That Michele

06/05/2026

Today I was reminded how important consistency and our habits are.

I was at ER with a dear friend who needed someone in her corner to advocate for her. She has not taken care of her health, and the consequences have caught up with her.

It was a good reminder to me that even though life has been very full and busy lately, my health goals and habits still matter. Nothing we are building matters if we are not healthy enough to enjoy it. Not the business, not the freedom, not the time with the people we love. None of it.

So I recommitted to my sleep, my movement and strength training even when the calendar is full, and to having a plan for my meals. Consistency wins over perfection.

If you have been letting your health habits slip too, consider this your nudge. I encourage you to recommit to putting your self at the top of your own priority list.

If you have tips to keep yourself on track, even when life is busy, I'd love to hear them.

06/04/2026

Real estate can get ugly fast if you don't have the right team in place.

At 10 p.m. on a Sunday night, my property manager called, and I could tell by the way she said hello that something was off.

A tenant in one of our buildings reported that someone upstairs was trying to sell our washer and dryer. My property manager called her team and the police. They all arrived at the building just as three young men were loading our machines onto a truck. The part that still gets me is this: the men said they had e-transferred $250 and thought they were buying the washer and dryer legally.

The police called me to confirm the appliances were mine. I asked them to go into the unit to see if anything else had been stolen or damaged, but they said they could only go in if the tenant let them in, even though she was stealing from us. Of course she wouldn't open the door! The residency board rules meant we had to wait 24 hours to enter, even with the theft unfolding in real-time.

By the next morning, the tenant was gone. The unit was a wreck: garbage everywhere, bathroom cabinets, cabinet fronts missing, and a door taken out in the middle. That experience made the value of a serious property manager very good!

Let me be very clear: when you're a busy executive trying to invest in real estate, you don't just need someone who collects rent; you need someone who will show up on accounts. Your property manager is one of the most important members of your team. Hire right.

Hit follow to hear about the good, bad, and realities of investing.

06/03/2026

When did you last actually run your retirement numbers?

Not a rough estimate. Not what your advisor told you years ago. The real math — with your income, your expenses, and the kind of life you actually want.

Most high achievers haven't. Not because they're careless — but because the honest answer is uncomfortable.

That's exactly what Tim will walk through with you this Saturday — live, with real math, your numbers, no sugarcoating.
📅 June 6 · 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT · Live on Zoom

Sign up at the link below. I will be there and I am running my numbers!

You've done everything 'right' in life and have always been a high achiever. Maybe even multiple degrees and a great career.

06/01/2026

I didn’t need a new plan; I needed to stop being the woman who kept doubting herself.

I kept calling it confusion. Really, I was just scared to choose differently. I was still overthinking, people-pleasing, hesitating, and waiting to feel ready. Nothing changed until I stopped choosing the version of me that felt safe.

For a long time, I thought I needed a better plan, more information, more skill. What I actually needed was better standards. I needed to become someone who kept promises to herself, made decisions faster, and stopped needing everyone around her to be okay with her choices before she could move. I needed to stop shrinking myself to make others feel comfortable.

This meant tolerating discomfort when having hard conversations. It meant taking action before I felt fully ready. It meant I had to stop caring so much about what other people thought of me. It meant I had to become the person the life I wanted actually required.

That shift changed more than my habits. It changed what I attracted, what I accepted, and what I believed was possible for me.

Most people live by "Do, Have, Be." Once I do this, then I will have this, and then I can be who I want to be. The problem is that order never works. The shift that changed everything for me was flipping it. Be, Do, Have. Who do I need to BE first? That changes everything you DO. And what you DO creates what you HAVE.

A lot of people want life on the other side. Very few are willing to become the person they need to "BE" to have it.
That is the real work.

If you feel like your life is asking more from you right now, it probably is.

Follow if you’re done building your life around fear, approval, and hesitation.

05/31/2026

These are 10 books that changed my life.

They changed how I think about money, time, and freedom. I have reread almost all of them, because you hear different things each time. 10/10 I recommend reading any ( or all) of them!

1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki: Assets put money in your pocket and liabilities take it out. Simple concept, completely changed how I looked at money.

2. Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki: This one deepened that shift. Why where your income comes from matters as much as how much you make.

3. Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell: Building a business should not mean building a cage. This one is about creating more time freedom.

4. Who Not How by Dan Sullivan: Instead of asking how I can do everything myself, ask who can help me do it better and faster. Game changer.

5. The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann: Long term success comes from the value you create for other people, not just what you try to get. Simple and powerful.

6. Atomic Habits by James Clear: Goals matter but systems are what actually carry you there. This book rewired how I approach progress completely.

7. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy: Big results are built through small decisions repeated consistently. Not glamorous but true. Consistency always wins.

8. Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze: Standards, service, and culture. Excellence is something people feel long before they can explain it.

9. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel: Money is emotional and behavioral, not just logical. It makes you reflect on why you make the financial decisions you do.

10. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: Trust the calling on your life even when the path forward is not fully clear. A different kind of book but a powerful one.

My minimum is at least one book a month. I often listen to Audible while walking the dogs, folding laundry, driving, or at the gym. No excuse not to be learning when it fits into the pockets of your day.

Which one have you read? Or do you have a recommendation? Drop it in the comments.

05/29/2026

I thought I wanted to be a real estate investor.

What I actually wanted was a life with more room in it.

More time for my family. More flexibility in how I work. (I love my work from anywhere lifestyle.)
More options for the years ahead instead of just hoping retirement would somehow work itself out.

I started with one property and one decision at a time.
Some parts were messy. (Oh boy were they!) Some were slow.
But each one moved me toward a life with more freedom than the one I had before.

And at some point I realized the point was never just buying the most doors.
It was proving that a different future was possible. It was proving it to myself and showing my daughters what was possible.
That it is never too late to build something that changes everything.

Hit follow if you are building a life with more room in it -- however that looks for you.

05/26/2026

I am not strength training for aesthetics.
I am strength training because I want to stay capable in my everyday life.

• I want to carry my groceries.
• To put my carry-on overhead.
• To move well.
• To protect my mobility.
• To lift future grandchildren.
• To keep doing life fully and freely.

We get one life. I want to live mine purposefully.

Follow along. I share the real stuff here.

05/26/2026

I didn’t buy this deal because it looked easy.

This deal that turns an old bungalow into 8 units of missing middle housing, is about building another income stream without pretending that I have unlimited time, energy or risk tolerance.

This infill project is a great reminder that the best deals usually don’t look shiny at the start. They are messy. They are slow. They may even be uncomfortable before they make sense. That’s the part that most people don’t see.

I bought this deal for the long term.

Save this for when you’re thinking about your next income stream.

05/23/2026

This is not one decision. It is not one moment.

It is a lifetime of small and not so small choices to keep going toward the life I pictured instead of settling for the one that just showed up.

For me it has always been three things.

1. Get clear on what I want.
2. Pray about it.
3. Take action even when I am not sure how it ends.

That is it. That is the whole formula.

It has not always been comfortable. There have been pivots, setbacks, and moments where the leap felt completely unreasonable. However every single time I chose the bigger, scarier, truer version of the life I wanted, it worked out. Not always the way I planned. Better, actually.

The family. The work. The adventures. The people. None of it happened by accident. It happened because at some point I decided it was worth going after.

What does the life you actually want look like? Not the responsible version. The real one.

Picture it. Pray about it. Go after it.

Create the Freedom to Live Life on Your Terms.

05/22/2026

I’ve seen too many smart people get tunnel vision on the numbers and assume the rest will work itself out. That’s how expensive lessons happen. (Yes, I’ve learned some of those, I call them “education expenses”.)

The deal looked fine. The problem showed up later — when the market shifted, the buyer pool got thin, or the plan depended on everything going right.

Because if there is one thing I can guarantee you, it is that the deal will rarely go according to plan. Meaning you always need to have at least two exit strategies.

After 6 years investing, I’ve learned the real question is simple: What happens if this underperforms, stalls, or turns into a headache?

If you can’t answer that before you buy, you’re not investing. You’re hoping. Hope is not a strategy.

Follow for more of the unsexy questions that save you money.