Welcome to another exciting episode of She's Free2Fly, where we explore stories of resilience, empowerment, and success. In today's episode, we dive into the world of real estate and how the skills and characteristics needed for success in this industry can be applied to various other professions. Our guest, Dr. Danette O'Neal, a renowned professor, author, and entrepreneur, shares her insights and experiences from her 32-year career in the real estate business. From accounting and tax to leadership and coaching, Dr. O'Neal proves that the skills gained in real estate truly transcend boundaries. Join your host, De'Shonda Lucas, as we discuss the value of technology, building relationships, and the potential for wealth transfer in disenfranchised communities. Stay tuned as we explore the critical role that individuals of color play in educating and empowering their communities about the value of property ownership. Get ready to be inspired and empowered to tap into your own potential as we uncover the keys to success in the real estate industry and beyond. This is She's Free2Fly. Let's take flight!

Episode Questions

1. How do you think the skills and characteristics needed for success in the real estate industry can be applied to other industries? Can you give any specific examples?

2. In what ways do you believe technology has changed the real estate industry? How important do you think building relationships is in today's world?

3. How did the speaker's childhood experiences with their mother in real estate influence their career decisions? Do you think witnessing both the positive and negative aspects of the industry impacted their perspective?

4. The speaker's daughter expresses disinterest in following their profession. How do you think parents can encourage their children to pursue careers that align with their interests and values while still emphasizing the value of transferable skills?

5. What are your thoughts on the Three x 30 initiative? Do you believe increasing black home ownership is key to addressing wealth disparities? Why or why not?

6. How can issues like redlining and racial covenants be addressed to ensure fair access to homeownership? What role do you think realtors of color play in educating and empowering disenfranchised communities about property value?

7. The speaker emphasizes the importance of taking a hard stop and assessing one's deficiencies. How do you approach self-reflection and identifying areas for growth in your own life and career?

8. The speaker mentions the importance of mentors, particularly senior women outside of one's family. Do you have any mentors or role models who have had a significant impact on your personal or professional development? How have they guided you?

9. What are some of the challenges you think women face in the real estate industry? How can these challenges be addressed to create more opportunities for women and promote equity?

10. The speaker mentions the need to adapt to market shifts in real estate. How do you stay updated on market trends and ensure you are providing the best service to your clients?

Okay?

So I welcome my sister friend, prayer partner, my encourager. She motivates me more than you ever know. More than she'll ever know. When we sit back and watch her, we like, I don't know how she does all that. Like she is in this state, this city, back and forth and she still makes time for her family all of the time. She still makes time for her relationship with Christ all of the time. I remember one day she sent us pictures because she had officiated a wedding on her back patio because the pastor or somebody didn't show up. And I'm like what?

She is every woman.

So I present to you my sister friend, the light light, dr. Danete O'Neill.

Thank you so much. My goodness. But you are biased because we are friends and so half of that stuff I probably owe some money for. Know thanks to the Barbie movie, CNN has named this the Summer of Girl Power. It's definitely pink. We've been shining. I think it's just our time now that people see what a contribution we have as women. Not just to society, but in the kingdom. And so how you do it? Grace. That's all I can say. When you can be in three different time zones in a 24 hours period, I'd be tired. But it's called grace.

You keep moving, you keep it going, man. You let us know that it's possible.

Yeah, great.

You let us know that it's possible. You let us know that it's possible. So before we get into the meat of it, can you just bring us how did you become Dr. Danette O'Neill? What was that journey like? So that when you are sharing your areas of expertise, like, we know really where it's coming from. I know, but I want the listeners to know, who is Dr. Denette?

As a woman, that was a childhood dream to be doctor. I didn't know a doctor what? Because at that time, it was just being bossy. Okay.

I'm trying not she's still bossy y'all.

I just call it credit push. Okay. But I knew I wanted to go back. I had a passion for community economic development, but I could not go back to school. Well, Hurricane Katrina was a total disruption.

You're from New Orleans, right?

You just happened. It didn't just happen. You just happened. Some of our listeners because I've been getting a lot of feedback and people calling and texting and emailing and leaving comments, some of our listeners are in their late teens. Can you tell me what was your mindset in your late teens?

I was always working. So my first job was actually at 13. I had an eight pound route, and I was too young to work. I got the job without telling my parents because I wanted to have my own money, and I wanted to buy my own guitar, acoustic guitar. And so it wasn't until I had accumulated about $800 of checks, okay. And I couldn't cash because I was using the cash to keep buying product, right. Until I had to tell my parents, of course, they couldn't get mad. I had $800 of there. Okay.

That's right.

I've been working literally since I was 13. I worked all during high school. I've always been good with the creative side. So I learned how to sew from a madis, and I learned tailoring. So I made wedding gowns and costumes and choir robes. And so that was a good little source of income for me. And that carried through to probably about 20 years ago that I don't have time to sew professionally anymore.

You sew personally, and I've seen you put some pieces together that look like they came off a sex rack okay.

Inside out in the store and see what I can make out of it. You might see this jacket tomorrow with some type of fringe on it and things like that. My first job. Then I got out of school when I was 16. So I finished school two years early. I was short of units. I needed one unit from Junior Achievement, and that led me to work as legally as a 15 to 16 year old to get that extra unit. And so it was nonstop. I worked through college. I had the work study jobs in college, in college. And that led to I can remember being a young woman when the kids were toddlers and I was still on the machines at night with an assistant helping me. And we made money. We did costumes for the carnival parades okay. And things like that. That's still one of the things that I really enjoy. I don't have time to do it professionally. Not as good at it anymore, but that sustained me and my family, and that was a good side hustle. They like to call it gig economy now. That's the word for it. So that was the gig at that time.

Right. And you've been able to maintain this lifestyle both just from woman to woman, as a married woman, but also as a single parent as well. You've been able to do both of those things.

Exactly. I became a single parent when the kids were three and six, pretty young. And I had businesses going at that time. I had a children's clothing store in two locations in New Orleans. Wow. I was a securities broker, and I was selling insurance. And I had to hustle. I had to find a way to hang on to what we had and to replace that income and still make sure that the children were well balanced, missing that parent, that other parent out of the home, making sure that all of their needs was met. And I fell short many times, but I would never discuss it with them. I just made them think that was the norm. Now they're 36 and 35 and 38 now. So they're giving me little clues that they knew what was really going on. They just didn't say nothing. They just went along.

Now they have children of their own, and they're seeing what it looks like.

Yeah. They understand the struggle. I'm not sure if they appreciate the struggle, but they understand the struggle.

They do. The way you show up for those guys, man, I know. They definitely appreciate it.

Yes, I know they do. You better be fans when they turn around on the football field.

Yes. They're coaches now, right? Yes. That's so awesome. That's so awesome. Before we leave this, what would you say to a parent, whether it be mayor or a single parent who's trying to juggle work and business and entrepreneurship and children and supporting them and being there, what would you something that you would love to say to them?

Man, they preach and keep going. I'm listening.

Stop. And they would guide me. And so I was keenly aware. I became keenly aware of when I was on overload or when I was approaching overload so that I could make a hard stop and reboot again. Right? A lot of us, I don't get days off. Some weeks I don't get a day off. But what I started doing was scheduling half days during that day, okay? And maybe during that half day, that was my time and still is my time to go get nails done or go get a facial or go get a foot massage. It's little things like that that mean a whole lot. And that could be your reboot, but you need to find out what your reboot is. I stopped looking at the phone in the morning. I used to roll out of bed and go straight to the phone because I just know I have text messages there and phone calls, and I don't do that anymore. I do to self care in the bathroom in the morning, make the bed, put my clothes on, and then I look at the phone. And, yes, some things do need immediate attention, and I do miss it. And then I call and say, Hi, I'm sorry, I'm just getting your message. I'm here now. Come on, let's get to it. So there's a lot of things that we need to be doing as women that we don't take time to reboot.

And you sleep better. I'm so glad you shared that because I remember experiencing a season like that, too. Like, I opened my eyes and I'm like this, and then I would notice I would have headaches that will start first thing in the morning, and then I got to the point where and I've gotten out of it. But this is a reminder that I need to get back in the habit of charging my phone in my bathroom versus next to my bed because that's going to make me get to it even later. And I slept better when the phone was not next to my bed.

Right. Well, we know that in this technology age, a lot of the automation of our homes come through our phone. And so we need to be sensitive to the ring that's ringing, because it could be somebody ringing the doorbell or trying to get in, but you have to find that balance of when you're going to silence it and not silence it. So you may miss an emergency phone call.

Okay?

So that's always the risk in that. But for your mental health, you got to cut it off and you have to make it known to people. I stay up late, but I don't allow people to call me late. Okay. So you have to set some boundaries of how it's going to work.

Right, man, thank you so much for sharing all that. Really, thank you. Because I know it will be useful to someone. So thank you so much. Whether today, tomorrow, or ten years from now, that's the one thing I love about She's Free to Fly. It allows us to put some things in the vault and put some things in the YouTube treasure book for somebody else, really put some things in the toolbox. So thank you so much. All right, so tell me about the history of women in the real estate industry.

So we have quantity but no quality.

We don't have equity.

We don't have equity.

Yes, we don't have equity. And that continues to be a problem.

Thank you for that correction. We have the quantity of women, but we don't have the equity in the industry.

That is okay.

What makes women, like, really? So what allows so many women to enter the industry, but what prohibits them from receiving the equity out of the industry?

Well, the real estate industry, period, offers flexibility, okay? So I say all the time, I'm the chief cook and bottle washer sometimes in my real estate office. That means that I'm the fax girl, I'm the copy girl. I'm filing all while I'm negotiating some of the biggest deals inside of the state, okay? And so it's easy to get in. You don't need a college degree, a four year college degree. Sometimes you can get in with just $1,000. You go to real estate school for a couple of, pass your test, you get your business cards, and typically you can get in with $1,000 and be your own boss. That is a good entry for women who want to be entrepreneurs. We're good at it because innately, we talked about our God given talents that God gave us, is that we're good organizers. And in real estate, there's a lot of moving parts, and we're used to doing that inside of our know, taking care of kids, vacuuming, making sure Susie's at dancing school, busta at karate school, making sure dinner's on the table, making sure the floor is vacuuming, starting all over the next day, okay? We are resilient. And that comes back all the way from when it brought the slaves from Africa. We are resilient. We are resilient. We know how to take a pound of ground meat and make four different meals out of it. We have good problem solving skills, okay? And that leads that we have attention to details, and those are our natural talents. Now, I'm speaking in general, of course, I'm stereotyping, but those are the ways that I think and I know that God designed us to be. And so those are all the checkboxes that make the reason why women are great realtors, because there is a lot of detail in this. Now, the encounters is number one.

Before you get to the encounters, let me say one thing to our listeners. For any woman that's listening and you heard her talk about those strengths, if you feel that you don't possess those strengths, I encourage you. And I implore you to sit down and be still and have some time with yourself because it is in you. It is in you. Identify those things that may have taken some of those strengths out of you. Take the time to process those things so that you can regroup and be the person that you were called to be. And it is in you. Sometimes it goes back to early childhood. Sometimes it goes back to parents. Sometimes it goes back to relationships. Like, there are so many things that we can deal with as women that eat away from us, but we have the power to create. So because we are creators, we can start with just a little bit, just like she said, and we can create that in ourselves, and we can grow from that, right? And I just really want to share that with everyone because those are the things that make you free to. So. All right, so now the encounters.

Dr. Dennett so the challenges are still some gender based obstacles that we face. We typically are passed over for some high level positions and leadership opportunities. In real estate, we don't get the CEO positions, unfortunately. We are the worker bees. And like I said, right now we typically get about $72 to $0.78 on a dollar versus what the men make in our industry. Also, one of the pluses and the minuses is that for a lot of women, this is their second career, all right? And so statistics also show the average age of the woman, the female realtor right now is 56 years old, okay? Right. And for some people that seem like a senior citizen, the older I get, the more but the average age is 56. So that tells us that we have a lot of women entering the career now. And what complicates it, too, is that they are also caring maybe for aging parents at that age, okay? And they may be out of the workforce, and this is very different. And they have to learn a whole new area, a whole new field. But how do you do that? Number one, you need to leverage your connections. Everybody you know need to know that you are in real estate. You cannot be a secret agent. You cannot be shy. Number two, you need to find a mentor early, okay, in somebody that's in the same field, someone who may have transitioned from another career, somebody who you see juggling and doing that juggle very well. Number three, you need an online presence to demonstrate your expertise. It amazes me that how many realtor professionals are not savvy with even the Internet. But we are in that age where you need that online presence in there. You need to choose a brokerage that values inclusion and equity, because that's how you're going to grow and values diversity. And you need to consider, learn all you can about the different careers in real estate, everybody doesn't have to list and sell a house. We have people who specialize in just land, resort properties, property management, leasing. There's a lot of different specialties, about 15 different specialties inside of the real estate field and you find one and you stick to it. I think a lot of people go wrong because they don't plan, they don't create a plan for the transition, which means you got to carve out time in your schedule because you're doing a lot of reading, a lot of learning. You're going to be going conferences, continuing education and you're doing all of that while you're still keeping your household. And then the last thing is that you have to trust yourself. The opposite of failure is not success. The opposite of success is not failure. All right. You're going to have stumbling blocks almost every single month. A deal that we can't get done, a client who's not attentive a real estate product that you can't seem to twist or bend to help your clients. It may be a hurdle that you may have with learning, a conflict that you may have in your office. But the important thing is that you have to just keep it moving forward. Keep it moving forward because you almost never arrive. And that's why I say you have to trust yourself. You have to trust yourself. And unlike other careers, the real estate profession don't have an income cap.

That's true.

All right. You own your own business. You are changing people's lives, making their dreams come true, giving them a shot at having some equity to pass down for generations. You are very important in the universe.

I'm sitting here listening to you and I'm thinking how you're talking about the real estate industry but the skill sets and the characteristics that it takes to be successful that flows to so many different industries. So many different industries. Like my background is accounting and tax. That still flows to the accounting and tax industry. When I think about the things that would make me stronger or my business stronger, it is definitely some of those things. When I think about other industries, it's the exact same thing. The world we live in is a tech world. It's a relationship world. It is people seeing you and being visual, which is very important. And it also made me think about my childhood. So growing up my mother was in real estate and I saw her running around and doing all this stuff all of the time. And when the deal goes bad I saw that when the deal goes good, I saw know and I just remember those things. And for know danette I would tell you I am not doing real estate. I saw my mom doing I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it right. And when I think about what I do as a profession in accounting, mariah has watched me stay up late nights overnights and all that kind of stuff. And my daughter's like, Nope, Mommy, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. And I tell her, I say, lady, it's a skill set that nobody can take from you. You can always go make a dollar.

That's right.

It's the exact same thing with real estate. It's a skill set nobody can take from you, and you can always go make a dollar.

That's right.

You can have a positive impact on someone's life.

That's good information.

So that has me thinking, like, even.

Some of the economic downturn of the economy post COVID is not necessarily all due to COVID itself, but can be partially due to economic policy.

Absolutely. You can have a president that's in office that cares about popularity, that keeps the interest rates down too long, too low. We made a lot of money and real estate good. But what it did was it drove the prices of real estate up very fast. Okay. And so we took a look at that while we were enjoying the commissions. We're like, oh, this house over here was $200,000 last year, and now it costs 290. And so we are priced out of our own neighborhoods now in the combination of lack of affordable insurance, we cannot afford to live and insure houses in the neighborhoods that we grew up. And so your house now Deshaunda for 400,000, but you're going to use 100% of the equity to find something else.

That's one of the things that has kept me from selling my house. I'm like, I can sell my house and make great money. Right, but where do you go?

It just doesn't make any sense. Where do you go? Because you'll find something the same square footage or less for the same amount of money, you still have to compete to be able to get it. And it's just a weird market right now. There are price ranges that are moving that we are surprised the 650,000 to 1.2 million are moving, and people are paying all cash and the load of moderate income. Those are the people that shopping in TJ Maxx that have the charge cards that are spending that's driving the late model cars. They can't afford to stay or even to buy a $300,000 house right now. Okay. And that's why I say real estate is a career. It is not a pastime. All right? Yes, there is a great need still for part time agents, but it's not a pastime.

Okay.

To try to squeeze the system?

Yes, squeeze the system. And they get away with it a lot of times. And so people clam up and they're afraid. But cryptocurrency, that train has left the station and people are holding on to their coins and they're using them wisely and they're sitting down waiting for the market to go right back up. And we're learning how to buy and sell property using cryptocurrency that helps us provide an interest to foreign borrowers in other countries. That's investing right here. Atlanta is the gateway city, the perfect place to be creative and create some opportunity. Okay? Man, told you all.

Man, it is such a wealth of knowledge and information. We spoke about regular homes like mine. What is black home ownership like right now?

Wait, I'm sorry. Does redlining still exist?

But they don't know the work that was behind all of that.

Right. Dish rags.

So how do we increase and that's what She's Free to Fly is about. It's about cross generational conversations between women, right? And what you're talking about, even in the real estate industry, is the lack of cross generational conversations between women in real estate. So what do you think are some things that can be done to increase those conversations, to really have the one on one intentional development of a younger generation?

I think that brokers like myself, we need to become mentors. We are running our offices and we are managers right now. We are managing the agent. We are managing the process. We're compliance conscious. Yes. Maybe we just need to stop and mentor these agents about the real mission of our organization, and that is to help people achieve the American dream.

Okay?

Maybe we need to just stop and help them understand the demographics of the population where they work or the population where they want to serve. Okay? Maybe we need to get them more involved, like I said, politically, and give some incentives for them to do that. Invite some of the state reps. They would love to come to your offices. I've done that before. They would love to have me. We're always telling them what we need when I say them, our elected officials, but very rarely. And I've had this said to me that we go to them and say, what do you need us to do? Because a lot of times they have great ideas and great initiatives that they need push, but they need us on the ground, the foot soldiers, okay? The people that's in the trip is working to make some noise, to make things happen. And policy, good policy, develops from the top up. When it comes from top down, it fizzles out. And policy has vertical and horizontal consequences. So it may be a good policy, but we don't do a good enough job, well enough job at examining who it hurts in the process. For instance, none of us like to see the blight in our downtown. You've had buildings to sit there for decades, abused graffiti and so a development comes in, they use tax credit money, they develop it to a workplay area. So you have shopping on the ground floor, condos or apartments on the top floor. But we can't afford to even rent them.

Right.

And we live in the neighborhood. We've been priced out of our own neighborhood. So whereas it's good not to see the blight, it's good to see the development. But now we can't afford so I can shop and get my nails done on the ground floor, but I can't afford an apartment. Right.

And we get excited when they come to the neighborhood.

Right.

But we don't think about the long term effects of pricing us out of the neighborhood or pricing the next generation.

Out of the neighborhood. Exactly. That's exactly what has happened in almost every development in our city. We cannot live in our own neighborhoods, so in effect, we are stuck in the houses that we are in. Better make it comfortable because that's where we so much we have had so many natural disasters that FEMA is out of money. So they're going to grab everything that they can get to be able to help those people in that particular need. Okay, so there's not enough advocacy for insurance. All right? The infrastructure in our cities are terrible. The roads, the bridges. Yes. Public service. You have a population that needs the public transportation, but you have another whole set of population that say, not in my backyard, NIMBYism. We have schools that don't have passing test scores. So who wants to live in there?

Right?

Realtors, we can't sell in those neighborhoods. And then you have black population that's moving out of that neighborhood. They're going further out to the suburbs. Now we have the transportation cost of housing. Okay, so they are living further out, but they're spending $150 a week on gas per call. Done that. All right. And then the neighborhood gets taken over and school gets rebuilt, and now test scores are up and you go, oh, yes. And so that's the part that while we are making money as Realtors, especially the newer Realtors in our business, they don't care about that. And so maybe just get them to care about one thing. Or maybe we can just touch 20% of the people in our office. That would be a good goal. But it begins with education. As much emphasis that we put on filling out a contract and not getting sued and mandatory ce continuing education every year. Let's do some work on advocacy and inclusion and equity. Yes.

And let's start having these conversations.

This is awesome.

This is awesome.

Man. Okay, now I'm I didn't know I was doing all of mean. You just get up in the morning and you just do and you answer the phones and you go to the conventions and you go to Capitol Hill and you have a board meeting and you're recreating or you're redesigning or you're trying to make something better. And you really don't know what you've undertaken until you begin to talk about it like this.

Until you begin to talk about it. And I thank you so much for talking about it, because you and I, we did not go through deep in plan this conversation like this. I just know, baby, if you throw Dr Danete the ball, baby, we gonna do it out of here. Out of here, out of much. I thank you so much for being my mentor, for being my friend, for being my sister, for being somebody that accepts me for who I am, for being someone who challenges me, who pushed me off the cliff to go get my doctorate's degree, and I just had to fly. And sometimes I get all the way down and almost hit the ground, but I just and that's because I have.

Women like you in my life.

So I'm very thankful.

We were texting the other day, and you've been busy.

I've been busy. And we got a chance to sit and have lunch, I believe, on Sunday. And after lunch, we were talking to our other girlfriend. It's three of us.

And I said what did I say?

I said, when we sit down and be still together, we can move mountains.

That's right.

And mountains.

Mountains. Move mountains. Mountains.

Mountains.

Move mountains.

So, ladies, let's be mountains and move some more mountains.

Yeah.

If there's one piece of information that you want to share with a young woman, whether it be real estate, life, whatever it is, what is that one piece of information that you want to share that can help someone become free to fly?

I like to share that. Find your one word. So too often, we make resolutions at the beginning of the year, and it's a paragraph. It's things that we're going to do. And February, we have fallen off the wagon. Find that one word that's going to represent you, what you intend to do, or who you are. Okay. Mine is tenacious, and every year I have a new one word. Find that one word and focus on that one word the entire year. There's a book, too. It's the bestseller called One Word. It's a little skinny book. Somebody blessed it with me, blessed it to me some years ago when I got off the stage speaking, and it taught me how to focus on becoming okay. And becoming that one word that I pick some years. I pick a word that I really want to become some I pick a word that I am, that I feel that I am. That year. Find that one word that represents you and focus on that one word. Be that word. All right. It could be gracious. It could be kindness. It can be inclusive, whatever. One word. Yes. All right.

Well, Dr Danette, thank you again. Do you want to share how people can stay connected with you and follow you.

Yes, I'm danette O'Neill on facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, instagram, snapchat. You can reach out to me if you Google my name Danette O'Neill. You'll see our businesses on Google, on Bing, on Yahoo, our offices, our office email is Danette O'Neill Biz. But if you just type in Danette O'Neill, you will get to me. And I hope something that I said today lit a fire in somebody for them to do more than what they did yesterday. Yes, every day is a day to become better.

Dr. Denette, thank you so much. Thank you so much, ladies. May your fires be lit. May tomorrow you be better than you were today.

I know I wake up thinking every.

Day is a new day to be better. I am just beyond thankful for this opportunity again.

And we're going to just close by saying, I pray you receive our love.

I pray that you feel God's grace and I pray that you share it with others. So this is she's free to fly? Follow us on Instagram Facebook. She's free to fly. You can listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.

She's free to fly.

And also you can view the podcast on YouTube. She's free to fly podcast. And we drop a new episode every Tuesday morning. So have a wonderful, wonderful day and we love.