Episode 124: Create A Positive Environment Where You Appreciate The People Around With Cheryl Taylor
There is no denying the impact of our environment on the kind of person we become. Often, it is from a positive environment that we are allowed to grow and become successful. This episode’s guest knows this to be true. In today’s show, Amy Vetter sits down with Cheryl Eidinger-Taylor, the President and COO of ERA Key Realty Services. Together, they discuss how the example of hard work in Cheryl’s family led her to create success in the organization she has today. She also talks about the importance of getting present in order to create a better experience for those around her.
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Create A Positive Environment Where You Appreciate The People Around With Cheryl Taylor
Welcome to this episode, where I interview Cheryl Taylor. She is the President and COO of ERA Key Realty. In this episode, we discussed how the example of hard work in her family led her to create success in the organization that she has now and the importance of getting present in order to create a better experience for those around you.
I hope that you enjoy this episode. There are many great stories that Cheryl is sharing with us about creating a positive environment and letting people know that they are appreciated. If you find there are great lessons that you want to share with people that you know or other leaders in your industry, please subscribe and share this episode so more people can learn from the stories of Cheryl. I'm looking forward to this interview that you are about to read.
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I'm with Cheryl Taylor from ERA Realty. Do you want to start off and give our audience a little background on yourself?
I oversee a company that has 15 offices and about 375 real estate professionals. I have several managers that work to help us guide those agents and professionals through their careers. I help them when they have questions and problems. We are an open-door company. We are part of the Hunt Company of Families in Buffalo, New York.
One of the things that happened in the past several years is my husband, and I used to own this company and run it. We sold our company to Hunt. We did choose Hunt because they were similar to our culture. We have a family-oriented culture and an open-door company. Everybody knows they can call any of the leadership in the company when they have a problem, question, or need help.
I'm proud of everybody who works under this umbrella. They are amazing people. They do a great job at keeping themselves sharp and in tune with what is going on in the industry. They are professional. They get a lot of compliments from attorneys, lenders, and all kinds of cooperating agents, saying how wonderful a lot of our team is. I'm honored to be able to lead this team. They are a great group. I am happy to say, “Every day I wake up, I'm still glad to go to work. I'm still excited to go to my job and my career and have fun with what I do.
That is the best thing you can say. It is always good that we find our purpose in life and passion in the work we do. We are going to start off by going backward and learning about your story. We can see how you found that in your life. Where did you grow up, and what did your parents do?
I grew up in West Millbury, Massachusetts. My dad was a school teacher, and my mom worked in an electronics company but did more stay-at-home mom stuff for a while and went back into the workforce later on until she had some pain and some knee issues, and things ended up on disability. We had a nice childhood when I was young. My two sisters and I had loving parents who were great.
My dad was probably my first mentor. He was a can-do positive guy. He passed a few years ago. I do miss him. He was always great at encouraging all three of us to be whom we felt we wanted to be and not to let things hold us back. It was during the time when women were being more empowered. He had a firm belief that men and women were equal. They could do what they needed to do and what they wanted to do. He was good at that.
My parents unfortunately divorced when I was thirteen. There are some rough spots there. We moved with my mom to the town they were from, Milford, Mass. I went to school there for a few years and ended up going back to Millbury, where my dad was teaching, and graduated a year early from high school. I put the junior and senior years together. I was not a big fan of high school. It was not my thing.
Why do you think your dad was such a proponent of women? What created that for him?
Part of that was my grandmother, Camilla Wright. She was an Italian. Her parents came over from Italy. She is a saint. She is probably up there looking down on us. She lost her husband when my dad was ten. She raised the four children on her own for many years. She was a loving, nurturing, wonderful Italian grandmother. She fed us all. She would do anything for us before herself. She was self-sacrificing, which I have to the extent that is not healthy. I have probably taken a little bit of that from her. It has often been guilty of at my own expense doing things when I should take care of myself first. I'm vying for sainthood with her or something.
How did she do that as an immigrant to struggle? Was she working and raising?
She worked full-time. She worked for the Welfare Department in Milford until she was older. She takes them on vacations down the Cape. We all went down the Cape together for many years. We did our summer vacations down there. She was an excellent cook. She always tried to fill your heart with food. Every time you went to her house, she would feed you. She was like, “Here, eat this.” It was a commodity on the market. She would describe it. There would be adjectives that you couldn't believe she would use to describe it and make you snip it.
I love Italian food. I can't even imagine how good that was. With her being an immigrant and raising the four kids on her own, were they taking care of themselves a lot of the time? How did that work if she was there?
I'm not sure what year she went to work. I got the impression that when they were a little bit older. I don't think it happened when they were young, but my dad was ten, two of his sisters were older, and one of his brothers was a little younger. The sisters being older would also help out. Both of his sisters became nuns. They went into the convent. My grandmother was religious. My father's younger brother became an attorney. They were all very successful in different ways. The oldest was a Zoologist at Our Lady of the Elms College. She was a great inspiration. She is very intelligent.
How did that pathway to becoming nuns happen?
My grandmother was religious. They were probably at church almost every day. We went to a Catholic school. She was a devout Catholic. She inspired that in them. The younger aunt ended up leaving the convent when she was still alive with Alzheimer's. She is my charge at the moment.
How did that affect you, having aunts that were nuns and being involved in the church? What was that like growing up? Did you think you were going to become a nun?
No, I never thought I was going to become a nun. Not even close. I was religious most of my childhood, but I was exploring different religions. I went to the Catholic church a lot. I also explored the Protestant church, and I, still to this day, am a bit religious. I love tradition and ritual. I'm a faithful person. I'm not anywhere near as good as my grandmother was at church.
That is an interesting background for your dad, seeing his sisters take on a career life, not necessarily a family life. I don't know if the younger sister ended up having kids and seeing his mom working. That has such a big effect on men to see a difference, especially at that time.
He was protective of her when he was younger. She was born in 1909 and lived a nice long life until ‘95. she was the men came first. She was traditional with that. We had Sunday dinners. We sat down, and all got paper napkins. My father would get the cloth towel. He got the mappine because he was a man, and he got fed first.
When you say he was your mentor, did he start talking to you? When I was younger, it was still new for women to have careers. I was influenced by my mom being a businesswoman. What discussions it was with your grandmother did you have?
It was more with my father. I never thought there would be any option but to have a career. He talked about it. We would do whatever we wanted to do, whatever business or career. Whatever it was, we shouldn't let anybody hold us back. It was never thought that I wouldn't go into some career or do something productive with my life. The dynamics changed a little bit when they got divorced. It was a tough time for my dad. He was a family guy, and he loved his family. He didn't want to be away from his kids. I almost became a pseudo-counselor there a little bit at the age of thirteen, and he had a tough life after that.
In the last several years before he died, I tried to do as much as I could to be there for him and support him. I put him into a house. I did a lot for him that I could when I could. I spent a couple of wonderful days with him shortly before he passed away. There was a big surprise when he passed. He used to drive my sisters and me a little crazy as he got older. One time, he told us all, “I don't think I'm going to live more than another couple of years.” We were like, “Dad, stop. You are fine.” Another time, he said, “I'm going to live another several years.” My sisters and I were like, “Oh, no.” When he passed, we wished it was 8 or 9 years. Always appreciate what you have when you have it.
Did you have your own hobbies when you were younger?
I was an introvert when I was younger. I loved music. I played the flute. I loved the band, chorus, and singing. I did a lot of great classes that I enjoyed, Math, Science, and English. History was not my big thing. I took them, and I passed them. I have always been good about memorizing things than what they go out of my brain after the test.
I was a little bit to myself as a child. My dad always said I was a young adult at 13, 12, or 10 because I used to go on my own little walks in the woods. I had friends I played with too. We lived near a farm and had a lot of friend time too. My best friend's name is Sally. She was down the road that my sister and I were best friends. I enjoyed my quiet time. I would go off, sit on a rock, sing a song, or explore. We had a graveyard right behind us. I would walk through the graveyard and look at all the tombstones and talk to people. All I do is talk to people all day long, every day.
What is it that shifted you?
When it boils down to things, I have a limit on how much people time I can do, and I have to do alone time. I recharge by being on my own, contemplating, reading, and writing things down. I enjoy my quiet time. I do a miracle morning every morning for about 30 to 45 minutes. That is my time to get grounded before I enter chaos.
What is a miracle morning?
Hal Elrod wrote the book Miracle Morning. It was based on interviewing many successful people. One of the things he found in common was all of them had a distinct time cutout in the morning to get their heads wrapped around things. It is based on what is called SAVERS. It is Silence, Affirmation, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing. I don't do all of those every morning, but as my exercise gets better, done later in the day.
I do sit and read a couple of different journals. I write in a small journal that he has that I like because I could write for days if I keep writing. He gives you this little small chunk of space to write in, which is good for me. I would sit upstairs. We have a nice little place to sit looking at the water where I live. I do my thing for 30 to 45 minutes with my tea every morning, and it is helpful.
How long have you been doing that?
Several years.
How do you take that into your day?
I typically don't look at my email or anything else until I get into the office. I will make calls on my way up to the office, call clients, or do whatever I need to do. It is a sacred time for me to be quiet. Sometimes, at the end of the day, when I go home, I tell my husband to shut the TV off or put his headphones on because I need quiet again by then.
I wanted to emphasize that because a lot of real estate agents would say there is no time for that. You have to respond to things right away in any sales job. A lot of times, we put that pressure on ourselves, but that is not someone else's expectation. You can address how you are still able to accomplish what you can accomplish.
I would be fooling if I said I didn't respond pretty quickly to a lot of my clients. Customer service is what makes or breaks it. Whether it is one of my sales professionals or a client calling or texting me, I am on top of it quickly except at 7:00 in the morning because it is 45 minutes that I want to myself. For a lot of my clients, I will tell them I'm not a morning person because I am up till midnight. Most people don't text me that early. For the rest of the time, I'm all over text and calls.
That is time blocking of knowing when you are going to be on and when you are off and communicating those expectations to people so they know you are not ignoring them. That is important. How did you find the interest? Did you go to college?
I haven't given a fair shake to my mom and her family. My mom's family was also wonderful family. My grandpa, Nana Carol, was wonderful. They would take us on weekends. There are a lot of cousins on that side of the family because they were not nuns. They were wonderful to be with. I had a lot of great love around me growing up.
A couple of my aunts and uncles on that side of the family had been in marriages that didn't work out, and they divorced. My grandparents on that side were good about it. They still wanted the ex-husband to come to dinner, and everybody was good with one another. They were working through that. They set a lot of great examples for us, both of my sets of grandparents. They were great role models.
When my parents split up, I moved to Milford, and I decided to move back to Milbury to be with my dad and graduate more quickly than if I had stayed in Milford. I was supposed to go to college. I was going to go for free to Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee, where my zoologist, nun Aunt was. Unfortunately, I found men and had a child young. I did not end up going to college right away. I had my son, Bruce, who is an amazing young man. I did get married quickly and got divorced quickly. I was a single mom for many years. That made me a strong person. I felt like I had a great foundation. You don't want to know. I was seventeen when I had my son.
They are growing up fast and taking care of everyone around the.
I was ready. I didn't feel like I had missed anything. I did a little bit of crazy stuff that kids did when I was 15 and 16. That was enough experimenting. I was okay. He was such a cute little baby, and he was a sweetheart. We had a wonderful time. I did have friends in class who got pregnant at about the same time. They were angry after they had children. They were not happy. They felt like they had lost something and were stuck. You got yourself into this. You don't have to deal with it now. I did it. It is fine, and I enjoyed it.
Did you have help from your family?
At first, because I was married for a short period of time. We made a go with that. That didn't work out. I took a look at what I needed to do. I explored whether I should get welfare. That did not look like a viable option for me. We never had a lot of money, but I didn't want to be stuck without a car, stuck in a house, and be dependent on the system. I said, “I got to figure something out.” I found a private daycare provider who was a wonderful woman. She was great with my son. She had a couple of other kids she took care of. I got a job, and I went to work.
What was the job?
I worked as a laborer. They created sheets of different types of material for electronics and for other types of industries. That was in Millbury. I worked there for a couple of years.
Is that what your mom did?
No, it is something I found. I went into it, and a few years after that, I ended up getting a job in Hopkinton at an electronics company called Electronic Designs Incorporated. I worked there and had a great mentor there. His first name was Jeff. He was a great mentor. I worked in the electronics on the floor for a little while and in a microelectronics room where we would make substrates and individual chips.
I ended up being promoted to work coordinator and supervisor of the department. I did that for a while. I loved having a little team under me. I enjoyed the people. I liked to build camaraderie, excitement, and motivation. It was fun having a little team. It was a nice time. A lot of them were older women. It was funny. They would laugh. They were like, “You are a little girl. You are telling us what to do.” They were great. They would do anything for me. They were wonderful.
What made him a mentor?
When I was going up from laborer to work coordinator and supervisor, he was great about giving advice. He was always in my corner. He would back me up a lot. I don't have as many specific memories about him. I respected him, and he was a nice guy. I'm sure I learned some specific things that I do not remember.
What was your next step from there?
They ended up having some shifts in what they were going to do and what they were providing. They decided to outsource their microelectronics. It was either I would have a job or go to a different department. I ended up going to the quality control department. There is another great guy I worked with there. He was an odd guy, but he was a sweetheart older guy. I did that for a while. I ended up moving into marketing, which I hated. From being an introvert, I now do marketing a lot. There were a lot of specs. You had to review the specs. You had to see if the customer's needs were going to be a fit for our products. It was not as exciting as some of the stuff I do now.
I met my next husband there. His name was Jeff. He and I worked there for a while and got to know each other. I had some other great friends there. When we decided we were going to get together, I got pregnant. I had my daughter Jessica. I wanted a few extra months off. I had a tough pregnancy with Jess. I had placenta previa and was in bed from my 4th month until my 9th month. She was such a blessing to have finally and have her whole and safe. I felt they needed a couple more months at home with her. The company wasn't crazy about having married people working at the same company. They were like, “You can't have your extra months.” I'm like, “Okay, bye.”
I stayed home for about a year. Jess was one in August of 1990. I was out looking for a house. We were ready to move up from where we were living. I was out with a realtor looking at homes. Her name was Beth. She is no longer in real estate. She wasn't there much longer after I did that. When we went out looking, we stopped at her off. I said, “How do you like selling real estate?” She says, “I love it. It is a great career. You should talk to my boss.” I went in and talked to her boss. It turned out that I knew him a little bit because both our sons went to the same school. We ended up chatting. I didn't know back then that you could get hired anywhere if you got your real estate license. You think you are special. You were like, “They want to hire me.”
I was interviewed by his partner at the time, Pat Schraft, who is also gone from this earth, unfortunately. I had a fun interview with him. He was a card. He was a funny guy. I ended up saying, “I'm going to get my license.” We didn't buy a house from her, but I got a career with no pay. I had to ask him, "Can I come into the office even though I don't have my license?"
Back then, it was much harder to go and get your license timing-wise. You would go and take classes, either live or video classes that were monitored or proctored. I took those for weeks. You went and took your test. I took my test in October, and I didn't have my license until November. It was a long process back then. Now you take your class, and you go and take your test right away. If you passed or failed, you have your license.
During that, I worked in the office. I volunteered my time. I wanted to hear what happened. At that point, my mom was helping out a bit so I could go in a few half days with my daughter. She was watching her. I would go in and hear what was going on. It was a great way to get familiar and acclimated, know the terms, learn a little bit, and hear the top agents handle customers and clients. Back then, everyone was in the office. Nobody worked from home and remotely.
Our real estate was in a big thick book. You would sit down with a customer in a conference room. You would go through the book and pick out what houses you were going to show. There was no computer stuff back then. That did change shortly into my career. Within a few years, we were on a DOS-based system where we had MLS from the Boston MLS. Worcester had a different MLS. We have to look at two different MLSs. It has evolved over the last several years that I have been in real estate.
Coming into real estate, I have interviewed others. Just the beginning part is hard. How did you stay positive that you were going to be successful in this? In any sales position, it is hard, but this particular one can be hard to get over the hurdle of that beginning part.
This sounds awfully conceited. I don't mean it that way, but I didn't ever give myself any other thought except that I would succeed.
That is not conceited. That is your visualization.
That is how my dad coached me to be. It was never going to be an option that I wouldn't succeed. I knew I liked people already. I liked leading people. In some ways, when you are selling real estate, you are leading people to a good decision. You may not be leading them in a department or an organization, but you are leading people to a decision that works for them.
I enjoyed that consultant-type space and the relationships I formed. The first sale that I made was in December of that year and that next year, I sold seven houses. The year after that was fourteen. I kept building up. Within several years, I was selling about 50 houses a year, which was crazy back then because I had a part-time gal that came in and helped me do my mailings and things like that. I was like, “I have done this, and I'm doing good at this. What do I do next?”
Coming from that corporate background, I started seeing some holes in the office where we were growing. We didn't have a lot of systems in place. We didn't have procedures, training, or coaching. We had a gentleman serving as the office manager there a little bit. He was helpful when I was first in my business, but I kept seeing all these holes from having a more repetitive process thing to help people.
I started inflicting myself into that and creating solutions and which wound me up with a part-time position there. It eventually grew into a full-time position managing. We merged with a couple of other offices, and the head of the company, Bruce Taylor. We are a great team as far as work goes. We had a lot of synergies. Bruce, Mike, and I were a great little trio. Mike was the gentleman who did a lot of office management when I was there.
We didn't always agree, but we always had great discussions. We built the company from there. Bruce was savvy at what he was doing. He got out of sales and focused on growing the company. We had some great help from the ERA franchise. We had a great consultant that worked for them that helped Bruce formulate a plan. We went to work on it.
We built the company fairly quickly, and we did a large merger with ERA John Nelson in 1998. We changed the name of the company. At that point, we were ERA Homeowners Advantage. We merged with ERA John Nelson. We created ERA Key from that. We ended up building the company. We have 200 agents, 250 agents, and then 300 agents. It was a nice improvement and kept growing in a nice direction.
Eventually, my husband, Jeff, and I parted ways. We were not growing in the same direction. He is a wonderful guy, and I still love him to this day. I love his new wife. That was a little hard at first, but I enjoy them now. When Jeff and I split up, I helped him buy a new house. When he started dating his wife, Trisha, I helped him sell his house, and I helped them sell their house when they moved to Arizona. We have a nice relationship, and they moved back up this way. I helped them buy a house up here.
We had a nice time with that, and we had a great relationship. Eventually, Bruce and I ended up getting together because we spent so much time together in the company, and I didn't realize that I was developing feelings for him, but I guess I was. He is a little older than I am. We spent a lot of time going to conferences together. We had a great friendship. That blossomed into more. We are still married. He is a peach. I told him he has to live to 100.
That is important to have that connection as a friendship or to have that bond together.
There is to an age where you start to figure out a little more about what you are looking for in life, what you want, and how you want it to be. I made mistakes in my marriage to Jeff. I'm sure he made mistakes. I thought it was all him. I can see where I messed up, but I was young. When you are 25, 26, or 27, you are young. You don't have it all figured out. No, I still don't have it all figured out, but now it is a little better. We all have a great relationship. The kids are great with it. I have been married to Jeff. My son's name was Bruce. My first husband is Bruce. That short marriage was Bruce. My third husband is Bruce, and my stepson is Jeff. I run into all kinds of Bruces and Jeffs more than any one person could possibly happen.
Speaking of my stepson, he said he would never go into this business with his father. When he got out of college, he decided maybe he would try a little bit of something. He did some recruiting and more work for us. He managed a branch. I mentored him, which was a lot of fun. He is a bright guy. He was soaking up everything I could teach him. He got some talents that are beyond me. He is a great recruiter. He is a great guy.
Bruce has decided to retire over the last few years after we sold the company. Jeff has become my work partner. In some ways, he and I sometimes see things more on the same page than Bruce and I did. In other ways, I had to become Bruce a little more. Bruce is always a great idea person. We called me the executioner. I would be the one who would think his idea through and figure out how we would implement it. I have had to learn to be a little bit more of an idea person now that Bruce is not doing this and try to let others implement it. I need to continue to get better at it.
It is important to know where your strengths are and how to fill those gaps and not try to be something you aren't. Appreciate those skills and other people because that is how you grow a team. You had said you are self-sacrificing. Where do you find that you do that, and how do you put boundaries around that?
I don't. I got to figure that out. I have jam-packed my calendar from the start to the end of the day. I volunteer for my church. I have been the church treasurer for several years. At this point, my mom and stepdad are getting older. I'm trying to do what I can to help. My sister does a little more with that. I do more financially. She does more time-wise. When my dad was sick and older, we both did a lot with him, and I have done a lot for him financially. I don't protect my own personal time well enough, honestly. I need to get better at that. I keep trying. I keep every week as a new week. I make a plan, and I don't stick to it.
Was there anything you took away that you stuck with?
I had been better at protecting more of my morning times. That is what I'm good at protecting. The only day I don't typically do that is when I watch my grandchildren on Wednesday morning for a few hours. They are adorable, and they are closer than my other two little ones. We have eight grandchildren. I'm trying to enjoy that age while I can and while I'm able to have a little more flexibility in my schedule than I once had. I'm enjoying that. That is one morning I do not get any miracle morning in because I go right from getting up at 6:30 to watching a two four-year-old, and I need a nap at 12:00. It is worth it.
One of the things Jeff and I realized a few years ago, I was like, “Jeff, we were both looking at each other. Why are we running ourselves ragged here?” At some point in time, Jeff did more with Bruce and me when we were a trio. Now we only had two people. We have been running it on two people since Bruce retired. It had been several years without a third person in place. The market was crazy, and things were busy. We realized it was time to look for a third leg for our stool. We had somebody right under our noses.
We started looking, and I started reaching out to all the contacts I had through the ERA franchise system, through people I have met in the past, and through the board of realtors. We started reaching out, saying, “Do you know of anybody who would have a lot of brokerage knowledge, multiple office knowledge, good people skills, and good management skills?”
We had done a merger with another company from ERA. It is a small company in Dorchester. Her name was Nadine Fallon and her business partner had decided to do this merger with us. She had been working with us for a few months, but it didn't even dawn on us. Finally, one day, she said, “I heard you are looking for a third person. I would be honored and sited looking at my resume and talking to me a little bit about it.” We did. As we got to know her more, it was perfect. I feel bad for Jeff because she is a younger me. She approaches things a lot similar to the way I do. I'm enjoying that because we are often on the great little thing.
It is always good to have different personalities. You shouldn't have three of the same people. That would be bad. For me to be able to let go of a few more things that I typically do and that Jeff doesn't want to do, it is good to have somebody that I can now rely on to delegate a little bit more. We are trying to fill a branch leader position in the Dorchester office. Nadine can come and work more fully with us. She is half in both positions. My goal is to protect my time a little better after we can embrace that fully.
That is important when you see yourself stressed or many people around you stressed out to pause and observe what is going wrong here. Why are we all stressed out? Why are people stressed out? What do we need to do to shift to know where to delegate and be okay to release things so we can free up that space?
We have an amazing leadership team. The branch leaders are great. We had a couple of things happen where I needed some help in a few different areas. They are willing to step in, help, and cover for each other. They are an amazing group. I'm always overwhelmed by how great this team is.
There are many great stories that you shared. I would like to end the conversation with some rapid-fire questions, but you pick a category. The category is family, friends, money, spiritual, or health.
Health is probably not my best one. I shouldn't answer that one, although I am pretty healthy. You pick. I don't care.
No one usually does spiritual, and you have a lot of that in your background. Let's do that. You asked me to pick.
I will do it.
Things or actions I don't have that I want.
I feel blessed with the things I have. I have been in places where I have had no money. I have been fortunate to be blessed with a little more money at this stage of the game. I’m having sold the company. You can't replace the relationships, the people, and the love around you. You can't put a tag on that price-wise. I want to make sure I always have a wonderful network of people around me and good friendships. I'm making sure our family knows how much I love them. My kids and Bruce's kids are amazing human beings. We feel proud of all of them. I don't want any more of that, but I don't ever want to be without it. That is probably number one, great friendships and family.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want, as far as your spirituality.
I used to go to church pretty regularly. I have protected a one-day off thing, which has been great. I try to do a little more on my miracle morning. What I don't have right now that I would like to get back into is some religious practice on Sunday, whether it is going to a church service, meditating, or something that is a little more grounding.
When I went to church regularly, I always felt like Sunday was a great time to start fresh, to reflect inwardly, to love your church family, and to be with that other family. That was a little dynamic. I want to be able to reflect on the past weeks, appreciate the people that I wanted to appreciate and my heart, and get ground myself in the new week in what I might be able to do. Acknowledge what you did wrong and figure out how you might do that better the next week. I would like to go back to doing my Sunday a little more from a religious standpoint.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want.
I have a plan to get rid of my treasurer position because I have been doing it for a long time.
You need to create boundaries.
We have a plan for that. I don’t know if that is spiritual.
Is there anything that we haven't talked about or that you want people to leave this conversation with before we end?
I probably said it all already. I always have more to say, but this is a great time of year to reflect on who is important in your life and why. Make sure they know. As you age, you realize you are not going to have time to say everything and do everything, and someday you are not going to be here. That is a tough one to struggle with sometimes.
Appreciating what you do have, being as positive as you can, and giving people kind words because even sometimes I'm running so fast that I don't acknowledge what somebody has done. I let them know how much I appreciate them because I'm running, trying to get something done, and I'm task oriented. I guess the main thing is to try to be a positive influence in other people's lives and appreciate everyone around you. It is a great time to dwell on that a little.
Thanks so much for sharing your story. There are many great lessons people can take away from this.
We could do an after-hours one that is not recorded where I can tell you more.
There are some good ones in there.
A lot of the people around me know them all already. I'm a pretty open book.
Thanks so much for being on.
Thank you. It was a pleasure having you at our event, and great to see you again.
It's great to see you.
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For my Mindful Moments from my interview with Cheryl, I loved this interview because Cheryl had her own path coming into success. It is important for anyone to realize there is no time in your life when you might hit pitfalls or things that are hard that you can't still succeed. A lot of times, when we hit hard times in our life or things that are unexpected that we might blame the outside world or have excuses for why we are not going to push forward.
This is what this show is all about. Stepping back and realizing what is your potential, what are the things that make you, you, and making sure that you still go forward. Your dreams might look a little bit different. They might be a different path than you planned, but it is still important to understand what your skills are.
In this interview with Cheryl, she talked about her family background and how different she was from the people in her family and their belief systems. She did respect them for their belief systems and found examples of how to persevere but could step back and realize what she agreed with or didn't agree with.
One example of that was talking about her grandmother, what a hard worker she was, and how raising the four kids on her own was self-sacrificing, but had a traditional point of view that men come first. When you grow up that way, it is important that you decide what your belief system is or not your belief system and where those beliefs come from. Sometimes belief systems come from things that we don't even realize. It is in those moments that we self-reflect and understand what aligns with us or doesn't align with us.
We talked about growing up, she was an introvert. She played music and was into Math and Science. She enjoyed her quiet time and has always had a limit on people’s time. Even though meeting Cheryl, as I have, she is dynamic and extroverted. It shows that everybody isn't always as they seem with what they need. Sometimes that can surprise people.
I'm similar in that I can get on stage, speak, and have a lot of energy, and I may create energy with groups of people, but it is more important for me to have deeper relationships with a couple of people than be in big groups of people. Sometimes that draws my energy away. It is important to realize that because some people might be surprised by that when you see people that are extroverted and don't realize they do need that downtime or silent time to refuel.
She talked about the miracle morning she has done every day for 30 to 45 minutes for the last several years. It is all about getting silent, writing down your affirmations, visualizing them, exercising, reading and writing in a journal. Sometimes when we write, we don't even realize what is inside of us or what we may need until we allow that support out of us in silence.
If we don't give ourselves time to do that, a lot of times, we aren't deciphering our emotions and understanding the energy that is in our bodies. We show up in the world what is ever going on in our bodies, not realizing that we are affecting other people. When we take those moments to understand what is happening to us, it helps us create better energy with everybody.
She pushed through, persevered, had a child, found a career through that, and did it in maybe a different type of way where she found mentors along the way because she was such a hard worker and had a positive attitude. People took her under their wing. She was promoted fast into supervisor positions and so forth. She kept learning.
A part that I see for people is that sometimes we get wrapped up in whom we think we are or what our titles are rather than realizing that sometimes we have to roll up our sleeves and learn a role, learn what it is that we want to be, and learn the process behind what we want to be. We got to do the work in order to understand what that would be to lead it.
She grew up in the housing industry and got her real estate license. Through being part of the business, she saw gaps in how the business was run, and she wanted to help with operations. That was when the people she has encountered in her life said to her, “We need you in operating positions. We need you to fill in these gaps because you are someone that can make this happen, but you got to demonstrate and look for where those opportunities are.” That is what she did.
Through that, she met her husband. They were leading the real estate company together. After many years, they split apart. She kept growing what she was doing and also ended up in another relationship that became her next husband. They grew that business together. That shows that we go through these pitfalls in our life that are hard. You have never been through a divorce. It is one of those things that you have gone through it to understand what it feels like. It is a grieving process, even when you are trying to keep everything together, move on and run a business like she was running a business.
It's being able to keep that presence of mind and separate emotion for when you need to deal with emotion and being part of the business and making sure the business doesn't suffer when you are going through downtimes because we will have them. There is no steady state in life. There are things that happen along the way that we have to shift and change.
One of the things that we talked about was how we go about making sure we get that joy outside of work. Our calendars can get jam-packed with things that we need to do. The things that we do outside of work help us to set boundaries in our calendars. She volunteers with her church. She also helps with her grandchildren. In order to do that, it is important to understand what time you turn off and how you communicate that to everyone to make sure they understand you are not ignoring them and it is part of your life. When you create boundaries, people respect your boundaries, and you will respect theirs as well.
One of the biggest takeaways for her is making sure that you take the time to reflect on who is important in your life and making sure that they know that you appreciate them, whether that is at work, with family members, or with friends. Make sure you spread that kindness and allow people to know you appreciate them. Sometimes we think people know, but we don't say it. Taking that moment to say it can go so far. All of this is important because we want to know we have a positive influence and we are creating the energy we want in our life, but also in the people around us.
In April 2023, hopefully, you will follow my book launch called Disconnected Connect: Tap Into The Power Within You To Create The Life You Desire. It is all about this stuff. It is the steps and actionable tools you can take in your life to decipher what your beliefs are versus what might be generationally in there. I will be doing a series of episodes around the book once it launches. We can have a virtual book club and discuss it together. I'm excited to share it. I will keep passing along information as the pre-sales go up for this book. You can make sure to get your copy of it as soon as it comes out.
I want to thank you for being a part of the show and supporting the work we do at The B3 Method Institute. In 2023, we have mindfulness courses that we are running to help you incorporate this philosophy into your day. Our first one is finding balance. We will meet once a week to set intentions and do meditations. There will be eLearning content. It will take you about 30 minutes a week to be able to do this. It will start setting that boundary. You do take time for yourself to create better energy for yourself and those around you.
Important Link
Miracle Morning - Amazon
feelslikehome - LinkedIn
feelslikehome - Facebook
About Cheryl Taylor
Cheryl Eidinger-Taylor started her real estate career in 1990 with ERA Homeowners Advantage as a sales associate and in 1995 began managing one their branch offices. In 1998 ERA Homeowners Advantage merged with ERA John Nelson, and the newly merged company became ERA Key Realty Services, which Cheryl was made a partner of and at that time consisted of eight branch offices. In 2000, Cheryl was promoted to Regional Vice President, overseeing half of the company’s branch offices and its relocation, recruitment, and corporate staff.
In 2007 Cheryl was promoted to Chief Operating Officer overseeing all the company’s managers, corporate staff, relocation, policies and procedures, tool implementation and the overall day to day operations. Although the company is no longer owned by Bruce and Cheryl Taylor, in 2016 Cheryl was named President of ERA Key Realty Services and for the past several years has run its 15 offices, overseeing more than 350 agents. ERA Key Realty Services typically handles over 2000 transactions per year, representing over $1 Billion is sales volume.
Cheryl has been a member of the MAR Board of Directors and served on its first Agency Task Force. Locally, she is serving as a Director for the Realtor Association of Central MA. Through the years Cheryl has also participated on MLS boards, attended many annual shareholder meetings and has served on MLS PIN user groups.
In Cheryl’s own words, “One of the things I love most about my work is that it has never felt like work. I am passionate about helping agents and consumers achieve their dreams, hit a goal, achieve something significant or buy/sell their home.”