Don’t overthink your future by asking “what if” questions. Grow and plan with like-minded people.
 
Liza Rogers has been passionately involved in what is now being called “the cohousing movement” for 25 years. On her journey, she discovered everything about financing, joint ventures, and buying real estate. Liza has a wealth of information and wisdom about real estate sectors both inside and outside Canadian borders.
 
In this episode, Liza talks about how you can overcome that glass ceiling and start growing and planning with like-minded people. She also shares her tips and insights on how you can maximize your potential and secure your future by investing in the best passive income – real estate!
 
 
What you will learn from this episode:
  • Find out why investing in real estate is something you need to consider for your future
  • Understand the importance of being with like-minded people and dropping toxic relationships
  • Learn how to stop worrying and cramming and instead start living the life you’ve wanted through the right investment
 
 
The glass ceiling becomes an open skylight when you own the building.
Liza Rogers
 
 
Valuable Free Resource:
  • How to budget your money to make it grow abundantly to help equip you for a better future: You Need a Budget and Mint
 
 
Topics Covered:
 
02:23 – Challenge is struggling to keep their place which affects their future plans and hitting the glass ceiling
 
04:44 – Not setting up for the future and being afraid of success: the common mistakes business women leaders make when trying to achieve scalability and success in their workplace
 
06:32 – One free and actionable tip you can do to help you prepare yourself for future success and grow with like-minded people: So, the number one thing that I tell women is to join a network. Join a network of like-minded women and like-minded leaders who are doing what you are doing, or what you want to be doing. That’s the number one thing that I tell people to do first off, and that comes with a couple of things to beef that up. And that is to join it, but also engage with it.
 
08:41 – One valuable resource to help you stop worrying and start planning the future you’ve always wanted: Check out some of these budget tools: You Need a Budget and Mint
 
10:17 – Q: What past statistics do women need to know to help them better prepare for their futures? A: So, there are a couple of key statistics that are often shocking. Number one is the average age of a widow in Canada and the US is 56 and 57 years old. So, when you hear that you think, “Oh, my goodness, you know, becoming a widow at 56 or 57!” First of all, there’s the shock of that statistic as a, you know, an average number. And then second, how is that going to impact me?
 
 
Key Takeaways:
 
“We really have to start, you know, delegating more as a number one thing. Stop thinking that we can do it all and get some things off of your plate.” – Liza Rogers
 
“And mentors, coaches, people who have either done it or are doing it or are the smarter person in the room than you are, those are the women who are going to be able to help you lead you to where you want to go. And having a plan for where you want to go is part of that really important process.” – Liza Rogers
 
“It’s going back to getting those coaches, not doing everything yourself, and understanding what your future looks like, so you can actually plan for it. You can delegate to where you need to delegate to you so that you can have that success or be prepared for those.” – Liza Rogers
 
“We call them failures, generally, but sometimes they’re just learning opportunities or your tuition.” – Liza Rogers
 
“Join it, but also engage with it.” – Liza Rogers
 
“Contribute in some way. Offer up your knowledge. Be vulnerable with what you’re struggling with. Listen to what the people in the group have to offer, and actually, take it in and engage with it. – Liza Rogers
 
“If you’re going to want to change your life- you know, changing your life, or changing your job or changing where you are in your career, it’s not a solo sport. And it’s not something that you can just do passively, you have to take action.” – Liza Rogers
 
“If you have an opportunity to join something where you have an opportunity to be lifted and lift women up, do it!” – Liza Rogers
 
 
Ways to Connect with Liza Rogers
 
 
Ways to Connect with Sarah E. Brown
 
 
Full Episode Transcript:
 
Liza Rogers 0:00
Join a network of like-minded women and like-minded leaders who are doing what you are doing or what you want to be doing.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 0:15
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women, where we talk about challenges senior female leaders face in being happy and successful at work. I’m your host, Dr. Sarah E. Brown.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 0:34
My guest today is Liza Rogers. For 25 years, she has been passionately involved in what is now being called “the cohousing movement”. Liza’s deep and diverse background in tourism and events has included leading groups on world-famous European river cruises, managing Eco guest houses in Bondi Beach, Australia, and being employed by two Olympic Games. On her journey, she discovered everything about financing, joint ventures, and buying real estate. Liza has a wealth of information and wisdom about real estate sectors, both inside and outside Canadian borders. As the Founder and Leader of WREN, which stands for Women’s Real Estate Network, Liza feels compelled to provide opportunities for others, especially women, to find their own creative and collaborative ways to learn about and prosper from real estate and related markets. She is currently in the process of purchasing a portfolio of investment properties with a group of women and has just partnered on the purchase of 150 acres of subdividable land near Victoria, British Columbia. Liza is co-author of the Amazon best-selling book, From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Success Stories from Women Investing in Real Estate. Welcome, Liza. Thanks for being here!
 
Liza Rogers 2:07
Well, thank you, Sarah. It’s great to be here! And thank you for the work you’re doing. It’s so important these days.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 2:14
Well, thank you. So, tell us what is the biggest challenge you help female leaders face in business today? And what might be some symptoms of that challenge?
 
Liza Rogers 2:23
Well, women leaders do face a lot of challenges these days, especially now that we’re in the middle of, hopefully, coming towards the end of a pandemic. It’s been even harder. But so many women, as you and I have just recently talked about, get so far in their careers, and then they kind of hit that glass ceiling. One of the things that I like to say because having found real estate investing has been such a great key to getting through that glass ceiling. The quote that we came up with, a few years ago is, “The glass ceiling becomes an open skylight when you own the building.” So that’s, you know, one of the things that have specifically to do with real estate. But in general, as you mentioned, women are struggling to keep their place– get into the C suite, get into the executive offices. And I think there are a number of reasons that’s happening. I mean, first of all, a lot of women don’t actually have a plan for their future. They don’t really know where they want to end up, and how they’re going to manage it when they get there. And so many women are still trying to do it all. And one of the things that we are so passionate about with WREN and with our group of women is teaching women that we can’t do it all. I mean, I know there’s that message out there that woman can do it all, but that just leads to burnout, fatigue, and relationships that need repair because they’re not getting enough attention. And so, we really have to start, you know, delegating more as a number one thing. Stop thinking that we can do it all and get some things off of your plate. The number of women that I talk to, for example, who are in great jobs who are still doing their housekeeping, like, hire a housekeeper! That’s probably my number one tip for so many of these women. Get some things off of your plate. Hire a housekeeper. And of course, along with that is a mentor and a coach. Again, you cannot do all of these things on your own. And mentors, coaches, people who have either done it or are doing it or are the smarter person in the room than you are, those are the women who are going to be able to help you lead you to where you want to go. And having a plan for where you want to go is part of that really important process.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 4:36
Oh, that’s probably a good lead-in to the next question. So, what do you see as the biggest mistake your clients make before working with you?
 
Liza Rogers 4:44
So, the biggest mistakes are, again, not setting up for the future, not understanding the being afraid of success, number one. I mean, people are not actually setting themselves up for success. And then when it happens, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, how do I repeat this? How do I keep going with this? How do I get the message out? How do I get more people involved?” So, success is a big part of it, not actually setting themselves up for future success, and being able to scale either in their business or the businesses that they’re working in, and then struggling with that scalability. And then the other side of that is the whole fear that surrounds “What if I fail?”. So, you’ve got kind of two ends of the scale. There’s the, “What if I actually succeed? Oh, my gosh, what if this works? How is that going to impact me? How’s it going to impact my family? How’s it going to impact how much more work I’m going to have to do if this is successful?” And then, “What if it fails?”. You know, “What if it doesn’t go to plan? What if we don’t see as much profit or bring enough people into the success journey as we were planning on?” And how do you sort out how you’re going to deal with those two sides. And so those are two of the things that I see happening a lot. And so again, it’s going back to get those coaches, not doing everything yourself, and understanding what your future looks like, so you can actually plan for it. You can delegate to where you need to delegate to you so that you can have that success, or be prepared for those. You know, we call them failures, generally, but sometimes they’re just learning opportunities or your tuition.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 6:21
So, I probably know the answer to this question, but just to be clear, what would be the number one free actionable tip you can give the women listening today to address this challenge?
 
Liza Rogers 6:32
So, the number one thing that I tell women is to join a network. Join a network of like-minded women and like-minded leaders who are doing what you are doing, or what you want to be doing. That’s the number one thing that I tell people to do first off, and that comes with a couple of things to beef that up. And that is to join it, but also engage with it. So don’t just be someone who sits on the sidelines and is passively taking place. Contribute in some way. Offer up your knowledge. Be vulnerable with what you’re struggling with. Listen to what the people in the group have to offer, and actually, take it in and engage with it. So many people, you know, just again, even with WREN, with the Women’s Real Estate Network. We have people who join, and then they don’t take any action. So, if you’re going to want to change your life- you know, changing your life, or changing your job or changing where you are in your career, it’s not a solo sport. And it’s not something that you can just do passively, you have to take action. And the other part of that is, don’t spend time with toxic people and toxic relationships. If you have an opportunity to join something where you have an opportunity to be lifted and lift women up, do it! But let’s stop being in toxic relationships and participating in anything where you’re actually tearing another woman down. TV shows, media– all of those things, we got to stop doing that, for sure.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 7:58
So, join a network and stay around positive, uplifting people.
 
Liza Rogers 8:02
Absolutely!
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 8:03
So, I thought you were going to say hire a housekeeper. But I guess you have to do that to have time to join a network and to have time around uplifting people.
 
Liza Rogers 8:12
Exactly! Yeah. And you know, that is one of the things that I always say when people say, “Oh, I’m so busy”. My first question to them is, “Okay, well, what have you delegated? Do you have a housekeeper?”. And I’m often surprised by the number of people who say, “No, I don’t.” I’m like, “Get the house cleaning off your plate, first of all, and then we can start working on delegating some of the other things.”
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 8:34
Hmm. So, what’s a valuable free resource you can share with the women who are listening today to help them understand this challenge better?
 
Liza Rogers 8:41
So again, if we go back to knowing what they want for the future, and knowing what they have to do to get there, some women underestimate what they need to build their dream future, and others kind of overestimate. So, the number one thing again is having that plan, and part of that plan is understanding and doing a budget. So, one of the number one thing that I recommend, and some good free resources are actually budget tools. So, I think it’s YNAB, You Need a Budget. Mint is another one. These are online opportunities where you can go in, you can plug in some money, and you can actually understand what it is that you need to have your life basically paid for. Right? So, a lot of people think, “Oh, I could survive on $5,000 a month.” And other people say, “Oh my gosh, I couldn’t live on less than $20,000 a month.” But they don’t know what they’re spending their money on, and so they don’t actually know how to control that, or how to better plan for their future. So, for that career woman, she may not need to earn as much as she thinks she does. Or on the other end of that, you know, you might think, “Well, you know, one day, I want to buy a guest house or a property or a vacation rental or something in Mexico and so I’m going to need to increase my budget a bit more. So, I do need to keep climbing up that ladder, or I do need to find some, kind of, passive income stream so that I can earn a little bit more money to be able to afford that kind of property in my future.”
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 10:08
So, Liza, what’s one question that I should have asked you that will help our audience take action to address this challenge? And then would you answer the question?
 
Liza Rogers 10:17
You bet! So, the one question that I was kind of thinking about was, that so many women don’t understand the statistics that they should know. So, what past statistics do women need to know to help them better prepare for their futures? So, there are a couple of key statistics that are often shocking. Number one is the average age of a widow in Canada and the US is 56 and 57 years old. So, when you understand- Yep, isn’t that crazy?
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 10:50
Wow!
 
Liza Rogers 10:51
Right. So, when you hear that you think, “Oh, my goodness, you know, becoming a widow at 56 or 57!” First of all, there’s the shock of that statistic as a, you know, an average number. And then second, how is that going to impact me? So, the other side of that is that a woman’s quality of life drops 70% after a divorce or a death. And so again, if we’re not prepared, we can have a shocking quality of life drop with either that early widowhood or divorce. So, when women know those statistics- you know, knowledge is power. When you know that, you better prepare for what you need to do to not become one of those statistics. A couple of maybe more positive statistics, fewer women are getting married and having children. Now some people might say, “Oh, but I’ve always wanted to get married and have children.” But so many of us out there, you know, me included, I never wanted to have kids. And I’ve always wanted to be kind of free to travel around the world and have this crazy gypsy life of, you know, living in Mexico for a year or living in Australia or working on cruise ships. And so, I’ve made a choice not to get married or have children. Not saying that I will never get married, I’m 52 now. Maybe I will, but it hasn’t been a driving factor for me, so I have a choice. So, knowing that statistics, you know, again, is important. You know you do have a choice. And one of the ones that really resonates with me is that 61% of homebuyers are women. So, women are driving the real estate market which is having an impact all across North America and in fact around the world because that’s changing how real estate is being built, is being created, and all kinds of things. And, of course, that, you know, eventually leads into one of my favorite topics, which is the cohousing and co-living movement. So, the long answer to your question there is for women to understand the statistics because they want to understand how they can manipulate them or how they can stop themselves from becoming one.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 12:48
And while we’re on that, why don’t you define what the cohousing movement is?
 
Liza Rogers 12:52
Sure. So, as we’ve talked about, I’m a huge advocate for co-living and co-housing. And I could spend, you know, a day talking about this and actually often have. But it’s actually based on how we used to live. We’ve only lived in these, you know, solo silos for the last probably 80 years since World War Two, where we’ve gone out to the suburbs and lived in single-family homes. We’re much more meant to live in a community and in collaboration with multi-generational family members or multi-generational friends living under the same roof. So, what we’ve noticed is that, again, going back to some of these statistics, women are outliving men. And so, a woman might be living for 30 years after she’s become a widow or divorced, and a lot of women are buying houses together. We call it the “BFF mansion movement”, so the “best friend forever mansion movement”. So why not buy a five-bedroom house and live with some of your girlfriends? And then you can go and do that again in Mexico. And now you’ve got a great place to share with your friends. And you don’t have all of the burden of that homeownership on your own. So, a lot of people are realizing that in today’s real estate market, it’s just too hard to do it on your own. So, the key is live with people, buy with people. Obviously, there’s you know, a lot of research and agreement that you have to do to get to that point, but it’s starting to become a lot more of a trend. And part of it is, you know, not only due to expense but also the epidemic of loneliness that was happening before the pandemic and has been amplified during and after the pandemic. So, this is a movement that’s just going to grow and we’re seeing co-housing, co-living, the tiny house movement, the BFF mansion movement- we’re seeing this happen all around the world, and we’re starting to hear stories about it every day.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 14:37
What an interesting idea! Liza, thank you so much for being with me.
 
Liza Rogers 14:42
It’s been a great pleasure to talk to you today, Sarah. I hope that some of these answers have been helpful.
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 14:48
Well, they happen to me! Thanks.
 
Liza Rogers 14:51
You’re welcome. Thank you so much!
 
Dr. Sarah E. Brown 14:53
Thanks for listening to the KTS Success Factor Podcast for Women. If you like what you are hearing, please go to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave a review. And if you would like more information on how we can help women in your organization to thrive, then go to www.sarahebrown.com. You can sign up for our newsletter, read show notes and learn more about our podcast guests, read my blog, browse through the books or contact us for a chat. Goodbye for now!

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