mean that I or you need to do it forever, or honestly that we have any business doing it.
It was my zone of competence. I could even stretch it to say it was my zone of excellence. Definitely not my zone of genius and definitely not my passion. Real estate has always been my husband's passion, albeit commercial real estate development and leasing and investing. But anyway, deep down, I knew that I wasn't happy and I wanted to figure out what was my greater passion or purpose for my work. I mean, it was really great to sell a home. I loved my customers. I loved, I realized helping them get what they want. And at that time it was in the form of a home. So I really loved the hunt to find them the right home or to find them the right buyer for their home. But did I feel super passionate and inspired by it? I mean, if I was being honest, the answer was no. My real estate career was good, but not good enough.
I often tell the story of it was Easter, 2006 and my mom was coming to visit. And I promised my mom that when she came to visit that I wouldn't work because I had a habit of letting work bleed over into personal time. And she knew it. And she knew how hard I worked and she said, "I really want to come visit. But if I come, will you promise not to work?" And I said, "I absolutely promise." And so I was very proud of myself. I let all my customers know that I was going to be off. I put my assistant in charge, let my listings know. And then because often with a holiday like Easter, there was a Friday and a Monday off. And lots of people had that holiday off for spring break and other things. And I had some out of town clients surprise me by coming into town and texting me that they had decided to take advantage of the holiday time off, pop back into town, and had decided they wanted to put an offer in on a home I had shown them a few weeks prior.
And so this text was like, hey, surprise. We're here in town. We want to put an offer in on 1, 2, 3 Happy Street. And part of me was really excited because it was about to be to date the biggest sale I had had in my real estate career, but my heart sank because here I was yet again, breaking a promise to my family. And I didn't feel like I could leave that to my assistant at the time. And so I went on Easter Sunday and sold that house, wrote the contract, and came home and just faced my mother who my Southern mom was like, "You know, this just isn't my daughter. You're just not the happy person that you used to be. What are we going to do about this?" And I remember I just kind of crumpled up on the kitchen floor and cried because my mom was offering.
She said, "What if I take the kids for a couple of days, watch them here at the house, and you go do whatever you want." And I couldn't think of a single thing to do for myself, honestly, other than get caught up on laundry or go to the freaking grocery store all by myself. And I was like, this is really sad. I had no hobbies. I had no interests. It was just work, work, work. And so I knew in that moment that I had to do something. I was dying on the vine. So I made a plan. I quit. I walked away. I gave it up, and I made space for something better. And what's interesting about this is we're often taught that winners never quit and quitters never win. But what I know to be a hundred percent sure is that winners quit all the time.
They quit things that don't serve them. They quit things that they see aren't what they really want to be doing. And I think this toxic attitude in our culture that you have to see everything through is a lie. It's like, no, winners quit all the time. Quitters win all the time. The moment I decided to get trained as a life coach and transition out of real estate, I was winning. Okay. Now onto my second story because I could talk about that story forever. My second story is about a time when I wanted to give up and quit, but I didn't. And wow, I'm really glad that I kept at it. So years ago before my best-selling book Bare was published, it just existed as a dream and a partial book proposal. And so if you don't know, a proposal is a sales tool that literary agents use to try and get you a publishing deal for your book.
So I pitched this proposal to like 50, 70 different agents. I had tons of friends who'd had publishing deals who introduced me to their literary agent. I thought it was going to be so much easier. I got no interest except for this one guy who is a really well-known agent who reps a lot of bestselling books and he wanted to change it into a diet book. So I was like, oh no, sir, not going to happen. Eventually I got my proposal into the hands of my agent, Katie Kotchman who believed in me and my message, but then came the excruciatingly long and painful process of getting a publisher to say yes. Weeks went by, we got rejection after rejection, or we get no reply at all. And I really felt defeated. And just wondered if this was just a pipe dream and just a huge waste of time.
So I considered quitting a lot. I almost walked away many times, but when I dug down and asked myself the tough questions and really paid attention to the wisdom of my body, I knew that this was something I didn't want to give up on. Would spreading the Bare message be good enough for me. Absolutely. It wouldn't just be good. It would be great. This work was and is uplifting and inspiring. And I felt I would do it even if I never made a dime off of it. So continuing to pursue a book deal had its ups and downs, but ultimately it was a delicious part of my life. It fired me up and fueled me to keep going and listen, while I was waiting on a publishing deal. I turned Bare into a digital program. I decided to stop waiting on getting picked and got my message out there in many different ways before that book deal came through.
My real estate career by contrast. Well, I mean the only delicious thing about that was the cheeseboard I enjoyed at night, emotionally eating after a long grueling day. And let me tell you that's not true deliciousness. So when it comes to deciding if you want to walk away or not, if you want to quit or not think about these questions. Number one, is this good enough for me? Because baby, you deserve more than good enough. Every time I say baby, I think of my friend, Robert Hartwell. He says it just like that all the time, baby, is this good enough for me? Number two, is this inspiring uplifting fuel by passion?
I mean, if it's not, why are you doing it? Number three, ask yourself, what do I crave in this area of my life, because you get to create what you crave. And that's number four, take meaningful action to create what you crave. So I'm going to repeat those. Is this good enough for me? Be honest, is this good enough for me? I ask myself all the time, and I'm always like, you know what.
I deserve, fill in the blank. I deserve the marketing director that I want. I deserve the personal assistant that I want. I deserve for things to match my energy level, my desires, my cravings. So be honest, is this good enough? Number two, is this inspiring, uplifting, fueled by passion? Listen, I am absolutely in the camp of you can absolutely live your passion. Number three, if not ask yourself, what do I crave in this area of my life? And then take some meaningful action to create what you crave. I think it's got to be in alignment of elbow grease and spiritual grease. They work together. You can't just wish. You also have to do so. That might mean walking away and quitting something. Or it might mean persevering because you know deep down, this is your truth desire.
Okay. It's time for some community wins. And I feel like I've bragged about Brenda Florida before, but I have to brag about her again. So she's in my On the Six Mastermind, and she's somebody who just does the damn thing. She does the work required. She puts herself out there. She tries different things. And inside the mastermind, we have been running a sales challenge. And basically it's like, how many pitches are you going to make every day? And she's been doing this. And she posted in the group yesterday that she had a package sale, and she was so excited about it. And so during class we were talking about podcasting and sales and all those things, and right in the midst of class, she types in the chat, the zoom chat, okay, this is a celebration in real time. I just had someone text me that they're purchasing my package.
So that's two new sales. And so when it was an appropriate moment in class to talk about it, I said, "Tell us, how did that person find out about you?" And she said, "It was actually the server from a restaurant that she and her adult children frequent all the time." And I said, oh, so here we are using you now as an example of someone who is not just making the ask, but everyone in her realm knows what she does and what problems she solves.
So even when dining out in a restaurant, people know what she does. And so I want to challenge you. First of all, let me back up and say, congratulations again, Brenda, you are amazing. That is amazing. For those of you listening, I want you to really ask yourself is what you're doing right now. Do you have passion for it enough that even servers at a restaurant would know what it is that you do? And hey, if that's not your reality and you want to be around people who create that kind of reality, join my Facebook group. It's called Go-time and it's free. And there's lots of tips and resources in there. Or I'll talk about a little later in this episode, how you could hire me as your coach, because you deserve to be surrounded by people who are cheering for your success. So congratulations, Brenda. So happy to celebrate you again.
Hey, so if you are enjoying this episode, we're not finished yet, but I wanted to put the little bug in your ear to please subscribe so you get notified when new episodes of Rich Coach Club are available. And my heart would completely burst open, if you took the time to leave a review for the show on Apple podcasts or wherever it is that you listen.
So this week I wanted to give a special shout out to Tamara. So Tamara left me a five star review and the title of it is wow, woman of worth. I have followed Susan for years and love participating in her various challenges. In a miracle week challenge, an assignment about attentive eating took me by surprise. As I set my table with a real plate, it dawned on me that I had been believing the lie that paper plates meant I was not worthy of a real plate.
From that moment forth, I have used real plates for my meals. No more paper plates for this woman of worth. Thank you so much, Susan. Tamara, and any of you listening, if you are eating off of disposable plates and using disposable utensils or disposable cups, I want to invite you to get out the good stuff for yourself. Even when I get takeout, I come home and put it on an actual plate. I promise you, this makes such a difference in your dining experience, but just creates pleasure for yourself. It is proven that using real stuff elevates your experience. So thank you so much for that, Tamara. I just want to say you have no idea how much it means to a content creator to a podcaster to read those kinds of reviews. It makes this all worthwhile.
Okay. One more thing before you go. Think about one year from now. I don't want you to look back at your life and think that's just not good enough. You were born for more. And I don't want you to settle ever. Go after what you want and create what you crave. And if you need help creating what you crave, have you heard that I'm an excellent one-on-one coach. Listen, every once in a while, I have some openings for one-on-one clients. And right now I have one opening. When you work with me, one-on-one, it's a six month commitment. 12 hour-long sessions, literally lives transformed in a short amount of time. So if this is of interest to you, you can go email support@susanhyatt.co. You can go to the website at hyatt.com and check out the work with me tab. I would love to help you create what you crave. So thank you for listening to this episode of the Rich Coach Club podcast. I hope this episode has inspired you to go after what you want, and walk away from what doesn't serve you. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next week.