Ep 30 Transcript: How Personal Struggles Drive Business Success with Maggie Horsburgh

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And today I am joined by a very, very special guest. I've got Maggie Horsburgh here and she is a real estate agent, but not just any real estate agent. This woman has built her career around helping divorcing couples to uncouple, separate their assets and most importantly, the matrimonial home.

So Maggie has actually earned the certified divorce real estate expert from Ilumni Institute And she was actually the first Canadian to complete this course. And it's something that is very personal to her as well because she draws on her own personal experience of divorce. She's sort of carved out this niche that she has the ability to serve as a real estate agent. And I wanted to invite her onto the podcast because I think she's got such a powerful and incredible story to tell.

not only about her personal journey in business, but in the way that she's been able to service her clients. So, Maggie, welcome. Hi, thank you. All right, so I've already talked about the fact that you have your own personal divorce journey that you've been on yourself. And this seems to really be key and sort of a key turning point for you in your career. What about your personal experience made you realize that this was a gap in the real estate?

industry for divorcing couples that you felt you needed to serve? So in my first year of real estate, I found myself going through divorce after 17 years of marriage and it wasn't easy, but it was really civil. So I didn't learn that divorce real estate was different. In my second year of real estate, so this is after my first divorce, I took a divorce file where the wife and husband were fighting nonstop and in my inexperience, they made wallpaper out of me. She was in the home.

He was out, she had her new boyfriend moved in which infuriated him. So he pulled all kinds of shenanigans on her and she on him, they dragged me into it. So he had turned the gas off so she had no hot water in her shower. Honest to Pete. When offers came in, she refused to sign them and the lawyers were rolling up their sleeves. I'm not kidding. So after six months of trying, I lost the listing.

Another agent swooped in and within several weeks that house sold for exactly what we had on the table more than once prior to that. From there, those sellers filed a complaint to my governing body, RECO, which had me in the fetal position for six months drinking martinis, waiting to hear if my license would be taken from me. I'd waited 18 years for my license and the threat of losing it in less than two years was probably more traumatic than divorce itself.

In the end, it was concluded that I had done nothing wrong. The complaint had no basis. Nothing happened to me, but I lost six months of my life dealing with this trauma. So it made me pause and wonder, who am I really serving by knowing so little about working with the families of divorce? So a number of years later, I'm going through my second divorce after a brief marriage. Yes, I did it again. And it was quite nasty.

But in that journey, I realized how important it was to feel heard. I'd been in front of two judges trying to resolve things over the matrimonial home and assets and stuff unsuccessfully. And a litany of untruth seemed to be what they focused on. So they weren't really focused on the family law aspect of it. It was a third judge who actually saw what was going on. And in quick order, the divorce was settled. But I remember getting to the end of this devastating process.

with a new purpose in my life. Divorce real estate really is not like regular real estate. And I knew I needed to learn what I could to serve the divorcing community. So that's how this whole thing got birthed in the first place. That's a pretty powerful story. Now, because I know my listeners are probably curious about this, know, after getting married twice and getting divorced twice.

you know, they're probably thinking to themselves, well, she's never going to try that again. But, but just, you know, let them all know there, there is a happy ending here, right? Can can we at least let everyone know from a personal standpoint, I have my trophy husband. I feel like everyone's feeling your pain right now of like, my gosh. You know, and perhaps they've been through something similar themselves, really been through a couple of divorces and, they, know what, what that feels like. And I mean, you really, you know, you're, you're absolutely right. When you talk about divorce.

divorcing couples, it's a very different dynamic. mean, as you know, I come from a home staging background as well. And there were, was more than a few occasions where I would work with clients and it was almost like I was, I felt like I was part -time therapist and part -time lawyer and part -time, you know, all these things trying to help them to navigate. And it can get incredibly volatile in how they deal with each other. remember sitting one couple down and basically,

No one wanted to do anything like, no, she can do it. No, he can do it. No, she can do it. No, he can do it. Like, listen, we all have the same goal here. We want to get the house sold so you can both move on with the rest of your lives. And all we need to do in order to do that is I need to come in with a few items to spruce things out. The camera exactly what it all, what it all was entailed, whether it was just some staging items or whatever. I think in total it was like a thousand dollars. It wasn't very much. And I grabbed like a piece of paper, ripped it in half and wrote, I, whatever their name is, I agree to pay $500.

towards the staging fees and wrote it twice and like, sign them. Like, I know this is not gonna hold up in court, but I just needed us to like have a conversation just like, can we just agree on this one thing that we all want the same thing in the end? And of course they signed it and I don't know that it made it any more comfortable for them necessarily, but I think just kind of feeling like, okay, I've got this mediator in here, managed to get us to the next step. So I don't envy what you've taken on.

Honest to Pete, I know my lane and I stay in it. So if you're a stager, you get to deliver the bad news and the good news. If you get to rip the piece of paper in half and get the signature, I just want to sell the house. So I rely on my team. And Beyond the Stage Homes was my team, for instance. And I've got my lawyer team and my home inspectors. And I just have my team, who I know I can count on to deliver the news gently on a pillow and yet get results.

Well, that's definitely key as well for any business is having the right players working with you. But I think especially when you're dealing in divorce, you need to know that you can really trust those partners to take care of your clients. white gloves for sure. It's white gloves. Yeah. So you took this personal challenge that you had and you transformed it into a thriving business. But this is something that's very emotionally charged for you. Was it difficult to integrate something so personal, so emotional?

into your professional life? I did a ton of research and found very little on the subject. I had decided this is what I wanted to focus on and do, but there was really very little information out there. So had to dig deep. I read a lot of books. I read blogs. I was frustrated by the fact that there was very little in resources to help me hone in on this underserviced part of our industry. I knew I wanted to do real estate, but I just wanted to do it different. I didn't want to be just another realtor.

And there's such a need with very little education around it. So I was determined to turn my divorce and all the ugliness that comes from divorce into something positive. I'm kind of a full cup kind of person and purpose to turn the lemons into lemonade. So my emotions turned into my passion and my obsession. And my mission was to focus on the question, who do I need to become to help families going through this difficult time?

That's, that's really powerful. You know, I mean, it definitely sounds like you're, you've been a bit of a pioneer in this industry and kind of paving the way a little bit because the information wasn't available, but it's so common of female entrepreneurs to identify a gap that they feel that they, they feel this, this need to serve. They're compelled to serve. And it sounds like that's exactly what you were doing, you know, at whatever it took to find that information to, get the resources that you needed, you really wanted to.

to fulfill that gap. And I think that that's really powerful. And like I I'm sure there's a lot of women that can certainly relate to that. So once you identified this gap, did you, so you mentioned that you had a difficult time finding the answers that you were looking for. I mean, and I can relate to this. when you're a pioneer in the industry, the answers don't exist. You're like, I need to be, you know, what's that saying about be the change that you want to see in the world? world?

And that's exactly what you're doing here is you're like, there's a conversation that needs to be had around this and I need to be the one who's having that conversation essentially. So what did that learning curve look like for you that needs to transition? Because you did eventually find some training for this. So what exactly did that look like? So the gap was obvious because there were so few resources for me to find. So I was online and I was looking at books and all kinds of stuff. So I kept on digging. It took me two years and I eventually found the Ilumni Institute in California.

So I flew there to take their master class specifically designed to train agents to handle high conflict cases of divorce real estate. So this was like brand new stuff. No one had ever heard of this before, right? So I flew down there. I received 50 hours of divorce in real estate education. The faculty consisted of judges and attorneys and other realtors, 12 weeks of online learning labs.

There was more online training up to a year's worth. And I then became the first Canadian to become the certified divorce real estate expert. And I believe I'm the only one that was able to complete this level of training. So I'm a bit of a unicorn in my industry because now I had the education, but found out they did not know how to support me. American law or American real estate processes are very different than Canadian processes. So 75 % of what I learned out the window.

It just wasn't relevant in Canada. So up here in Canada, we call it plowing snow. I had to go and make my own path in this niche. And the learning curve, it's curvy just like me. Yeah. I mean, it's so, so I just got to go back to the, one of the first thing that you said was the, just the sheer number of hours, the number of weeks, the number of hours, the amount that you put into this, you know, I think it's, in today's

you know, like there's a lot of online training, there's free webinars coming out, the wazoo, there's, you know, a lot of like easy downloadable things, AI can tell you whatever you need to know, you know what mean? There's just so many different resources out there, but at the end of the day, you know, you're dealing with real humans, real people, real emotions, real challenges. And I can't imagine all the different things that you were learning, you know, in regards to conflict management. Like this isn't just real estate, this is everything.

And I can imagine that there's probably people who are thinking like, okay, cool, divorce real estate. like you sat in the class for a few hours and got like a CE credit or something like that. I mean, well, you're saying like 50 hours. So you were taking it pretty seriously. Yeah. This was, I'm not lying. It was tens of thousands of dollars just to get the certification buttoned up. And then I threw 75 % of it out because their processes are different, their laws are different. And so here I had the

fundamentals of dealing with the process of divorce, but only with education from the US. So now I had to go find out the Canadian way to do this kind of stuff. So I mean, the program is brilliant, but I'm not an American, so I have to learn. what was interesting then, I have to go and find my own way. So during the pandemic,

education was all online and there was a gal that was being invited to our local real estate board to teach realtors how to find and work their niche. So was like, I have a niche. I know what I want. So I signed up right away and met Catherine Willems of Crimson Leaf Studios and we connected after the class and I hired her right away. She did a deep dive into the industry and found out what I already knew is that nobody out there is serving in this part of the industry. Most realtors are just

assuming it's like regular real estate. So no one's actually got a process. They don't have checklists. They don't have education behind them to deal with it unless they went to university for something. So she built a website for me, got me active on social media and became my ghostwriter from my blog. So we actually collaborate in a lot of the writing that I do and that's at divorcehaven .ca. So then a couple of years ago, a good friend of mine, you know her,

introduced me to a family law lawyer who recommended that I take some collaborative training. So I had to fight to get into that, Shauna Lynn. I had to beg them to take my money. And they kept finding it very odd that a realtor would want to be in the legal community trying to take their training. So they finally conceded. they've put me in now with their group. We meet once a month, and we have socials and stuff. And 25 % of my business is coming from this collaborative group.

because they understand now that I have the empathy and the compassion and I want all parties to be in agreement. So it ended up being one of the best connections that I ever got. That's like, there's just two areas where I had to go find like someone to help me write content. I love storytelling. And then someone that could connect me to the legal community that knew that I had this special skill set. No one's ever heard of this before. Well, I mean,

Obviously it's because I've known you for a number of years. Yeah, I had this contact in family law and he was looking at, was approaching family law from a bit of a different perspective than, know, like, let's try to keep things out of the courts, but not just keep things out of the courts, but like, how do we make this just as easy as possible on everyone? How do we try to eliminate some of the stress and the overwhelm and how do we make this just a little bit easier to navigate? so collaborative training for anyone who doesn't know, can you explain just a little bit like what is collaborative training? So you mentioned it's in legal realm.

both sides have legal representation, but we're agreeing that we're getting a divorce. We're agreeing that things are gonna happen and they just have a way of taking the heat out of it. So we're focused on the children's best interest. And when we're parting with the assets, so they have like a financial team, a family team, like focusing on the children and the legal side of it. And I just come to support that. When it's time to sell the matrimonial home, they call me in, but it's not about

not communicating with the ex that's out and only focusing on the one that's in. I've been trained to treat neutrality, like give them neutrality, which the lawyers need from me. And my favorite line is, we need to get all parties in agreement. So it's not about what he said or what she said, let's get all parties in agreement. So part of the collaborative training was realizing like, we're getting a divorce here. Well, why are we hurting each other? Let's just go through this easily.

It's not skipping down the road holding hands. It's not a big love in or anything. But it's taken the heat out of it and litigation doesn't even come up anymore. And the funny thing is I'm in the front lines and I'm talking to them and they're frustrated or they're angry and they throw their hands up in the air and documents everywhere and they're just really, really angry. And I've got patience galore, I just let them, I know it's not me they're mad at. They're just mad at the process and then when they settle down and

They're talking litigation. It's like, don't want to go litigation. So me being in, you know, I've got their cheeks. I'm holding their face saying, we don't want to go that road. I'll get you there. I'll get you there. And usually the home is around three quarters of the process in. So. Yeah. And I also like, you know, the, the, phrasing that you use there of getting all parties in agreement. I think, know, using the right words, there's one thing I've learned with dealing with, some challenging situations, some conflict type situations, you know,

the words you use matter. I mean, we've learned this. If there's one thing we've learned in the last few years, like words matter. you know, just, saying getting all parties in agreement, you're not saying, well, you know, she's thinking this. So I'm thinking this, like, it's not about, you know, there's like, let's take feelings out of it. Let's take, let's, let's just go with what is best for everyone. Let's get all parties into agreement. What does that look like for us? And I think that's, that's huge. They're like, that's can be any real estate agent listening to this. Take this, if they're, you're taking a nugget away from this, that is a huge one right there of just,

getting all parties in agreement. That is your goal. I just had a case where the wife was in the house, the husband was out. We had an offer. I reviewed it with her, got her thoughts on it. And then I called him and he's like, well, what did she say? And it's like, this is your house. You have a say in this. You tell me what you want. And then when he told me what he wanted, I said, we have all parties in agreement. So he was agreeing with her without having to worry about was he agreeing? Because as soon as I say, she wants this,

they're going to go against the grain. Yeah. So they don't even need to. They don't even realize they're doing it. Yeah. yeah. Well, it's, it's, they're anger and, and temperatures are up here. So my key is trying to get them to believe me. Like I've got your cheeks and I've got your story and, I understand what you're going through and I'll get you to the other side. Yeah. I think that's probably one of the biggest things anyone going through divorce, you know, you're separating from the person who's been your partner, the person that you've discussed these

big decisions with, and now you're on two different opposite sides of the table and having feeling like you have someone in your corner while also understanding that she's not taking sides. I can imagine how comforting that that must feel for them to feel that supported. The biggest compliment to me is when they call me afterwards and ask me to help them buy their next house. Yeah. Because I did not.

hit them against each other and there was neutrality. And I've had it where the husband and I go buy a house, the wife and I go buy a house, but I make sure that they both know and that they're in agreement. It's all about just, everybody in agreement? And that's the biggest compliment to me. I'm not there for the transaction. I'm trying to get them to the next leg of their journey. Yeah. That gave me chills too. mean, like, you know, it's, it's funny, because in business, in business, you know, we talk about,

It's business, it's not personal and leaving your emotions at the door. But I can imagine the toll that this must take on you some days because you seem to embrace that empathy in your work. You lead with that, you need that. You're leading with compassion. How is that leading with compassion and having that personal understanding helped you in building that trust with your clients so that they are feeling like you've got both of them by the cheeks. So, Shauna Lynn, when I was going through my own divorce,

I found myself feeling shame, judged by others and leaving the fate to those who had 15 minutes to hear my story, make a ruling and pound the gavel and it broke me. But having gone through that journey, I found myself love loving those who were feeling shamed and and having been judged, I've myself became judgment free. Anybody could come to me and talk and I don't sit there going, hmm, they're going through,

I don't do any of that. I leave with compassion and I seek to understand. And I've had people literally violently leave the table and I'm patient with them. There is no judgment. I let them come back. They wanna apologize, they can, but I don't expect it. And emotions are high. So I know they don't feel hurt and I know not to take their personal or their anger personally, but I just give them patience and feeling and space around their feelings.

I know the fears and the insecurities and not knowing who to trust. So I get that on a really high level. So I find that I can relate to them and I try really, really hard to let them know they can trust me. In the end, the divorce that I went through became a gift. It just taught me to have that patience and compassion. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, you you're talking about how stressful this is. I mean, selling a house, period, is stressful. I know that. like...

even if you have the best marriage in the world, like, yeah, see what happens when you sell a house. mean, there's a lot, like energies are running high, know, stress is running high. there's emotions are high. Like there's a lot of things going on. Well, now let's throw into that a divorce. And especially like if there's kids involved or we don't know the reasons for divorce, whether it's, you know, infidelity or, know, just Doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore. No. But now you're navigating all of that with this person.

and the emotions are already high, selling a house is already stressful. It takes its toll for sure. And I think that, everyone just wants to feel validated and just judgment -free. And I mean, I can certainly attest to the way that you lead without judgment. It's something that you and I have had personal conversations about this. It's something that I, decades ago, I trained my brain to not judge. And what I mean by this is,

I'm someone who has always felt different and unique. And I was told when I was growing up how unique I was and how one of a kind I was. And I thought that was a good thing. And then at the older that I got, I started to realize that it would have been easier for people if I just fit in. And so I tried that. Well, that didn't work really well on me. And so I wanted to be the person that accepted whatever I saw out there. And so I've always enjoyed people watching. I'm very entertained by it.

And, there's a couple of different ways you can people watch. can people watch and watch someone who's, you know, strolling down the street, having a great time and being like, geez, what is going on with that person? Or you can watch them and be like, man, they're having a great day. Look at that. That's amazing. Like, it's just the way that you perceive it. And so, you know, and I will call anyone out if I hear them saying like, so, and so that's my, well, why is that? Why is that an issue? Why does that matter? You know, like I will call them out on it. and I think, you know, you and I've talked about.

As friends, know, I've got this crazy pink hair going on. You're always like, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. You know, but I've never once felt judged by you. You know, anything is something that just comes so naturally. But I think that's the key is that you can't pretend not to judge. You have to.

Like I was saying, like I trained my brain and I'm talking about it shows up in your face. If it's in your head, it's going to show up somewhere. you've to train your brain not to let it even show up. And that means reframing the things that you see when you catch yourself. Like you have to check yourself. If you are finding yourself being judgmental of anything. I had it actually happen recently, slightly off topic, but I think it's valuable though. Recently, I'm not going to say specifically who this.

because I think that people will catch on to it if I give any specific details about it. But essentially I encountered a person about a year ago and they did a couple of things that from a distance I was observing, was like, didn't really sit really well with me. And I developed an image in my head of who this person was and realizing I hadn't had a single conversation with this person. And so I encountered them again this year and I checked myself.

And I said, you know, I was very unfair of you. You are judging this person. And it's something I pride myself on not doing, but I caught myself doing it. was like, you have, you have made this, you don't know this person. You've made them up because did they make some mistakes? Yes. Absolutely. They made some mistakes. I made mistakes. I'm thinking to myself, well, the day that they made these mistakes, maybe they had had a bad day. Maybe they had received some stressful news and they're overcompensated. Maybe they were nervous. Maybe they were like, there's so many reasons why they could have essentially they just said some things.

that really didn't come out right. But I mean, am I really going to punish this person and stick them kind of in this box that like they must be this kind of person without giving them a genuine opportunity. So I encountered them again a couple of months ago and this time had some real conversations with this person. And you know what? They're pretty incredible. Yeah. You know, like, and doesn't mean that we're gonna be BFFs, not necessarily, but they bring a lot to this world. They bring a lot to the table.

They've got a very, very kind heart. And that's something that, even after all these years, I still catch myself every now and then hanging on to a little perception. that's That's the human condition, Shauna Lynn. I don't know if we'll ever get to the end of it, but if you're intentional with it and mindful of it, it starts to just become what you do and who you are. Absolutely. think we all want to be better than we were yesterday. And so sometimes these are the little steps that we take to do this.

Okay, so for many, they might think like, that sounds, know, take my personal pain. I'd love to turn it into something positive. I'd love to, you know, turn that into purpose, but it can obviously be a bit of a difficult journey. So what advice would you have for someone who wants to take a challenging personal experience, whether it's divorce or anything else that's happening in their life and turn it into a business that helps others? So this isn't a bad perm then, okay.

Not a super nice perm, no. Yeah, no, the bigger things in life. I can only talk from my own experience because I can't pretend to know every experience, but I honestly believe if you do what you love, the money comes. And I would ask if the money were no object and you could do whatever you wanted to do with your life, what would you do? What do you love? So in that, you must be able to ask yourself a very important question, I think. Who do I need to become to be the best?

blank. For me, it was the best realtor to serve divorcing families. And then I set out to become that. And I've got a variety of things that I do to kind of serve that industry. but and it was also the question I asked myself when I was ready to look forward in my personal life, who do I need to become to be the best wife to the man who needs me as his wife? So I worked on myself and I began my healing process. And when I was going through my own divorce,

I leaned into my spiritual life more than ever and a little flame started to burn and I just kept growing and growing. And when I became her, my new husband, my trophy husband showed up and we've been happily married for four years. And I think actually that's, you you hear often people say, know, who do you need to become? Like don't be looking for the person who needs to deserve you or the person who needs to find you, but who do you need to become to be able to offer what you want to offer? And I mean, you and your husband provide

such a lovely balance to each other, such a great compliment to each other. And it's really quite beautiful to watch. it's easy to say like, it would have been great to meet him sooner, but you wouldn't have been who you are. He wouldn't have been who he is. You wouldn't have all the things that you have, including beautiful children and grandchildren. And this is the journey that we're all on, but it's beautiful to be able to see that turned into this passion. I did the work.

he did the work, anybody that I see that actually gets into the ugly mess and fix it, whether it's therapy or prayer or whatever it is that you got to do, self -help books, it doesn't matter. When you do the work and become who you were, like, you got pink hair, Shauna Lynn Right? what you're talking about. It's your families of divorce. I'm a unicorn, you're a unicorn, my husband's a unicorn, and yet we find each other because we've done the work. Like, do the work.

It's okay. It hurts in moment. It does. I'm not going to say it's easy, but my gosh, it's worth it. It is so worth it. It's so worth it to allow yourself that pain. it's, it's, you know, think about grief when you lose a loved one. Something that, you know, I think unfortunately most of us have experienced in our lifetime. You know, there's, the different stages that you go through, but if you just package it away and put it.

somewhere where you're not looking at it at some point, it's gonna show up on you. It's gonna show up, yeah. And there's something to be said for being able to take that and turn it into something positive. So maybe that's what you're turning into something positive. I myself, I look at my personal life. I've spoken openly about my dad having multiple sclerosis. Well, I've gotten quite involved with the multiple sclerosis society. And I find myself assisting others with accessibility needs in such a natural way, because it's a gift that I naturally have.

due to my own personal experience. And I've learned how to monetize that in my interior design business. We can now offer accessibility design services to our clients that come from a perspective of someone who I didn't just read a textbook on this. I've spent 22 years of real life experience watching this firsthand and dealing with it and navigating it. And I have to share that. You have to share that. That's the gift that it gave you was knowledge, wisdom, information.

real life experiences and how can you soldier forward to help those families that are coming in behind you, right? You have to share. Absolutely. I think that's exactly it. think in women, especially, we do feel that compelling need to like, I need to share this with others. This is something that it's a gift that I've been given. It's one that.

Do I wish I could have learned that's another way? Sure. I wish my dad was not dealing with what he's dealing with, but he wouldn't be who he is. I wouldn't be who I am. And we wouldn't have all the amazing things that we have in life today. So in talking about that, we kind of, along those same lines, I talk often about stress management and self -care and taking care of our own wellbeing. And you've kind of touched on this already of like, you've got to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. What strategies

Have you developed though to ensure that you're caring for your own well -being while you're putting giving so much of yourself and helping so many other people? Girl, nothing matters more than your own well -being. A couple of years ago, I burned out. I was sick on the couch for at least six months. I'd been handling a very litigious divorce file and it became the death of me. And it took me a year to heal from that.

but it taught me some great things. So things like, let it go. Not everyone wants to be helped and not everyone can be helped. So now I'm very selective over the cases I handle. Two, I keep my circle of friends tight, hanging around like -minded people and removing drama from my life. Not everybody gets my attention. It's a big deal to be in my life. It's a big deal to be in your life. So as long as we respect those boundaries, I mean, it's great.

From a physical perspective, my husband and I go to the gym four times a week and we joined a bowling league. I'm in my 60s, he's going to be 70 this year and we just work out so that we can travel well, go on lawn walks, we like to dance, bowl obviously. Here's a big one for entrepreneurs, if the phone doesn't ring, go gardening.

Often entrepreneurs have a hard time shutting down. We're hunters. We're always thinking about our business, the baby, right? We're always thinking about it. But now if I have a quiet day, and maybe this is just wisdom or age, I don't know, I go gardening. It clears my mind. gives me fresh air and exercise. You're a runner. You know what it's all about. So it takes me out of the arena for a day. And it's amazing how you feel invigorated the next day. Fresh ideas start to come easier. And it's just get out of your business for a day.

And the last thing I would say that's really important for me is my volunteer work. As an example, I lead a divorce care ministry at my church and I'm making a difference in the lives of broken hearts there. Just by offering this support group, my husband and I do it single -handedly. I did the leaving in my divorces, he was left. So we have two different perspectives and it gives us great joy.

We have a male, a female. So we're up to 15 people in our group this session. So there's a lot of people out there hurting from divorce and we can just give us, it's a video series that comes through the organization, Divorce Care, but it gives us a chance to just be there and be supportive and inspirational. You know, they see me with my trophy house and their husband, sorry. And they're like, how do get that? It's like, I'm do the work and pare down on that. So divorce is my niche, real estate.

and my passion, but I'm wise enough to know that sometimes you have to unplug, fill your own cup up before you pour into others. Absolutely. And I mean, it's, it's, can be incredibly draining. You know, they talk about burnout being so real for anyone who's dealing in sort of healthcare and a caregiver burnout. And, know, there's so many different variations of burnout. Of course, I talk about entrepreneur burnout all the time. there there's, maternal burn. Like there's so many different

variations of where burnout can come from. when we're taking on everyone else's emotions and their challenges, we have to make sure that we're taking the time to recharge ourselves because otherwise we're just draining ourselves. especially when you do feel empathy, like empathy is such a skill and skillset to have. And at the same time, you have to be able to know when to separate.

someone else's problems from your own. Listen, when you're on an airplane and they tell you you put the mask on your face first and then you go for your kid, that's counterintuitive to a mother. A mother wants to save her kid, but what good am I to them dead? Exactly. Right? So you got to look after yourself so that you have more to pour into these other people. And when they do start to drain me, I'll fire them if I have to. Right. Yeah, there's still limits. There's obviously still limits, you know, as much as like, like you said, like they can

They can yell and scream and be frustrated and everything else, but if they're being disrespectful or if they're just trying to pull you into their drama, those are things that you can't stand for those things. Yeah, that's where you gotta separate. Nope, or I'll get sick again. So I have boundaries now and I'm trying to live that work -life balance that you gotta be out of the work sometimes and into your own life and then you leave your life to go back into work, but you gotta have some balance there. Well, that's key because even though you've identified what your niche is.

within that niche is still an identified ideal client. Not everyone is going to fit into that. Just because they have the label of divorcing couple doesn't mean that they get Maggie Horsburgh. No, no, no, no. If you want to go down a different path, you go right ahead. I'm going to tell those who appreciate me, respect me, and allow me to do what I need to do to get them to the other side. And if they're going to go kicking and screaming and being disrespectful and litigious and the whole thing, off you go. Bye -bye.

Because then you don't have anything left, not only for yourself and for your family and everything else, but also for the next client who is going to value what you have to bring. if someone else is draining you, mean, there's often when we're thinking about the way that we want to shape our business, we hear these annoying voices that are usually just that terrible client that we had. like, why are they getting any play in our heads? So just separating them.

and allowing that allows the clients that you really are there to serve. allows you to have a challenging client, I mean like over the top next level, like they don't even like their own mother kind of thing. Right. Like you just, can't have them in your world. Yeah, absolutely. Well,

This has been so incredibly valuable and I know it's never easy to share your own personal experiences as well. And obviously you draw so much on that here. So it was impossible not to share your personal experiences. So thank you. I appreciate you opening up. So listen, if someone wants to find you, what's the best way for them to find you? Okay. I would say go to divorcehaven.ca

And that's where my blog is and a little bit about my story and things like that. And there's a form filled out there if you want to. For the realtors in the group, I'd like to offer top five mistakes realtors make in divorce listings. I love it. If you go to divorcehaven.ca/Top5 you can get a free download on the top five mistakes realtors make in divorce listings. And.

I called my friend, Catherine Willems today from her company Crimson Leaf Studios, and she's offering a free 30 minute niche strategy consultation. So you go to crimsonleafstudios.com mention Maggie in the contact form. And she is my content writer. She got me on social media and she was the one that did the deep dive. Yeah.

It can be any industry, any niche. can be Canadian, American. She speaks both languages. That's amazing. This is you. Wonderful. Okay. Well, you know what? I'll make sure that both of those are in the show notes so that anyone can access them. And that's incredibly generous of both of you. Thank you so much for doing that. Maggie, I gotta say, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on here. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. It was wonderful. I appreciate you.

All right, so listen, if you're listening to this episode and this is resonating with you, the best thing that you can do not only to support us, but also to support your fellow entrepreneurs is to share this episode with someone that you know needs it today. So please pass this along. Don't keep us to yourself. And until next time, keep thriving.