Join Bronson and Nate for an inspiring episode with Carmen Micsa, a Romanian-born Boston Marathon qualifier, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker. Carmen shares her journey from growing up under communism to founding Dynamic Vision Realty in Sacramento, balancing real estate with writing four books during COVID. Discover how her running habit fuels her business through community networking, turning runs into client referrals. She reveals strategies for writing a book (consistency, 30-day streaks), overcoming writer’s block (running, walking), and building wealth through genuine client relationships and tailored services. Carmen emphasizes personal growth, drawing from books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and Rejection Proof, and encourages diving into challenges without overthinking.
Learn how optimism and discipline drive financial and emotional success!
Get my new book: https://bronsonequity.com/fireyourself
Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: All right, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I’m your host, Bronson Hill. Super excited to be here today.
We’ve got an amazing guest in the house. We’ve been talking a lot about personal development lately, and some of you wonder, what kind of, what does personal development have to do with wealth creation? What does it have to do with actually living a better life?
Well, I would say it has everything to do with living a better life. And so we’re going to talk about habits of health, fitness, even writing a book. I think many of you have books in you that you have not written.
And so we’ll talk about that. And anyway, really excited. So Nate, I know you’re in the house.
You are a big fan of writing books. You’ve written a couple books, and you encourage people to help people to write books. What happens when you write a book that really changes your perspective on everything?
Nate Hambrick: I mean, so many things. Most people know that writing a book can radically improve the number of clients and customers you get, at least for me, writing a book over tripled my income within 12 months. But the part very few people talk about is what it does to you.
Because when you write something down, knowing that tens of thousands or hopefully millions of people will read it, it forces you to really clarify what you believe. And I know for both books that I’ve written, Crusher, Kryptonite, and The 18 Laws of Leverage, it really solidified what I believe and helped me realize some things that I don’t actually believe. So it’s really, really helpful just as the author to write stuff down to.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, the word authority has the word author in it. So when you start writing, it really does make you an authority on a lot of things. And so we have an amazing guest today.
We have Carmen Micsa, who’s a Romanian-born Boston marathon qualifying entrepreneur, author, poet, and motivational speaker. I was on her show recently called the Seeds of Sunshine podcast that she does with her daughter, which is amazing. And she really focuses on personal growth, generational wisdom, and joy-filled living.
And then, when you talk about it, it’s impossible, I think, to talk about a rich life and really not have things related to personal development.
So, Carmen, welcome to the show. Really great to have you today. Very excited to have you here.
Carmen Micsa: Thank you so much, Bronson and Nate. I am super excited to be here and to chat with both of you.
Bronson Hill: Awesome. Well, you’re a very inspirational person. I had a great time on your show.
And you just mentioned before you started recording that you have written multiple books. You’ve written four and four or five books during COVID. You started to write a lot.
Talk to us a little bit about your story and kind of you’ve done many things. Why don’t you share your business journey and your personal development journey?
Carmen Micsa: Yes, thank you so much. Well, basically, we immigrated to this country from Romania and I grew up during communism and I always was taught that I have to work extra hard in order to accomplish my dreams because if I wasn’t doing something correctly, either the teachers or my parents or anyone in the community, they would say, Carmen, you can do better. Right?
So it wasn’t like, oh, good job. You’re going to get this later. No, it was right in my face.
And so I learned that I have to really stretch myself to reach higher limits and to really believe in myself. I am an only child.
And I also learned that I have to put myself out there constantly. Like asking, being the one who initiates things, maybe, or or just showing others, look, this is what I can do.
You know, like I always ever since I was little, I had this innate confidence that I can do things because we were thrown out there. Nobody was asking us, oh, Carmen, do you want to sing at this performance? They would say, Carmen, get out there.
You’re going to do that. And I’m like, yes, ma’am. Or yes, sir.
So it’s it was just that inspiration that I had growing up in communism. And then I came to America and I became an entrepreneur opening my own real estate company.
I also pursued my master’s degree in English. And I kind of married the business with the poetic of writing. I love to write.
So late that night, I would do my writing because during the day, I would be busy with clients.
Bronson Hill: Right. That’s amazing. Yeah.
So I think one thing I really appreciate about you that you’ve done all these things. There’s this quote is attributed to Nelson Nelson Mandela. But Marianne Williamson, it says, our deepest fear is not that we’re inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we’re powerful beyond measure. It’s our light and not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, fabulous? Who are you not to be?
So it’s like the idea that like, when we let our light. And he goes on to say like we let our light shine. We give others permission to do the same, right?
So I think this is why we find people that are doing all these things inspirational. And we find like, oh, this is something that’s actually super powerful. Now, I want to talk a little bit about book writing. We’ve got three authors here in the house want to talk about anything for some of our audience.
85 percent of people say they have a book in them. But only 15 percent of people, I’m sorry, only 0.5 percent of people have actually written a book. So very few people have written a book and there’s the amount of people that want to write a book. Only 15 percent of people that actually start writing a book actually finished.
So what is it that like has allowed you, at least for your first book. When you think about that. Or what would you say to someone who’s like, yeah, I know I have a book in me. And I’ll get to it someday or whatever. Like what would you say like for someone who’s like, how do I do it?
How do I leave this legacy to my kids, the family, the world to make this difference I want to make by writing a book?
Carmen Micsa: Excellent question, Bronson. It’s number one, allow yourself to acquiesce that it’s going to be a daunting journey, right? It’s not going to be easy.
But then after that, don’t allow yourself to remain in a space where you’re like, oh, man, this is going to be hard. Just get out of that space and say, I need to find that time in my day that I will devote to writing because we all have different schedules. And my schedule, especially my schedule, is all over the map because even though I’m my own boss and I’m the CEO of my company, my clients kind of, their needs come first.
So then I realized with the first book that things were happening when I was waking up early in the morning and I would say between seven to eight a.m. I’m writing, I’m going to block that time and I’m going to write because it wasn’t happening at first. I was like, oh, I can write late at night after I finish my work with my clients. And then your brain is dead, right?
From all the work you’ve been putting in throughout the day. And don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I do amazing work late at night.
It’s quiet. I get it done. But I realized when you want to finish an important project, like writing a book, find that space, you don’t need more than 30 minutes to an hour, but be consistent with it and stick to that schedule, and even start with the 30 day streak where you say, Carmen, you inspired me.
I’m going to write for the next 30 days, every single day. I can’t guarantee that I’m going to be at the computer or writing in my notebook for an hour, but I’m going to make it minimum 10 minutes to whatever that time is, but I’m going to make sure I stick to this 30 day streak so that I have that momentum going, because the more we write, the more inspired we become every single day. Writing is like a marathon running.
I’m a marathon runner. And the more miles I put in on a consistent basis, the easier it gets to do those hard and challenging workouts. Then by the end, when you end up running the marathon, you’re like, wow, that wasn’t so bad.
The reason we say it wasn’t so bad is because we’ve been training for four months in a row, day in and day out. And writing is about training our mind, training our memory muscle. It’s about believing in ourselves and staying true to ourselves and being consistent.
Nate Hambrick: Yeah. And that’s so helpful. The blocking the time out to write is I did the exact same thing, especially with the 18 laws of leverage, where I’d block off, you know, seven to eight or seven and nine every single morning for a very long time to get it.
It was a big project for me. One of the things I was going to ask you, though, Carmen, are just helpful tips or tricks to keep moving forward, because I found the more that I wrote, the more that I realized, if I can just put a couple of writing hacks in there, I’ll make a lot more progress. I’ll give you an example, right?
Everybody gets writer’s block unless you can consistently just make baby steps of progress. So one of the things that I found that was really helpful, what we do if you’ve got some similar tips is just throwing it into chat GPT and saying, copy, edit this and then copy and paste a section that you’d written, throw it in there, have it clean it up or ask chat GPT, what can I do to improve my writing? What are some things that you would add?
And I like to get specific with it, where I’ll be like, hey, I’m trying to emulate a hundred million dollar offers by Alex Hermozi. What are some extra things that Alex might put in this book? And not to say that it’s going to be perfect, right?
It’s going to give you gold and garbage at the same time, but at least it helped me move the ball forward. So I wasn’t sitting in front of a screen for 30 minutes doing nothing. So what were some of your hacks that you found along the way that helps you make progress in writing?
Carmen Micsa: Wow, Nate, that’s amazing what you’re saying. I have to admit, I’ve never tried the ChatGPT. I’ve never done it in my writing.
But I can see how we can dislodge our stuck thoughts. And so I love that you do that. And I might try it too, Nate. I love this.
But what I do when I’m stuck, I literally go for a run or go outside and go for a walk. And then while I’m doing that, I’m thinking of my story and where I’m moving it along.
And, you know, so many ideas come to me. As a matter of fact, I became a poet after I became a runner. I found myself running, and I found myself writing poetry during my runs.
And then I would rush back home, and I would write down a full poem in like two minutes. So that’s my favorite method of really going outside and also putting my writing away. So let’s say today I had a really bad writing day.
What we call bad writing day is we don’t really think we got much quality, right? Maybe one paragraph is really good, but the rest we don’t believe is great. I’m going to instead of beating myself up, I’m going to come back to it tomorrow with a fresh mindset and fresh eyes.
And hopefully some good ideas that I developed either during a run or a walk in the evening or even a conversation with friends like for me, it’s really helpful when I go on my runs with my friends. We talk about everything. And sometimes you would be surprised how non writers, they can have brilliant ideas for us.
Bronson Hill: Totally. Yeah, I think it’s amazing. When I was writing quite a bit, I would actually do the same.
I’d get outside, I’d walk, I’d schedule the time. There’s a really good there’s a guy named Stephen Pressfield who wrote a book called The War of Art, another one called Turning pro, excuse me. And he would just talk about this idea of resistance, like resistance is like, oh, I’m going to do this thing.
But then I avoid doing it. So we procrastinate.
We don’t do it. We and he just talks about like, it’s just sitting at your desk and just doing it, just saying, OK, I know, I would just set the timer, give myself 60 minutes, 45 minutes or whatever I had. I’d schedule the time and regard it like other appointments.
And I would just get my headphones on. I was just right. And I there’s kind of some new methods now I’ve seen where people are like creating an outline and then just talking in recording it and then putting into a transcription and having it kind of help as well.
There’s different ways to do it where you can help just get the words out there. And so there’s this idea of a crappy first draft. You just like when once you get the first draft, it feels like, oh, you got something you’re working with and you’re kind of playing around with it.
But I think that’s really wonderful. Let’s talk a little bit about habits. You’re obviously I see that the fact that you create and carve time out to to write, you take your time out for things like exercise.
You’re a person that really has a lot of daily habits. And I think as we get older, we just kind of think, oh, life just kind of goes along with specific habits. You really can change your life.
What’s the daily habit would you say brings you the greatest return financially or emotionally?
Carmen Micsa: Well, the biggest one is my running you guys. And the reason I say that is because I constantly connect with people in my community. I rarely run solo because I’m part of a women running team already in Sacramento.
And also we have different running groups in Sacramento, where I live and it has helped my business tremendously. I call it my free marketing, my free networking, because what happens is, let’s say we run together Bronson and you’re like, oh, I think this afternoon I’m going to go and look at some open homes. And I’m like, ho, ho, ho, wait a minute Bronson, are you working with an agent?
Cause I would love to help you find that right house. And you’re like, no, I’m not. As a matter of fact, that happens a lot with my runner friends.
And I became so well known in the runners community that now they all recommend me and refer me to their friends. I just feel such a joy from helping them. I give them money back to I have special incentives for my runner friends.
And I just feel like so inspired like, I don’t want people to think, oh my gosh, she’s so disciplined. I can never be like her, I procrastinate too you guys.
I do all the bad stuff like being on the social media, spending too much time chatting with friends. But one thing that I do consistently and religiously is my running. Because I know if I go out there first thing in the morning is it will affect my next two days.
I already, I’m scheduled with my friends. I know what time I’m going to go. And then I know what time I’m meeting with my clients and working and it inspires me and it gives me energy for my clients.
My clients always say, oh my gosh Carmen, you’re always so happy, so positive. And you’re always so patient with me. And I’m like, yeah, because I had my morning run.
I can be patient with you.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I love it.
Nate Hambrick: That is really good. I actually did something recently that I wish I’d done years ago, but I joined a very expensive gym.
And it hurt me a little bit because I like investing in things. I don’t like wasting money, but I joined a gym that’s $180 a month. So not cheap, right? It’s like $2,000 a year.
But the reason I did it is because I know that the quality of people in that gym are the people that I want to be friends with. And even just in a couple of times of showing up, I’ve already met several entrepreneurs I want to build relationships with. And so the running group, right?
The entrepreneurial gym, getting yourself into rooms in unexpected places, can be really, really helpful because a few relationships can change your life, right? Not only do you meet people that you can work with, you meet people that need to work with you. And so I was actually gonna ask you on that, Carmen.
How do you, when you’re in the running group, when you’re in other social settings that aren’t business related, how do you turn that into meaningful relationships that eventually you do business with?
Carmen Micsa: Yes, that’s a great question. I think the reason I’m most successful is because I’m truly genuine. You know, like I listen to people’s needs.
And then if, let’s say you ask me, hey, Carmen, is it the right time for me to sell my house right now? And let’s say it’s not. I’m going to be honest with you.
And I’m gonna say, you know what? I would wait another six months or I would not do that. And so they appreciate my honesty and the fact that I am looking out for their needs.
I’ve been doing this long enough for 25 years that I have a constant flux of clients. So they appreciate that I’m genuine, I’m honest, I’m funny, like we have very fun conversations. And then it works out very naturally.
I’m not trying to push, like if someone has already an agent and they tell me, oh, I’m all set, like this morning, for instance, I played tennis. I’m getting ready for a tennis tournament this weekend in Nepal. And I was playing with this friend and she goes, oh yeah, by the way, I’m moving and I’m selling my house.
I said, do you have an agent or how come you’re not using me? She goes, oh, my husband does all this. And then I said, okay, that’s cool.
I wish you good luck and let me know if you need anything. But basically it’s people know when we’re genuine and when we truly care about them. So to me, that comes, I think very naturally and they feel drawn to me.
And I don’t like to push it because unfortunately, when we are in sales, it’s so dangerous to come across like a used car salesperson. We never wanna do that, right? And we want to educate people.
My big goal is to teach people about real estate and what they appreciate most about me. I keep all my conversations open with my clients. They see what I’m talking with the other agents, with the title company, with the lender and they feel informed at all times.
They never feel in the dark. None of us want to be in the dark, right? We wanna know what’s happening.
And we want to be involved. We want to understand the process and when guess what, we appreciate more. When they understand what I’m doing for them, they’re like, my gosh, Carmen, you were like a bulldog out there negotiating for me.
And that’s important. People see how hard we work for them.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. There’s so many things around who are around and how we show up. There’s a Jim Rohn, the motivational speaker would say, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
And I think when Nate was saying as well is joining a gym to be around people or you go on runs with people, you’re able to kind of really connect. I guess there’s a lot of people that spend time with people, but there are some people that we look at and we just think, this person, whenever I’m around them, they’re just always adding so much value to my life, right? They’re always finding one.
You described it too when you’re selling, like great sales, I was in medical sales for 10 years and now we raise capital, which is basically a sales function. But people, nobody wants to be sold. Nobody wants to be like, hey, the used car, you look great in this nice 1970 Buick and you’re like, let me get out of here.
This is terrible. But everybody wants to buy. So how do you, do you have to reframe yourself sometimes while you’re in a sales role or while you meet people?
They’re like, oh, hey, how can I serve this person? I mean, you seem like you’re a very disciplined, habitual person, but how do you, is there times you have to reframe yourself of like, okay, I’m here to actually help serve other people?
Carmen Micsa: Yes. I think what I do best, Branson, is I tailor my services because every person has a different need in real estate. The reason I named my company Dynamic Real Estate is because I’m dynamic and because my field is so dynamic.
Like the needs of every client I need are so different. So by answering questions, by asking as many questions and getting their, listening to their answers, I’m able to tailor a marketing plan just for that person. And I never take my clients for granted.
Like I show them my value and I teach them and they appreciate that because just recently, to give you an example, one of my runner friends referred me to her coworker. I never met this person. And this coworker didn’t just take my runner friend’s word for granted.
She ended up interviewing two other agents because for the sale of her house, which is smart to do, right? To interview multiple agents. And I was the last one to come to the interview and I just was very relaxed.
I was myself. I explained the process and what I do and immediately like 15 minutes into the interview appointment, that’s what it’s called an interview appointment to list someone’s house. She goes, oh my gosh, Carmen, you’re so much better than the two other agents I met, where do I sign?
And I just didn’t, I was just myself. I was very friendly and very open like with my numbers, with everything I do. And she felt that connection right away.
She just felt, Carmen can get this job done. And sure enough, in four days, I got her house pending for more than asking price, over $10,000 more than the asking price. She’s very happy.
And I just think it’s this experience obviously counts and I’m just natural at it, Bronson. I develop kind of a very relaxed way to talk to people without trying to be pushy because obviously I can’t win all the battles, but I’ve been winning lots of appointments where some sellers interviewed six agents and they end up going with me. I’m not remix or co-will banker, I’m my own company.
And they realized that it doesn’t matter that I can get the job done for them. So you want to project that confidence and you want to show them why you’re getting that job done.
Nate Hambrick: I’m curious how you approach your continual growth and improvement on that. Cause we’ve all met mediocre real estate agents, right? They’re out there, they’re out there by the droves.
And it’s very rare that you beat somebody as competent and as excellent as you are. And so I’m curious, what’s your framework or your mental process through continual growth? Cause it’s really easy to check out, right?
If you’ve been doing the same job for two, three, 10, 20 years, it’s easy to just coast. How do you keep yourself growing? How do you continuously get better for your clients?
Carmen Micsa: Great question, Nate. Because I’m the broker of my company, I actually have 31 agents working with me.
Nate Hambrick: Whoa.
Carmen Micsa: And so I train them. And by training, it means I train myself. I read every week a real estate article and I’m trying every week to attend a real estate class.
The thing about our growth is that we have to have this mind frame that like Socrates said, I know that I don’t know anything. When we go in that realm, even when we’re confident and we know our field, we are always surprised when we learn something new. And then after you learn something new, don’t just rest and say, oh, I learned this cool trick, but it’s okay.
It’s not really for me. Try to apply what you learned. You know, try to put it in action and see how it works for you, right?
And just try to have that open mind. Your mind should be like a blank canvas and you start painting on it and you start embellishing and you start beautifying your inner and outer world. And then magic happens.
That’s what I like to say. Life is so magical.
Bronson Hill: It is. It’s amazing. You know, the older I get, I’m 44 now with the older I get, the more I realize every year, every month goes faster than the month and the year before.
And it’s this phenomenon as people age that tends to be that life, especially when you have kids and you’re busy, life speeds up. And when you’re a kid, you’re so concerned about things and you’ve got your drama at school and everything’s kind of looking forward. Well, then after age 21, 22, I kind of looking back, it was kind of nice being 21, 22.
But I find like, in a way, life becomes like Groundhog Day, the movie, where it becomes, you know, if you remember the movie, the guy lives his life and he just kind of like goes and does whatever he wants. And then he kind of wastes the time and he, you know, just is like not a good guy. Then he realizes like, oh, this is really about, and then he starts like ice sculpting and he does the piano and he becomes, he becomes really a great person, just a really great, awesome person.
And so it’s super inspiring. So with people like you, Carmen, and I think the three of us, we’re all people that are really in love with personal growth. And I think that some people have it and some people don’t.
You look at them 10 years ago, they’re doing the same thing they’re doing now. And you can pretty much predict in 10 years they’ll be doing the same thing. If they’re still alive and going, I think unless you create that bigger vision for yourself, life is gonna give you a predictable result.
And this is where I think the link between somebody that wants to grow their wealth, wants to create a wiser, a better future. But if you’re not working on your body, you’re not working on your mind, like you’re not gonna be enjoying yourself. So I guess the question really is how do you encourage people or even like your daughter, you mentioned you have a daughter, how do you encourage your daughter or family members or people that you love and care about to really fall in love with personal development the way that you have?
Carmen Micsa: I love that question, Bronson. It’s really simple. Imagine yourself, it’s summer right now.
Imagine yourself, it’s so hot and you don’t even have time to tiptoe to that swimming pool. You just dive straight into it, right? You jump.
So I like to tell people, jump. Don’t allow yourself to think too much or overthink. So just dive straight into doing things instead of allowing yourself to make excuses, to say, oh my gosh, but I can’t do that because of that, but I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
No, just dive straight into it. And like, for instance, to give you an example, Bronson, yesterday I told Sophia, I went into her room and I go, Sophia, I got the recipe. We’re gonna make fluffy Japanese pancakes.
Let’s go. So she comes into the kitchen. I had everything set up.
And she goes, you have all the ingredients, Mom? I said, I have everything. I even ordered the special molds from Amazon.
You need silicone molds to make those fluffy Japanese pancakes. And we did it together and they came out perfectly, you guys. And we decorated our pancakes with fresh blueberries and strawberries.
We took pictures and we posted on Facebook and everybody was like, oh my gosh, that looks amazing. May I have the recipe? So when you do something for the first time and when you allow yourself to experiment and share with others, encourage them to do the same because I was kind of worried, like my standards were so high.
We had Japanese fluffy pancakes in Tokyo and they were the best in the world, you guys. And at first I said to myself, I’m not sure I’m gonna come close to that culinary masterpiece, right? And then I said to myself, I don’t care.
I’m going to make fluffy Japanese pancakes, okay? And we did it and they came out amazing and we told my son about it and he goes, oh, Mom, I wanna have them. And I said, when you come home from college, we’ll make them together.
But the bottom line is don’t allow yourself to talk yourself out of doing something because you feel like you might not do well. Even if our Japanese pancakes failed yesterday, I would have tried again. But now I’m even more encouraged because they came, I think we succeeded 98%.
They were great, right? So allow yourself to get better by doing things and don’t talk yourself out of it. You’re great just the way you are and do things, and then inspire others to do the same, and just show them how you did it.
Nate Hambrick: There’s a lot of great lessons in there. My favorite takeaway from that story was that you followed the recipe, which I see so many people so often in business and in life, with health, with wealth, with whatever they’re doing. People try to create it from scratch without a good recipe to start.
Now, I’m not saying don’t put your own spin on it, but if you’re reinventing the wheel with every single new task you’re embarking on, you’re just gonna slow yourself down. And so I’m curious for you, Carmen, and then I’ll ask the same thing of you, Bronson. What are some of the books or people you’re currently following that have given you recipes that have really helped you with your life or shortcut your path to success?
Carmen Micsa: Oh, yes, great question. So basically, during the pandemic, I created my own book club. It’s called the Book Savages.
Nate Hambrick: Nice.
Bronson Hill: Book Savages.
Carmen Micsa: My nickname is the Savage Ninja. And so, of course, everything has to have savage in it, right?
Nate Hambrick: I love that.
Carmen Micsa: But the definition of savage for me, I kind of recreated this word, is someone who has an indomitable spirit, you’re relentless in the pursuit of success, of personal growth. And to this day, I credit Dale Carnegie’s book, The Art of Making Friends, because I read it when I was 14, you guys, in Romanian, back in Romania. I have it all highlighted.
I still have the book. It’s in my library here behind me. And at the time, I was like, wow, this is like absolutely amazing.
And honestly, I applied that book, and I could not believe how easy it is just to remember someone’s name and say it repeatedly, or like making them feel special, asking them about their adventures, about their dreams, their goals. To me, that’s just such a powerful book. And then, of course, in real estate, I read Napoleon Hill.
And then, one of the authors, like in fiction, one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author, and he has a great book. It’s a memoir. What I talk about when I talk about running.
It’s running-related, you guys, but it has to do with his writing process, how he writes, how running has turned him into a better person, and how he has grown his life. And of course, I read really good literature and fiction books from authors all over the world. And I always encourage our kids to read.
I encourage my agents to read. And one of the most recent books that was really inspiring was, I don’t remember the author’s name, but it’s called Rejection Proof. It’s this guy who sets himself on a rejection streak, a hundred rejections.
And he tells us the lessons he’s learned from being rejected and how he can turn rejections around by reframing, by asking the right questions. And I made this book a compulsory read for my agents because in real estate, we get so much rejection, you guys, in life, right?
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I mean, there’s this quote, I just, to your point, I’ll give my thoughts here, but there’s this quote by Michael Jordan, I’m gonna pull it up. And again, it’s such a, I don’t know how to describe it, like it’s so inspiring, but he says, he’s known for saying, I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games, 26 times I’ve been trusted to make the game-winning shot and missed.
I failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed. And this kind of like, there’s a correlation with our willingness to, I heard somebody say this too, your willingness to put yourself in uncertain situations or to fail is directly linked to the amount of success you’re gonna have in life.
Because if you’re not willing to try big, huge, amazing, great things, you’re never gonna, you’re not taking any shots, right? Like if I, my self-talk is negative and I’m a single guy and I go, wanna talk to a woman, but I was saying, oh, I’m just, I’m not good, I’m not good looking, if she had nothing to offer, how’s that conversation going? It’s probably not gonna go at all even if it does happen, right?
So the idea of this mindset piece is so important to be able to take shots. So I’ve got a few, as far as, things that have really helped me with mindset. I do like, there’s actually a book called The Gifts of Imperfection by Brenna Brown who talks about owning your story.
And it was hard for me at age 37 to be a former youth pastor and to be divorced and a single dad. That was really hard for me to own that story, having a religious background and feeling shame around that. But to me, I realized that there’s a beauty in owning my story.
And when I can share my story, it lets the light in, lets people hear and see. So when I share that, I’d be like, oh, I had no idea, I didn’t know that’s what you went through. But I think for all of us, that’s one book.
I think there’s also a lot of other things that are super helpful and anything around mindset, the Think and Grow Rich. You mentioned How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. There’s some other, there’s just so many amazing books out there.
And that’s where my dad taught me this, my dad reads a lot as well, but he said, a book really becomes a tutor. It’s like having a personal tutor on a topic. Like you literally can sit there and the return on time, we talk about return on investment on this show, right?
What’s our IRR, return on return. Well, the return on time is, you spent three hours or five hours to read this book that somebody spent a thousand hours to write, right? It’s a huge return on your time, right?
So when I read the 18 Laws of Leverage, I read one of your books, Carmen, it’s super powerful. And I find too, just going back to that topic of writing, when you write, it helps you really clarify what it is you wanna say and really how you kind of focus yourself in. I have one more question for you, Carmen, and then we will kind of get to the end here.
For you, what’s something, you talk about optimists save 17% more. So how does your mindset create wealth or is there a blind risk component of it, right? Does that make sense?
So I think you have a quote somewhere, something about optimists save 17%. Is that your quote?
Carmen Micsa: Yeah, well, I am quite an optimist, Bronson, you know? And I always look at things, appreciating what I have, not what I don’t have, right? I try to minimize any whining, any complaining, and I always try to reframe things and to say, oh, this didn’t work out the way I was hoping, but what did this teach me?
And maybe I didn’t ask the right questions, maybe I didn’t do enough listening. That is a good lesson for me to do things better the next time. And I think with optimism is, growing up during communism, I learned to kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel to kind of take in every little moment of joy and just be grateful for that and don’t take things for granted because it’s so easy to do.
And I just also try to encourage others to see their strength, to see the abilities that we all have to accomplish so much more. Like my friends joke with me that they don’t believe I sleep ever because when do I do all these things, right? And I’m like, no.
Bronson Hill: People tell me that too. Like, do you ever sleep? I was like, no, I sleep really well.
I sleep eight hours a night.
Carmen Micsa: Yeah, I sleep great. I said, I sleep seven hours a night. But my dad was a watchmaker.
So I joke with people. I say, I am the daughter of time. My father taught me how good to be with time, how to plan.
So I’m trying to squeeze multiple activities by keeping myself organized and also staying positive when things don’t go as well as planned. But I was always so mesmerized with my dad’s ability to no time to the second. Like he would never rush anywhere, you guys.
I remember him taking me to the train station cause I studied away from home and every weekend I would take the train to go to the university and he would walk so slowly and I’m like, daddy, we need to hurry. I’m going to miss my train. He’s like, oh no, you’re not gonna miss your train.
We have plenty of time. Why are you rushing? Cause I have a fast walk, right?
Like I can’t walk slowly. And so he, and he was always right. We would get there with so much more time than we thought.
So even when playing sports, we always think that, oh, the ball is coming so fast at me in tennis. But no, we actually have more time than we think. But we need to be better about taking advantage of every second, every minute, every hour.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we all have the same amount of time. We all have just a very limited amount of time.
And, but yeah, we all have the same amount of time. So the homeless person has the same as Jeff Bezos or some, whoever you successful person, busy person you think. And so what are we going to do with it?
How are we going to invest it? So I just want to say, I really appreciate it. We appreciate you being here today sharing your wisdom with us.
You’ve really created an awesome life for yourself. I love the personal development that you’re doing and all the success in your business and your family and your athletics as well. How can people follow you when you hear about what you’re doing?
Carmen Micsa: Yes, absolutely. So all my books are on Amazon. And then Carmen Seeds of Sunshine on Instagram.
Carmen Micsa on Facebook. My website is dynamicsacramentalhomes.com.
Bronson Hill: Okay, sounds great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
I look forward to talking with you soon. Thanks so much, Carmen.
Carmen Micsa: Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Bronson Hill: All right, I just can’t get over the theme of personal development. I know it’s like the dead horse I keep beating, but I feel like it keeps coming to life for me. It’s like I have some breakthrough in my mindset and I approach life so differently.
And so I just encourage you, if there’s any area of your life you’re discouraged in, you don’t know how things are going to work, I promise you, you can change your outlook. There’s always another way to look at things. And if you bring faith into it, there’s a whole other thing too, is that I believe from a faith perspective that things don’t happen to us, they happen for us, right?
And so if you believe that, you believe that if you’re gonna do something great in your life, you’ve gotta go through some difficult things to learn the character to really get those great things. So anyway, this interview, it really reminded me of that, just the emphasis of you, Carmen, who obviously faced some challenges. She’s come from another country, communism, all the different things.
She got a thriving business, great family life. She’s run Boston, she’s done all this stuff. And it’s like, how’s that happen?
It’s just cause he’s invested in herself. Nate, what are your thoughts on this interview?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, I love the way that she talked about growth and personal development through the lens of teaching others. And that’s something I’ve kind of gotten away from. There’s only so much you can learn, you know, with the inflow of knowledge.
Sometimes you gotta have an outflow of knowledge to really learn the concepts on a different level. And so when she started talking about her training 31 agents, I’m like, oh, that makes sense, right? Because she’s constantly trying to help other people improve.
And in the process, she’s also improving herself. And so it was a little convicting. I’m thinking to myself, as we were interviewing Carmen, what are some ways that I can teach somebody else the things I currently know?
Because I know for a fact, in the process of teaching them, I’m gonna relearn things and it’ll bring up some new challenges and new vantage points that I hadn’t considered or hadn’t spent the full time to really process. So really helpful stuff.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, absolutely, man. I just, I keep loving the show, man. It keeps getting better and better.
So thanks for being here and thanks to our audience. Thank you for taking the time to be in here. It really is humbling and honoring when you educate yourself.
We hope we’re providing value in this show. We’d love to have, if you have recommends on guests, things you’d like to see here, we wanna continue to make it better and better. And so, but I just really am humbled by you investing in yourself and taking that time and doing it.
So we’ll look forward to hopefully seeing you grow your wealth as well as growing your health and other personal development sides. And we’ll see you in the next episode of the Mailbox Money Show.
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