Episode 179: How Sheri Fluellen Uses Psychology To Help Real Estate Investors Achieve Their Goals
Profit First
May 8, 2023
Today’s guest is Sheri Fluellen, a real estate investor, syndicator, and coach. As a certified high-performance coach and psychologist, she works with entrepreneurs and real estate investors to keep them focused on their goals through research-based success coaching.
Sheri’s background as a psychologist, her experience in the investing space since 2007, and her profession as a coach all give her a unique insight into the mindset of investors.
Throughout the episode, we discuss financial management, personal fulfillment, the Profit First Method, and more! Tune in!
Key Takeaways:
[00:44] Introducing Sheri Fluellen and Her Background
[04:29] On Selling Her Private Psychology Practice
[11:13] Her Background as a Psychologist and How It Adds to Her Coaching
[17:21] The Psychology Behind Poor Financial Management in Investors?
[22:01] How to Counteract the Insecurity That Can Affect Our Financial Management Skills
[26:08] How Profit First Has Helped Sheri’s Business
[29:53] Advice for Investors Who Want to Implement Profit First
[30:27] Connect With Sheri
Quotes:
[18:39] “Put a sale in front of me, put a prospect in front of me, and I will get them to buy. But then managing the money that we make on the backend, like, you know, a spreadsheet will make his eyes cross and he just can’t stand it…I’ve seen that in a lot of real estate investors. ”
[20:28] “There is this strong relationship between how much money I make and how worthy I am…So, whether it’s real estate investing or any sort of business when things aren’t functioning smoothly, that can significantly impact one’s sense of self-worth, self-efficacy, their ability to be a good business person.”
[30:11] “[Implement Profit First] now, because the longer you wait, the more complicated it gets to try to undo what you’ve already done.”
Connect with Alex & Shimon
Website: https://www.drsherifluellen.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsheri/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsfluellen
Coaching Mastery Podcast: https://www.coachingmasterycommunity.com/blog
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
Speaker 1:
Do it now. Don’t wait. You don’t even have an investment yet. Understand what you will be getting into. Get your account set up, even put a dollar in them. Do it now because the longer you wait, the more complicated it gets to try to undo what you’ve already done.
Speaker 2:
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for re e i podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
Speaker 3:
We have Dr. Sherry Flu Ellen on this episode and this was an awesome one. She tells about selling one of her businesses in 2019 and the things she learned through that process, the emotional ups and downs. She also talks about how when people have money and when they have businesses, how they tie so much to that and like, how do we get out of that cycle so that way we can actually achieve what we want to and be happy the whole journey and not have to go ups and downs and just feel like we’re on the mountaintop and the valley all the time. Thought there was a great point in here. I hope this helps you tremendously. Thank you so much for listening. Appreciate you and enjoy the episode We have Dr. Sherry Flu. Ellen here I am super excited because I met her, I believe it was at Funnel Hacking Live.
I think we might’ve gotten a call like last year with each other, but then we met each other in person. Yeah, and I love that because we were at a Russell Brunson event, which also makes me think like she likes marketing and and investing in herself and other stuff. So this is she is a powerhouse in the real estate coaching and the just helping people get to where they need to be bringing out your full potential. So we’re gonna talk about that on the episode here. But she’s also a Profit First fan, so that’s why she’s on here and she’s implemented it. She has a real estate investing business with her husband. She’s got the book right in front of her. If you can’t see it if you’re just listening to it. But it’s right next to her Profit First for real Estate investing. Sherry, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much. It’s my privilege. Can I tell you a little story about when we met? Yes, please. At at stories? Yeah. At Russell Brunson’s. So did I recognize you or did you recognize me?
Speaker 3:
I think I recognized you.
Speaker 1:
I think so. Which was like blow my mind. That, you know, somebody would approach me that I’ve read their book and I absolutely love it and I’m working on implementing it like every, every month. So we were talking outside of the venue waiting for the doors to open and my husband was with me and I was standing there and I had an episode of Vertigo. I don’t know if you knew
Speaker 3:
That. Oh right, I remember that you were having that,
Speaker 1:
Which is weird. Like I think that was the second or third time in my life and the first time it happened a month ago. So I, so I was standing there talking to you, I’m excited and all of a sudden like the, everything started spinning and I had to do everything in my power to try to stay focused on what you were saying and to not look like I was crazy while this thing is going on in my brain. So that was the most intense conversation I’ve had in a long time because I wanted to be so present, but I wasn’t. So yeah, anyway, it was, it was weird.
Speaker 3:
Oh man. Well you definitely put on a good face. I don’t, because I remember you saying something about it cuz I think we saw each other the next day or like later on that day. Yeah. And then you mentioned like, I, yeah, I had a bad, bad, bad of vertigo, but then yeah, you carried yourself well, so I just, I had, you know, interacted with you before, so it was cool seeing you at the event. I love running into the real estate, you know, people at, out and about, especially when it’s not like an event that you’re coordinating to go to and it’s like, oh wow, you like the same stuff. So that was pretty neat. But yeah, I guess let’s dive into a little bit, because you’re a psych, you’re also a doctor, you have your psychology degree and you’re a psychologist as well too, correct?
Speaker 1:
Yes. Awesome. So I got my degree back in 2007. Ok. Just had a quick story. As soon as I graduated I actually joined the Air Force and was an Air Force psychologist. Oh wow. Yeah, for about five years. Thank you. You’re welcome. Amazing experience. But I knew that wasn’t a long-term thing. I was having a bunch of babies and it was helpful to, you know, have Tricare while I was in the military for all the births and all that sort of stuff. Oh, okay. But
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. But I’m an entrepreneur at heart, so I, like I knew that I needed to, to leave the military and start on my own. And so I started, started a private practice as a psychologist and grew that for about nine years and then sold it back in 2009. No, not 2000.
Speaker 3:
Was that a good sale?
Speaker 1:
2019?
Speaker 3:
What was that, sorry? 2019. Okay.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. And shifted into coaching and kept kind of been doing that since, but my husband and I started real estate investing back in 2007 as well. So we’ve been doing it for about 16 years. So kinda doing Oh wow. All of those things at the same time.
Speaker 3:
That’s very cool. So I’ve got a couple questions. Number one, was it a good sale like in 2019 or was this one of those ones where it’s like, I’m just glad to be done with this. Like let’s get this, let’s go to the new stage of life. Let’s, let’s get real here.
Speaker 1:
So you know what, David, nobody’s ever asked me that question and I’m laughing.
Speaker 3:
I’m gonna ask you some of those. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Because it was absolutely, I mean, those last three years were brutal.
Speaker 3:
Okay.
Speaker 1:
Quite just to lay it all out, I had built over a million dollar a year income in this practice. It was going really well. And you know, when you get to that point, you’re like, man, this is amazing. This is sweet. Like let’s take it to the next level, which means replacing me in the business. Right. Starting to do dr. So I did that and I did it poorly. I hired two people that I thought were really good. I did not have enough oversight. Okay. And they both independently, but simultaneously tanked the business making decisions. Oh, I think the one gal had a personality disorder, which I never saw, but all the other therapists saw. The other gal who is actually running the finances, she if you know anybody that’s listening that knows anything about a medical practice, we rely heavily on insurance payments. Yeah. And she wasn’t refiling insurance payments that would come back denied for, you know, silly reasons. And so everything exploded like within the course of a year and I did my best to try to fix it and do all that stuff and it just didn’t work. So yeah, I sold it because I was emotionally burnt out financially. It was just not where I needed it to be and I just, yeah. I was like, I I’m gonna at least gonna sell it when there’s still something left to be sold. So that is the real story.
Speaker 3:
Okay. Because yeah, I know it’s, and whenever I hear that now, because I’m more in the financial world, I’m like, is this a good sale or was this like, you wanted a monkey off your back and you wanted to get that out of there? So I guess, let me ask, cuz it sounds like at the end, you know, even a monkey off their back is a good sale, you know, getting it out of your life. Like, let’s move on. But what would you say, since that sounds like a very, a very emotional trying time of your life what were some of the lessons that you took away from going through that experience?
Speaker 1:
You know, I would say the number one biggest lesson, so first of all, I was really resistant to get to letting it go. Yeah. Because I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. Okay. I, I grew up in a very, very functional, high level family. My parents are amazing. My siblings have done amazing things. I, you know, at that point had done pretty well. Yeah. And so it was really hard for me to wrap my brain around this perspective that like, I, I felt like I sucked. Like I stuck like mm-hmm <affirmative>, how, how could I have let this happen? So there was a lot of beating myself up. And so, because I am a perfectionist recovering now, but I was like, I can’t like selling it, closing it all, any of those solutions felt like I was giving up. And I’m like, I’m not one that gives up like this.
That is not who I am. That’s not how I identify. And so it was really a big challenge for me. And so, but I, I was able to make it this pivot that this isn’t giving up. This isn’t a failure, this is a lesson to be learned. Anything I do from going forward is gonna be significantly better because I have such rich experiences from this. Plus, like, I, I did run a successful business. I made, you know, there was a couple big mistakes, but I knew how to get it going. And so, so it was really the, the shift in my own brain that I wasn’t, that I didn’t suck, that I wasn’t a failure, but rather how can I use that as a stepping stone in the path of learning.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that’s really good. Cuz I think a lot of people at some points in their life go through that no matter if it’s selling a business or going from W2 to being a business owner. Yeah. You know, it’s like, is I’m quitting one thing to start another, it’s I, yeah, I’ve got some of that head garbage from my past of like, you know, you should never quit quits. Not in the dictionary. Cut it out of there. And it’s like, well it’s not surf. It’s, it’s not serving you and it’s not serving other people. It might be time to move on to what the door’s opening next, but I really like that because what you go through, cuz I feel like a lot of people go there. Oh, absolutely. You know, they feel like they suck. They feel like they’re just worthless and all that. So No, I, I appreciate you open up opening up there cuz I think a lot of people can identify with it
Speaker 1:
When you live in that world of I suck or you suck or we all suck. Yeah. You are short changing your ability to have a contribution in the world. Yeah, I formally believe that, that there is something that we are uniquely capable of offering to the world. And I, you know, if, if I if I keep myself in the, in the position, in the mindset of lack of confidence and lack of ability, then I’m not going to be stepping into what I can really do and what I can really contribute. And I, I see that gap of who I am and who I want to be. I see that gap in so many people and that having that gap, I think that’s, that’s human. That’s, that is being human. Yeah. We’re never, you know, I never is a little bit of a strong word, but I think very rarely does somebody actually achieve their potential.
But that, that’s normal. That’s not, it’s not a deficit, it’s, it’s, we’re just on this journey of, of trying to be the person that we aspire to be. And so a lot of times always see that discrepancy in who we are and who we want to be as as wrong, bad, you know, it says something about ourselves. And so really helping people understand that’s, that’s okay, let’s step into that, own it and continually be intentional in life to build yourself and to, to be the person that you want to be. The, you know, in the real estate space to be the kind of investor that you wanna be that, you know, owns x number of doors or has certain number of net worth or, or just has the income that you ha that you can have to replace your current income so that you can spend more time traveling with your family or doing the things that you really truly care about.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. No, that’s really good. So then I, this begs the question, why did you get your psychology degree? Was that something that you’d always wanted to study or what now? Because as I get older, the more I realize how important psychology is and how much it affects everything, you know, in life. So how did you get that, you know, the want to get that degree?
Speaker 1:
So it’s really interesting. I definitely consider myself to be a very thoughtful logical thinker, but there have been these moments in time where I just, I make a snap decision and I just do it. Right. Yeah. It’s weird, but I, I just consider that, well that was, that was kind of what my path needed to be. And so that happened with my decision to be to go into psychology. So in high school I was, I was part of this drafting like architecture drafting class and I love art. I’m very creative person. And so I went into architecture and so I started out college in that program and then I found out it was a five year undergrad program, not a four year.
Speaker 3:
Ah,
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah. <Laugh>. And I’m like, I’m not gonna go to school for an extra year. So I backed out of that program and I, I spent a couple months kind of figuring out in my mom, love my mom. She was like, you know, Sherry, back when you were in, in high school, you, you said something about, about being a therapist or something like that because, you know, you, I had, I had some teenage angst, you know, I had some challenges emotionally. And I remember telling my mom at one point that, you know, I’m like, man, I came through this. Okay. Like, wouldn’t it be cool to be able to help other people like that? So she reminded me of that. I’m like, oh, okay, well I’ll just do psychology. Ok. It was that simple. And of course I didn’t think through the fact that I was giving up a five year dec or five year degree in, in architecture for a 10 year, you know,
Speaker 3:
<Laugh> that backfired <laugh>, it did,
Speaker 1:
You know, four years undergrad,
Speaker 3:
Two years. Oh man.
Speaker 1:
Math four years. So, so, but still like, but that was the journey. I was just like, okay, I’ll do that. And then as I got into it, I enjoyed it and then I was like, oh, I need to take the next step. Oh, I need to get the next degree. Cuz I love school quite honestly. Yeah. So, so that was kind of the story about, so
Speaker 3:
Then how no
Speaker 1:
Regrets
Speaker 3:
How, right. I, it’s, yeah, I doesn’t seem like you do from how we’ve talked, but then it also seems like that’s helped you a ton for what you’re able to do with, you know, i the business that you’ve have had in the past and like what you’re doing now too. So how does your psychology de degree work into your coaching and like that? Like, do you go into mindset and like, what is the Yeah, just give a little bit of that. I wanna know what it’s, it’s helping you with. Now
Speaker 1:
Sometimes. Well first of all, let’s talk a little bit about what coaching is. Because a lot of people call themselves a coach. You know, sometimes I, I make a joke, you can’t throw a stick without hitting a coach. Cause everybody’s like, I’m so never go type a coach. So one of of the things I think is really important if people have, have received coaching or considering it, is really dig into what is a competencies that your coach has in their background. So I do have a very rich experience in, in therapy that I’m able to bring to coaching. I don’t sit down anymore with clients and help them resolve their P T S D or, you know, diagnoses like that. But the reality is, is like we all have a little bit of trauma in our life, you know, speak, I mean, literally mindset. When we develop a mindset that is typically in response to some sort of trauma, some sort of, you know, the mindset that I sucked was literally a result of the trauma I was experiencing as a failing business owner, however you wanna term it, but, right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:
We all have these things. So I have this rich awareness of how deeply these things impact us and change our perspective about ourselves, about our situations, and about humanity. And I also would say that I’m an expert at understanding patterns or seeing patterns in people. Yeah. And so I’m able to bring all of that to to the coaching and, and specifically I’ve been trained as a certified high performance coach, which is related to Brennan Bouchard and okay. Yeah. There is a very rich framework that he works from that is based on research, which I love. Awesome. because as I was thinking about coaching, as I said, everybody’s a coach, right? And there’s so many coaches that are like, you know, these are the five things you need to do to be successful. I’m like, okay, well, where’d you get that information? Well, that’s what I did. Okay. There needs to be more to success in life than just based on what, you know, Billy Bob did for his success.
Speaker 3:
<Laugh>. Right.
Speaker 1:
So so anyway, so Brian and Burchard has this whole framework that he’s been using for a decade, and it’s, and it’s actually literally tied to very solid scientific research. So I fell in love with what he does and the, the kinds of people that he works with. And the rest is history.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. I love that. I honestly love when coaches have a background in psychology or like where you can, I want to go to the roots of problems. I don’t like the surface stuff. Like, I wanna go in and I wanna extract what’s not good, but then I also wanna make sure I’m putting good stuff back in too. So how should I be thinking and like, what are the things that we should be doing? And you know, like, how do I not pass this trauma onto my daughter? You know, like I’ve got a little, you know, a girl now, and it’s like, I wanna make sure that, you know, and that she knows that it’s okay to talk about this stuff. And like, I’m going, no matter what, I’m probably going to pass on something to her that’s gonna be in the form of trauma. Like this morning I scared her in a room.
She, and like, you know, it’s, I didn’t mean to fully, like sometimes, I mean to this morning I didn’t. But like, you know, it’s stuff like that. Like, I know I’m gonna pass on something to her and it’s like, I just want her to be open with that. So that’s why I love this, where it’s like you can mix real estate, but then what can we really, you know, like what’s the real mindset behind it? Or like, what’s the psychology behind it? Like, why do I feel this way? Why am I thinking like this? Why do I think I suck? Just asking yourself the deeper questions, which since the pro first r a I podcast, I feel like I said every single episode. So if you’ve been listening a long time, thanks for putting up with me. But, so let’s talk about the psychology of money. So like, why do most people not manage their money? Like, why do most people think that, that someone else is gonna take care of it? Like, and I know you’re a Profit first fan, so you can even throw your story in there, but I’d love to know what your thoughts are behind the whole money thing and entrepreneurialism.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So that is a loaded question.
Speaker 3:
Big time. Huge.
Speaker 1:
My favorite word is bazillion. I don’t know why I say that all the time, but there’s a Baz
Speaker 3:
It’s a great word.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, right. There’s a on and aside, my husband and I make like, we like to dabble in t-shirt design. And so my favorite t-shirt is one and it’s al it’s always about real estate. And so he’s got one that has something about real estate and on the, on the side that says bazillionaire in the making.
Speaker 3:
Love that. Nice. I love that. That’s a great shirt right there.
Speaker 1:
Yes. So I think one of the challenges is I noticed that a lot of real estate investors, and I, I’m gonna make some generalizations, but a lot of real estate investors are like my husband. So my husband is a very much kind of like a bull in a China shock <laugh>. He, he’s a, he’s type A, he loves to talk and he, well, not quite, he’s a little bit type A, a little bit type A, but he loves to talk, but he, he’s a get it done kind of person. Okay. Like, he doesn’t care about all the details. He just like put, put a, like he’s a salesman, put a sale in front of me, put a prospect in front of me, and I will get them to buy. But then managing the money that we make on the backend, like, you know, a spreadsheet will make his eyes cross and he just can’t stand it. So, and I’ve seen that in a lot of real estate investors, they’re very entrepreneurial in that they have a, they have a big vision, they have a lot of energy and mo motivation to move forward, but often those types of personalities don’t like to feel like they’re being slowed down to have to deal with the minutia of the money. And so, so that’s, I think a piece of it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that’s definitely a piece of it. I can attest to that. But now, and I really like your husband too. I think you are a great team together. So most real estate investors could be like him then I think the world could be a better place too. But he is definitely type A, like I could just tell they’re at the, at the event, but just a, okay, so you think that a lot of ’em don’t wanna deal with the minutia and don’t want to get into the weeds. So why, you know, like why don’t they want to get into the weeds? Like what, so what are they doing besides the weeds and doing that? You know, like what, what’s the psychology behind that? I wanna get dig deeper. <Laugh> <laugh>.
Speaker 1:
So what’s the psychology behind my husband? Or well,
Speaker 3:
What I No, no, the digging into the No, no, no, we, we don’t have to go there. Like I know you’re his wife, so like, we could probably stay there for a while. So I don’t wanna get hit. Don’t have enough private, don’t wanna get you <laugh>. Right. That’s great. No, I was talking about the money side of like, okay, why are they not wanting to dig into the financial side? Why are they not wanting to get into the minutiae of money?
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So I think you know, and, and as I was talking about my private practice that I built and that started kind of deteriorating, it’s this interesting phenomenon I think that that our culture has contributed to creating. But, and I think it’s especially true for men putting a little gender stereotype in there, but there is this strong relationship between how much money I make and Hmm, who how worthy I am. Like how that’s good, you know? And so, so when, particularly with whether it’s real estate investing or any sort of business, when things aren’t functioning smoothly and on an uphill slu, you know, uphill angle that can significantly impact one sense of self-worth, self-efficacy, their ability to be a, a good business person and all of these different things. And so, yeah, it’s like, I, I can’t handle that. I don’t know what to do with that information. So let me just pretend like it doesn’t exist. Yeah. And everything, you know, lemme just do do what I do best and I’ll just kind of hope the rest of it figures itself out, which as we know, doesn’t work that way. My husband and I had a conversation like an hour and a half ago, and just as a demonstration, like he literally just said one of the solutions to this financials challenge we’re having right now. He’s like, why just need, I just need to sell more houses. I’m like, no
Speaker 3:
<Laugh>, right.
Speaker 1:
If I just make more money, everything will be okay anyway. So it, it’s, yeah, it’s just interesting.
Speaker 3:
So then what’s the counteract to, especially, I, I would agree with you, especially men tie their self worth to how successful they feel, especially when it comes to what they do, their work or their business or whatever it might be. So like, how do they, how do you get out of that? Because I’ve been there before a big time, like in the past, that was a big thing for me, like lots of insecurity around that. So I’d like to know, like from Dr. Sherry’s mind, how do you, how do you go, you know, like now that we’re all on the couch with you, what what would be the way to counteract that?
Speaker 1:
Well, David, thank you
Speaker 3:
<Laugh>.
Speaker 1:
One, one thing that I have found that is super helpful, and this doesn’t just help with this, the, the ego that’s tied to the success of a business, it helps in all different areas, but is really getting clear on what is your life about. Now I realize even when I ask that question, it’s like a huge question. Yeah. And not something that somebody’s like, oh, well, let me just tell you in two sentences, here’s my elevator pitch on what my life is about <laugh>. No, it’s, it’s a very, it’s a very deep question. But the reason why that’s an important question to ask and for, for you and myself to have clarity on, is if we can understand what the values that we most deeply espouse in our life, what those are, then we can put our business in its proper place. That our business is not the value.
It is hopefully a vehicle that you can use to execute the value, but it’s not the only vehicle. Hmm. You’ve got your family, you’ve got your, your friends, you’ve got your ho hobbies or Yeah. And probably most people that are listening to this, I would guess 95% of your listeners also have other businesses because that’s just what we do, <laugh>. Yeah, exactly. If a real estate investor, you probably either have another, have a job or you have another business. It’s not just real estate investing or maybe it’s a different kind of real estate investing. But anyway, we got so many things in our life that that can add to the overall fulfillment of our mission and our purpose and the goals we wanna achieve while we’re on in this world. And that all relates to, to the values. Like what, what do you truly value? So if we can try to separate the business as not the thing, but it’s just part of the contribution that that is a starting place,
Speaker 3:
Man. I like that a lot. That’s just really good. That’s very practical advice, which obviously we can’t go into like an hour session where that, that that’s a session that could be a, a whole quarter just talking about that, depending on what you need to get into. But that’s really good as far as a first step. It just like compartmentalize and be like, this is the business is not me. You know? And I think that’s what a lot of people, and especially men, like you said, like the business is them, that is their identity. And it’s like, it’s just a part of who you are. And I like how you said, executing on the value that it’s not the value, it’s executing on the value. I thought that was really, really good.
Speaker 1:
Well, and that goes back to one of my, one of my values, yeah, let me just say is intentionality. And so everything that I do, I try to be super intentional about it. Yeah. So I have a conversation with my kids, I have four of them. I try to be, I try to be very intentional about, on one hand I’m like, am I being the mom I wanna be, am I being supportive If I am I not enabling am like I have all these things that are like running through the back of my mind while I’m having a conversation with them because I want that conversation to have meaning and to have impact. It’s not just a random thing that happens. And so, so intentionality, having intentionality in your life is, is a, it’s a value of mind, but it also is important because that way we’re able to make some decisions about what we’re thinking, what we’re doing. Yeah. And is it really filling that gap between what’s happening and, you know, the value that we’re holding.
Speaker 3:
No, that’s really good. I, I, this is such good, I’m writing all this down. The, I even, you know, I’m gonna take this back. I need to, I need to work on a lot of this stuff as well. So this has been as,
Speaker 1:
As do I like. Right. You know, we’ve never arrived. I think in life there’s always opportunities for growth and to learn.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. No, I, and I appreciate your insight and your wisdom. And I do wanna ask you now, now that we’re getting into the final minutes of the show, like Prophet first, what has that meant to you? Like, obviously that’s helped you along the journey and you, you, I remember talking to you and what you even wrote down, you said that you back in 2014 or 15, like when it first came out Yeah. You heard about it. So like, do you wanna tell about that journey and like how that’s helped you from the financial side?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. So I learned about Profit First. I don’t even remember where I learned it technically from, if it, I think it was a friend who also was a prac who was also was a practice owner at the time. And it, so I had my mental health practice and I heard about Prophet First. So I read the book and I’m like, oh, this makes a lot of sense. So I told my husband about it because I’m in QuickBooks every week. Like, I’m okay with that. I understand a p and l I understand all that sort of stuff. And but he, despite the fact that he had had a business for five years, had never logged into QuickBooks and would do exactly as the book talks about where it’s like the, the bank account balance, you know, balancing. Like, he opens up and like, oh, I got X amount of money in there.
I’m good, I’m good. You know, but that was like not reasonable to me. So I, I, when I read it, I’m like, Ooh, this makes sense. This is awesome and I think it can help my husband. Yeah. And so I implemented it in the mental health practice. It could not say what happened <laugh>, but but it did provide a lot more a lot more profit than I had otherwise. And my husband started using it for our real estate side, real estate investing as well as as his real estate business. And so we’ve been doing that for about eight years now. I will tell you, we, I hit a wall cuz we’ve been doing from 2007 up until about 2000 9, 18, 19, we were just yeah, doing buy and holds. We would buy and rent it out and just hold it, not do anything fancy.
But once we start, once I had this hair, like once I sold my business and I had this kind of like this wild hair of like, what if we tried to double our portfolio in a year, <laugh>, you know, like I needed this pent up energy I had from the business. I needed this funnel somewhere. And so so once we started flipping and doing all the short-term rentals and started kind of increasing the, the, the the diversity of what the, the, the types of investing we were doing, then all of a sudden QuickBooks didn’t make sense to me anymore. Like, I’m like, I don’t really know for profitable because the, like I, because the cash flow kind of got weird. Yeah. It flips. So anyway, so that’s where your book and when I, when I I’m trying to remember where I first heard about your book.
It was right when you wrote it. And I was like, oh my gosh, they have hats. That’s amazing. So I bought the book and I read it. I’m like, oh. So there are different ways to be able to, to separate them out. So anyway, so that’s been hugely helpful. We have, I feel like we have such a mess to wade through. We’re still in the process of fully implementing it. But yeah, we’ve had, we’ve had our caps and taps and, and our, all of our different accounts for quite a few years and it’s been super valuable in keeping us from, you know, spending $26 you know, or 26 flip money. We’ve only done 25, which right.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. <Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad. Just keep that money. Keep, keep as much as you can. Keep, keep it for what you wanted, for what you need it for. So this has been awesome. I feel like this has been, you know, a lot of, a lot of value here from helping people where if they feel like the business is tied to them or if they feel like, you know, like, okay, that’s your not where you want to be, but that doesn’t define who you, and then also the selling and the biz and the emotions around that and the obstacles that you overcame and like the things that you had to work through there thought that was really helpful at the beginning as well. And then talking about Profit First, this has been amazing. So I just wanna ask a couple last questions. Number one, what advice would you give to a real estate investor Will can implement Profit first?
Speaker 1:
Do it now. Don’t wait. You don’t even have an investment yet. Understand what you will be getting into. Get your account set up, even put a dollar in them. Do it now. Because the longer you wait, the more complicated it gets to try to undo what you’ve already done.
Speaker 3:
Right? Yeah, no, that’s really good. Start. Now that’s a great action to take <laugh>. So just get it start now. Yeah. Get it implemented. So then you’ve dropped a lot of knowledge here. How can people find you? Because I want them, I want you to talk about, you know, like I know we talked about you do some of the coaching and you help people, but then I was on a podcast with her, you, with you as well too. So it’s like, tell ’em how to find you, all that stuff, making sure that they could connect with you.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. so you can find me on social media Dr. Sherry Flu. Ellen, it’s like Ellen has the flu, but just put it in reverse. Yeah. and I’ve got a website, dr sherry flu ellen.com. Nobody else has that name. So there you go.
Speaker 3:
There you go. Dr. Sh. So it’s the whole dr sherry flu allen.com. It’s
Speaker 1:
D r there, go Sherry Flu. Ellen. Yes. One R for Sherry. S h e r i. There’s like a million ways to spell my first name.
Speaker 3:
Yes. So there it is. S h e r I. Then Flu Allen Ellen. And make sure you go there. She’s got the podcast that she does with with, was it Fel? Yeah, that was who was on
Speaker 1:
Yes. Fel and San. So we co-host a podcast because we’re both coaches. Our podcast is geared towards helping other coaches level up their coaching and their business mastery.
Speaker 3:
Awesome. So it was a great podcast to be a part of their great hosts as well too. So if you’re looking to get into the coaching side and need to good, you know, a good podcast to listen to, that is a great one. So go and check that out as well too. This has been amazing. And if you resonate with what Sherry was saying, like with especially what she said about her husband, like, oh, we just need to do more deals and like everything will be okay and then it’s never okay. Right. It’s like we, we have to go to the root problem. Just like with psychology, we gotta go to the Root Pro problem of the money too. If you need some help, go to simple cfo.com. We’ll hold you accountable to implementing Profit First, making sure you have the right systems, making sure that you actually keep more of the money. So we’d love to do that. Go over there, simple cfo.com, book a call, and then remember to make profit a habit in your business. And then Jerry, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:
My pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 2:
This episode of The Prophet First for r e I podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for r e I podcast with David Richter.
