We caught up with the brilliant and insightful JENNIFER NELSON a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
JENNIFER, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
The only opportunity that I had to learn about being an entrepreneur in my youth was in Girl Scouts. As a team we sat goals, raised funds, and sold cookies.
It was there I learned how to talk to people about how to talk to people about what it was that i was selling and why it was that people needed it.
Even in college, I don’t recall ever having to sit down and actually do a profit loss sheet, or how to build a business from its inception. Moreover, many of my math teachers from school, always said that “you’re just gonna need math in every day life,” well that is a given, but they couldn’t give me an actual implementation of the math I was doing and the WHY behind it. Meaning, the practicality of math in buying a car, home, credit card interest just wasn’t explained.
So, as I’ve been adulting for two decades, and I has started multiple businesses, it has largely been learning on my own, roping in other successful business owners, and entrepreneurs to understand that why and how.
Even when I bought my first house, I did not understand the mathematical computation behind an amortization chart, and when I took out my first credit card, I did not understand the interest rate that would be charged to me on a monthly basis, based on the charges that were present. A lot of that was just again, learning from your mistakes and learning on my own.
The educational system, places, children, and classrooms all across America, led by a single teacher, or up to six teachers a day learning how to be followers and follow the rules and not ask why or how. The basic curiosities of the human condition want to learn. Children actually do want to learn. However, a child cannot articulate what it is that they’re trying to seek through their inquisitive nature. They cannot articulate what they do not know.
I’ve learned this as a mom of two young children, and having conversations with them. There are these really fascinating questions that lead me to believe that we need a financial stewardship class in schools today that start as early as elementary school. The foundations of the inquisitive nature of a child, they want to think outside the box and do. If you do something as simple with them as looking at selling cookies at a bake sale, offering them the understanding of what the cost is to you, both in time and in product, then using those numbers to calculate a correct buyer purchase price for you’re good that is going to cover the cost and your time that you’ve incurred. Kids can actually understand this model more than most people think that they can. Doing these basic math calculations to show them. Hey if you were to make three batches of cookies and sell each cookie for this price, then you’re making pure profit after you sell one and a half dozen cookies.
Now, you might have explain what profit is, which is your increase everything after you cover your total cost of time and product. I can attest that my nine-year-old totally understands this concept and most recently made really good money selling her cookies at the Christmas market. Her friends got involved also and they made really good profit off of making homemade Christmas ornaments.
We are living in an era where schools today or telling our children what to think instead of how to think. Moreover, kids stop questioning the world around them every year at a younger age.
Our entire country was built on imagination and innovation. We still have entrepreneurs and innovators that are coming out of America but I would suffice it to say that there are more graduating seniors coming out year after year from our school systems that have no idea how to start a business, how to maintain that business, and how to grow that business in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with where they grew up or what kind of family they came from.
We’re also living in a time where 25 and 30 year olds who have graduated, not just high school but possibly college who cannot afford homes or cars of their own and this is really depressing for me.
This isn’t just a failure on our schools, it’s a failure in our society. A lot of it was because these kids were shuffled through the system really quick without the practical knowledge of how to succeed in as independent thinkers, as an entrepreneur, who is self-sufficient and understands how to achieve success based on grit, dedication, and moreover knowledge of the WHY. Instead,
My daughter comes home, almost every single day, scared to ask questions to teachers, or to seek out a stronger understanding of what it is that she’s learning. She’s so worried about disrupting the class, getting marked down on a behavioral chart that is truly meaningless at the end of the day. Because as we know as adults, there’s no behavioral chart in any office across America that says “you were too loud in the office today and so we’re going to have you drop your clip to yellow.”
Additionally, my daughter is scared to ask for more knowledge or homework on the things she is interested in.
I find it really sad that we as a society are lowering the bar, and what we think our children can learn about financial stewardship, financial opportunities, financial investments, and yet we’re teaching them about things that should have no business in school whatsoever.
I think the readers will understand what I mean by that.
It goes back to an old parable, I grew up on, “if you give a man a fish he will eat for a day, but if you teach a Man to Fish, he’ll never go hungry in his life.”
If I could change the education system, I would place a stronger emphasis on English, math, science/engineering, social studies/civics, basic life saving skills and financial stewardship.
Everything else would be elective.
We have the power as a society to understand where the pitfall is right now and craft future generations into successful leaders, innovators, and business owners.
I want to circle back to basic life saving skills, kids today are not immune to the “intruder drills” in schools. Yet, they aren’t being given the knowledge of how to do high quality CPR, knowledge of how to use a defribulator that hangs on walls in the school.
25 years ago the Westside school shooting happened in my hometown of Jonesboro, AR. While I didn’t go to school there, my Sunday school teacher died in the event and many athletes I grew up with were injured or killed. It was a small town then. I had a lot of friends there.
Some may say that teaching a kid how to use a tourniquet on an active bleed may be traumatizing. I have seen the fear in my child’s eyes regarding an “intruder drill” and the explanation that she was given from the school.
The idea of the drill was traumatic to her and left her wondering why anyone would ever do that, which is a question I cannot answer.
I personally know what it feels like to know how to save a life. I was met with it twice in college with two people who overdosed. I was able to keep both alive until paramedics got there. I was the only one who knew what to do in both situations. I am not lauding myself, rather, it is my belief that the people around me in those moments didn’t have the knowledge to help.
We are on the precipice right now of a major decline in the healthcare field. I say this because I am also a caregiver for my husband who was wounded in the Middle East while serving in USAF.
For a decade, I have been his wound care nurse without any formal medical training. Wound care clinics and clinicians have retired and closed their offices around us. Before they left they taught me how to spot, treat, and discuss with confidence with medical professionals.
I have seen first hand a major decline in other fields of medicine as well. The future of qulaity healthcare is a mystery. We shouldn’t be reliant on instagram influencers for our future healthcare. We have to start empowering this generation now. It is incumbent on us to be their champions and advocates but it doesn’t begin with free anything. You have to have skin in the game. We need to be teaching each other how to survive and thrive.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
It wasn’t my plan to go into real estate from a young age, it was my plan to be a real estate investor and flip houses or purchase and hold in order to grow passive income.
The largest part of my work history is in the hospitality and distribution industries.
When my husband got hit in Afghanistan in 2013, I became his caregiver in the blink of an eye. Concurrently pregnant with our daughter, I packed a duffel bag and left my home to be at his side across the country. I was out of work for 3 years and meticulously budgeting off of the savings net we had established early on. I sold everything remotely and we had to start over.
Nathan is a quadruplegic with unique care needs. Our goals for investing in real estate and having passive income didn’t change after his injury. So, I got into real estate, it allowed me the flexibility and work from home environment that I needed to help financially steer my family. When you work for yourself, you get to decide how hard you work, when you work, and when you take vacation. I learned a lot about setting boundaries in my first year. Haha!
I hired a transaction coordinator to help with paperwork, because I was very busy. I started a roster of trusted and reliable service providers and I nurtured those relationships every chance I got. I hired on partners in real estate that I could trust to take a transaction to the finish line. It was awesome. I bought two rental properties in my third year and was the active manager in those, I hired an attorney to help me have an airtight contract, I hired a CPA to help me understand what I didn’t know, and off I went. Delegation is key and paying someone else for their expertise where you fall short is perfectly ok. You cannot do life on your own.
What sets me a part from others, is that when I meet a first time homebuyer I try to help them think outside the box. Are they in a place to not max out their budget on their purchase, charge their friends to be roommates to help make 13 mortgage payments in a year to reduce 5 years of interest off their loan, etc. I want to know who I am working with, what are their goals and take into consideration if there is a member of their family who might need to move in with them for a time.
Having a wheelchair bound person in your home really offers a unique perspective of how comfortable a home is or could be given that situation. I have watched a lot of my customers have success in real estate off of this model and it really warms my heart that I could help them. I am really proud of that. It’s awesome when they call and say we paid off our mortgage in 5 years just like you said we could.
It’s a really heck yeh kind of moment for me.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Being real, people aren’t interested in fluff relationships. They want real. In my industry realtors are so busy making that next paycheck that largely they don’t follow up after the sale. I have had customers call me and say we want to buy another house for a rental.
I have told them no and explained after talking about down payments, time commitment, what ifs, insurance, interest rates etc. I have even done cost benefit analysis for them because they are in the baby phase of an investor. Before you can run, you need to learn to crawl.
Just because you have capital doesn’t mean you need to spend it.
I am just real with people. I take more of a mentor type approach in my business vs let me max your budget.
I study the market daily. It is my job to understand the challenges buyers and sellers can face during transactions and during home ownership. I want everyone that I work with to be successful in their investment. If they aren’t, that is a reflection on me. I take that responsibility very seriously.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Not everyone you know or work with has your best interest or will offer great advice, step outside your circle, get out of your comfort zone.
I learned from working in hospitality that people with real wealth, real business savvy, and real intelligence are often the most innocuous people in the room.
They won’t be the ones with the finest clothing, they won’t drive fancy cars, they may even look a little unkept. It’s because they aren’t afraid of getting dirt under their nails or rolling up their shirt sleeves. Additionally, they don’t talk about their success.
Think of a painter. A painter won’t just tell you they paint, instead you will see it on their clothes and on their hands.
I drove a truck when I got into real estate. Other realtors made fun of me because I “looked like a contractor,” my thoughts were great, I am a hard worker, I am ok with that stigma. I got more business driving my truck around town than I did in my jeep. Why? Perception.
My customers loved my truck to go to house shopping in. Guys had plenty of room, and the ladies felt like a badass, their words not mine.
I have a friend who is like a big brother to me, he and his wife have a huge family of the best kids. I asked him once, how do I become more like Mr. B. He said, “real estate. Don’t be afraid of it, buy low, sell high.”
It takes patience. Be willing to wait for the right one. You can change paint and flooring, you can’t change the location. Study it. Sound advice that has served me well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thosenelsons.com
- Instagram: @those_nelsons
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferWootenNelson?mibextid=2JQ9oc
Image Credits
Leah VanHoose, Finding Beautiful photography