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Heart-Led Hustle Transformation with Alexandra Dotcheva · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to the heart-led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let's go.
• 0:31
  Speaker: Let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:35
  Tom: Buzzing your way folks, we've got a dynamite dame filled with divine diversity.
• 0:41
  Tom: Meet the Bulgarian born, violin virtuoso turned victorious R.N., Alexandra Docheva.
• 0:46
  Tom: From making melodies to mending muscles, she's segued into running red hot real estate and a holistic health coaching business.
• 0:54
  Tom: So here to share her heart-led hustle and harrowing humor on The Heart-Led Business Show, Alexandra's tale of transformative trajectories is not one to miss.
• 1:03
  Tom: So let's tune in to the harmony of health, housing, and hitting high notes in life, only with Alexandra.
• 1:09
  Tom: Alexandra, welcome to the show.
• 1:11
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Thank you so much for having me Tom.
• 1:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Such a pleasure to be here.
• 1:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Thank you.
• 1:14
  Tom: Awesome.
• 1:15
  Tom: I'm so glad to have you here and to have this discussion because I think, you know, as I introduced you that you have quite a diverse background and I think this will be a really interesting conversation for our listeners to talk about the heart-led business.
• 1:29
  Tom: I always ask the first question is what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That's a great question.
• 1:34
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Well, a heart-led business is something that you want to offer people to solve problems that you have solved for yourself.
• 1:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: When you strongly believe that you can help them solve similar problems, because usually we're all human and we share a very common set of problems.
• 1:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And as we often don't like talking about, and these are exactly the problems that I like to help as a heart-led business owner.
• 1:53
  Tom: Yeah, I love that a lot because that's kind of my philosophy around sales as well is that it's all about solving problems rather than trying to get people to buy something.
• 2:02
  Tom: So I love your definition of that.
• 2:04
  Tom: So what inspired you to start a heart-led business?
• 2:06
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So just a minor correction to the introduction.
• 2:09
  Alexandra Dotcheva: If you don't mind, that was very nice to hear that was a virtuoso, but the problem is I really wasn't such as much virtuosic as I wanted to be.
• 2:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's why I became a nurse and later a real estate investor and a business owner, because the violin didn't work so well.
• 2:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's where all the problems stemmed to begin with.
• 2:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Okay.
• 2:24
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Big problems with self confidence and self reliance and trust in my ability were over two decades.
• 2:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And a lot of it was really self inflicted, but also some outside experiences.
• 2:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So when I changed the careers twice and I'm still a nurse, I'm still a nurse proudly and with the other businesses, but that lack of self trust is what led to the other changes.
• 2:43
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then later on, when I wrote my book and published it in 2021, it's called"It Really Is Simple, A Holistic Approach to Self Confidence", that was really the focus.
• 2:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But the book led to showing people how I solve all of my life aspects, issues, health, career spirituality, wealth building, and then relationship prioritization.
• 3:01
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's what led to the coaching business, but it was not like an overnight event at all.
• 3:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Okay.
• 3:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So the solution to my problems was what led to the business and the coaching.
• 3:10
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because people, after they read the book, they said, why are you not coaching people?
• 3:13
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I said, well, I really thought that the book was enough.
• 3:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It wasn't a means to advertise the business.
• 3:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It was a means in itself to help people solve whatever they need to solve and find ways to be curious and not be afraid to fail and make mistakes and take responsibility for the courses of their own lives.
• 3:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: In spite of everybody else's opinion around them.
• 3:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then the coaching business came as a sequel to the book.
• 3:34
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So the book is very comprehensive in itself.
• 3:36
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You really don't need my coaching and pay more money than just buying the book and see what that is all about.
• 3:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And they'll say, ah, I get it.
• 3:44
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Many aha moments and you will be way on your way to improve a lot about your self trust and reliance and perseverance.
• 3:50
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And you know, all these wonderful things that they're talked about, but for whatever reason, people don't get to fully comprehend and embrace to truly change their lives for the better.
• 3:59
  Tom: Yeah, well, it would be great if people just take the advice from a book and actually implement it.
• 4:05
  Tom: That's really why they wanted you to coach them because people don't take that personal responsibility sometimes or they're unable to implement what they learn from just reading a book.
• 4:14
  Tom: So tell me a little bit about kind of how your business is.
• 4:17
  Tom: Cause it sounds you have multiple businesses already set up.
• 4:20
  Tom: How are each of those kind of structured and especially from leading with the heart and walk me through that.
• 4:25
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So that's an interesting question.
• 4:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So the, with the real estate businesses, I own my own businesses.
• 4:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I manage my own businesses.
• 4:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And the hard part is I can tell you that I went since I really learned from my mentors about the real estate market timely enough to purchase properties where they were at a price where I could really structure it in a way that the rent would perfectly cover my cashflow needs, but not skin the residents with high rents.
• 4:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That was before the bubble completely exploded, right?
• 4:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I started, I've been in the business for 10 years.
• 4:53
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So I bought my properties early in the bubble, relatively early.
• 4:56
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And right now I can tell you pretty confidently that my real estate properties have the most affordable prices in the entire Phoenix Valley.
• 5:03
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Everything else in the market around these neighborhoods where I have properties are at least 100, 800 more costly per month in rent than my properties are, and I maintain my properties well.
• 5:13
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm not some kind of a slum lord who, you know, just lets people live there like dogs.
• 5:17
  Alexandra Dotcheva: No, what I mean, the first property I bought was one of those properties where absentee owners said, no, I'm not gonna be that type of a business owner.
• 5:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Absolutely not, because I treat my real estate properties as businesses.
• 5:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Each of one is, each of them is in a business structure.
• 5:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Legally, tax wise, everything's set with lawyers and I just do it the right way to be able to provide really good, safe housing and good quality housing to people for a completely affordable price.
• 5:39
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That is something that I don't see in many landlords and many other business owners in this area and in this niche.
• 5:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So I pride myself to say that I was a tenant for 14 years before I.
• 5:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: started the real estate business and actually my first property was a fourplex.
• 5:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I went through all the learning curves with renovating apartments and making first three apartments for the tenants available for rent and being nicely recovered and well renovated.
• 5:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And ours, we left just as it was broken, dirty, nasty, old until we moved out to rent it.
• 6:04
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then I learned how to paint and all lots of handy skills that I had to learn after being a violinist, then a nurse, you know, so I figured, well, I do hands on care on people, you know, nurses do lots of things with people in the hospital.
• 6:16
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So why can't I just do this with the house?
• 6:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Same thing the house is the patient now is the business and you take it to heart.
• 6:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And truly it's so important to be able to provide to people.
• 6:24
  Alexandra Dotcheva: One of the ways of giving is to not take from people what you don't really need to take from them.
• 6:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: In this case, inflate the rents like crazy because you're greedy or you didn't budget your other expenses properly.
• 6:36
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because not all these landlords had to necessarily blast the rents by 500 dollar difference.
• 6:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: They didn't have to do that because I know many of them bought early in the market.
• 6:44
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So they weren't stupid to buy late in the bubble.
• 6:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then they have to put these outrageous rates to cover their expenses and have some minimal cashflow at the end of the month.
• 6:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I didn't do that.
• 6:53
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I chose not to because I just don't think it's ethical and that's the hard part of the business, right?
• 6:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Business from the heart.
• 6:58
  Tom: Yeah.
• 6:58
  Alexandra Dotcheva: In this example.
• 6:59
  Tom: Yeah, that's really interesting too, that you know, just a great example is that fourplex where you improved the other ones and not your own, so that you could provide really nice housing and at an affordable rate, which is, yeah that's very rare.
• 7:13
  Tom: So how do your tenants react to that type of arrangement for you?
• 7:16
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Well, they've been there eight, nine years now, seven, but would you ever worry about the properties?
• 7:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, they stay in because they see what the market is like.
• 7:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I always respond to their requests to renovate.
• 7:26
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So we really have good relationship.
• 7:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I didn't lose any tenant during the COVID crisis.
• 7:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Nobody took advantage of the government nonsense saying that,"Oh, I don't have a job, but I don't have to prove it to you.
• 7:35
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So I don't have to pay rent.", None of them did that because they knew that I had treated them like human beings, like peers.
• 7:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And of course they are peers.
• 7:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: They're peers.
• 7:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Wonderful people who work their butts off to provide for their families.
• 7:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So, they appreciated that.
• 7:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, they knew they couldn't go anywhere else once the crisis was over.
• 7:50
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And plus there was never an issue with these people to try to manipulate me into believing that there was an issue with their salary and they couldn't pay.
• 7:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I never experienced this as a landlord.
• 7:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I was very fortunate but I had provided the ground for that with my business ethic and treating them respectfully right from the get go.
• 8:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I have tenants who have had pretty problematic lives in lots of respects, and I've given them chances to rehabilitate and, you know, and it's worked great.
• 8:13
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, not always.
• 8:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It didn't always work.
• 8:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, I have had evictions along the way, but those who worked, they've been there for many years now, and I'm grateful, and it's been great.
• 8:22
  Tom: So what in your history and your backstory that created such a giving attitude that you have?
• 8:29
  Tom: I mean to go into nursing and then to provide really good housing at an affordable rate, and that's I would consider it kind of a rare rarity in this world to have, you know, be such a giver like that.
• 8:39
  Tom: So what kind of prompted you to really lead with that heart?
• 8:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Well, for one thing, as a musician, I didn't really feel useful to society in the way I wanted to, because I wasn't at the caliber of the great soloists who concertize in beautiful halls and really provide phenomenal performances and deliver at every stage performance that magnitude level of musicianship and technicality and interpretation and rendition of the beautiful music that they're playing.
• 9:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I wasn't at that level.
• 9:06
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I really struggled a lot with confidence and I barely was able to deliver 70 percent of what I was able to perform in a practice room on stage.
• 9:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So in that case, you're like, okay, so I should be able to do better with my life.
• 9:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Something else, something different.
• 9:19
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So at 32, I hit this early midlife crisis and I figured, Let's start taking care of people.
• 9:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Really understand reality, because many musicians, they think they know about reality.
• 9:26
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah, we really don't, because you're so single-minded into your artistic world and your imagination and all that stuff.
• 9:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And no, it doesn't work that way in real life.
• 9:34
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So with nursing, that taught me a lot to leave my ego behind and put the patients priorities first and their problems.
• 9:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then with the real estate, see, my family went through a lot of hardship during the transition from socialism to democracy, which still hasn't worked in Bulgaria for 35 years, I hate to say, because my country is unique in corruption and all of them have corruption, but in Bulgaria just really seems to be.
• 9:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: We had lots of people help us at some various points in life and including when my parents had to leave their first apartment in Bulgaria.
• 10:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: There was a wonderful colleague who rented her apartment to my parents, but at extremely affordable prices, which in Bulgaria was unheard of.
• 10:09
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And when my mother would call her,"Hey, we need to increase the rents because inflation is crazy in Bulgaria right now.", she said.
• 10:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Well, I heard they actually decreased the rents right now.
• 10:17
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So she never really charged us.
• 10:19
  Alexandra Dotcheva: She just wanted somebody to take care of that apartment and nominal rent.
• 10:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And this is why I figured if she could do it, I can do this affordably and still have cashflow at the end of the month.
• 10:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because see, make no mistake.
• 10:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: The purpose of investing, and I learned from my mentors, you need to start making money right from the get go.
• 10:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I don't deal with negative cashflow.
• 10:35
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That is absolutely not an option in my investing, but you can still do it in ways that are convenient for the people who rent your properties.
• 10:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And you can have the cashflow that you need if you make a good plan.
• 10:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And if you structure your deal in ways that you can do this.
• 10:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So it takes a little bit more work and studying, but I don't mind that I'm not a lazy type of person.
• 10:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So this is how you work with your previous experiences.
• 10:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You see who has helped you say, well, can I do something different?
• 10:58
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Of course, you most likely won't be able to help the people who helped you, but the hope is that along the way you'll help somebody else and somebody else.
• 11:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That's how things flow in life, unfortunately, or fortunately, depends how you see it.
• 11:09
  Tom: Paying it forward.
• 11:10
  Tom: So you're, you've been paid forward and you're paying it forward as well, which is just a beautiful thing.
• 11:14
  Tom: So let's talk a little bit about your book.
• 11:16
  Tom: What prompted you to write a book about self confidence?
• 11:19
  Alexandra Dotcheva: People started asking questions.
• 11:20
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So first, those who knew me, how lost I was in lack of any faith in my abilities at first, I mean, for many years in this.
• 11:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So how did that happen?
• 11:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And you'll drastically change professions, from an art profession to a science profession without having any clue of science.
• 11:34
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Then you're successful as a nurse and now you're real estate investor.
• 11:37
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You need nothing about finance and you find way to go to the gym two and a half hours a day, four days a week.
• 11:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You eat plant-based diet and you're ridiculously healthy.
• 11:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You're approaching 50.
• 11:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: What the hell are you doing?
• 11:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Right?
• 11:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So they wanted to know that.
• 11:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then strangers started asking these questions.
• 11:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And at some point I thought, okay, there are five aspects in life.
• 11:54
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I treat each of them the exact same way.
• 11:56
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I have the same system for all five.
• 11:58
  Alexandra Dotcheva: What would be the book that I would have loved to have been able to read since it was 2020.
• 12:03
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So I would say 12 years ago at that point, it was 12 years since I made all this progress 12 years ago.
• 12:08
  Alexandra Dotcheva: What would it be a book that I really would have loved to be able to read?
• 12:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And the idea came to two minutes.
• 12:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It took exactly two minutes to have this structure of the book emerged in my brain.
• 12:17
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I wrote the book in six months.
• 12:19
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's 400 pages.
• 12:20
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Then I edited it for a year and a half before I even offered it to a professional editor.
• 12:24
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because I'm a Bulgarian.
• 12:26
  Alexandra Dotcheva: My English is okay.
• 12:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And in writing, it's better than spoken.
• 12:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But there were still, you know, repetitions.
• 12:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: When you write such a massive work, you need to eliminate repetitions.
• 12:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And still be able to say things differently.
• 12:35
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So different people can get their aha moment at different moments.
• 12:38
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Still the same idea, but how do you say it is so important.
• 12:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's how it happened.
• 12:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But yeah, the editing was just ridiculous.
• 12:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah, if I knew I would be editing so much I probably would have never approached the project.
• 12:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So ignorance in the beginning is always a good thing.
• 12:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then just stick with the idea and the mission of the idea and you'll persevere and it'll get it, it'll get done eventually, but so that's how the book came across.
• 12:59
  Tom: So people were asking you questions about what changes you went through.
• 13:03
  Tom: And so that prompted you to write the book and then people were reading the book and said, you should do coaching.
• 13:09
  Tom: And that got you into the coaching business.
• 13:10
  Tom: Is that kind of how it.
• 13:11
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah.
• 13:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Especially the host of the podcast.
• 13:13
  Alexandra Dotcheva: They were like, ah, so you're a coach, right?
• 13:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I said no, I don't really coach.
• 13:16
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, 5, 10, 12 calls.
• 13:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So you're a coach, right?
• 13:19
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Why aren't you a coach?
• 13:20
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Why aren't you a coach?
• 13:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: He said, okay, I'm a coach.
• 13:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Fine.
• 13:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So then I created the modules and the 12 week program with one year of free access to phone or any contacts if they have questions.
• 13:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So yeah, 12 week program.
• 13:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That's how it emerged from the book.
• 13:33
  Tom: Oh, that's very cool.
• 13:33
  Tom: And so what type of results are people getting from going through your program?
• 13:37
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It all depends how much they listen to me, right?
• 13:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, I don't tiptoe around them.
• 13:42
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I don't sugarcoat things.
• 13:43
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm from the Balkan peninsula, so I'm very blunt, okay?
• 13:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm not afraid of hurting people's feelings at all.
• 13:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it's different with the patients though, because they're very sick.
• 13:50
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm just as blunt with my patients, but I word it differently because they're the sick person, but they're sick for a reason.
• 13:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: When you have three chronic diseases that are completely reversible, I mean, you can do better in your life, right?
• 14:00
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But when you approach me as a client, as a coach from the coaching perspective, and you're paying money to be coached, then we're going to be even more honest with each other.
• 14:08
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And really, I mean, I drill them about time management.
• 14:11
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I absolutely, that's just every assignment includes, How they manage the 24 hours of their day over the last week, and that continues for 12 weeks.
• 14:17
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And as we add more tasks, because we start first with the health aspect, then we discuss spirituality in the context of health, mind, health, mind training, and then financial understanding.
• 14:27
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Then we discuss career choices.
• 14:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: How you, why did you choose to be useful to society in this particular way?
• 14:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Then we go into the wealth aspect because career and wealth are two different things.
• 14:36
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm sorry, people confuse them.
• 14:38
  Alexandra Dotcheva: They think it's the same.
• 14:39
  Alexandra Dotcheva: No, it's not the same.
• 14:39
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then finally we go, the toughest thing is the relationships, choices, prioritizations, handling, management, because how you, who you choose to hang around will influence everything else.
• 14:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: All the other four aspects in your life.
• 14:50
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You chose the wrong crowd.
• 14:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Your life will go along with the wrong crowd and then you won't be happy with this whole holistic, how holistically wrong your life is going.
• 14:58
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So we want to elevate all these aspects.
• 14:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And the results they see several of them have been extremely successful.
• 15:03
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Reversed two chronic conditions, kind of two reverse chronic conditions, and then bought one investment property now on the way to buy his second investment property.
• 15:11
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Going very well, but he had to buy a very bit of property because of the high prices.
• 15:16
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So to get a lower price, I mean, it's different on the market, but when they get it and they really get into that, it's great.
• 15:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And many people who actually read the books and that totally changed my perspective on life.
• 15:25
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Now I'm going to work on this X, Y, and Z.
• 15:26
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And they say that and they don't need coaching.
• 15:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's my goal with the book because I don't need client stone.
• 15:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm a very financially independent person.
• 15:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I can stop working at any point in time because the cash from my investments more than five times, six times exceeds my monthly expenses.
• 15:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Extremely.
• 15:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Well rounded there, but if they come for coaching, I drill them on every life aspect because we always find the problem outside of the area they're fixated on at the moment.
• 15:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it's surprising to see how much people neglect the other aspects of their lives when they fixate on something that actually needs to be first left aside to fix the other things, but the other things are harder and they require more responsibility and more determination.
• 16:04
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that's where we say, Oh well, this is the real problem.", that's your elephant in the room and it's about to break the walls of the room, but you're still ignoring that.
• 16:11
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So no, let's take a step back and see that.
• 16:13
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And when they get convinced to listen and to kind of make it to be their own idea.
• 16:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because if it comes from you, it's one thing, but if it comes from them and they're much more cooperative when their own desire to change it and overcome the fear that they won't be able to, everybody's able to change.
• 16:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Everybody is, it's just to help them see that they are able to, and there is no more room for negotiation and excuses and, you know, rationalizations.
• 16:36
  Tom: Cool.
• 16:37
  Tom: And so talking about, you know, The Heart-Led Business Show is really about how do we balance making a profit, making money and being okay with that.
• 16:46
  Tom: And still leading with the heart because a lot of heart-led business owners or want to be heart-led business owners feel like they can't charge what they're worth or they have a bad relationship with sales or cash.
• 16:58
  Tom: And so how have you balanced making a profit and doing very well for yourself and still being a heart-led business?
• 17:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: To tell you it's very easy.
• 17:06
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'll give you an example with myself.
• 17:07
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Before I became an investor, I read six books of Robert Kiyosaki, the founder of the Rich Dad Company.
• 17:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: To gain his, my, he could gain my trust.
• 17:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then I mean, but his books were meant to advertise his business.
• 17:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: At that point, I didn't know that, but I learned a lot from the books, but then I really went into his coaching online.
• 17:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And there was a great point there that you can not rely on free information to get properly motivated.
• 17:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: 99 percent of people are that mindset.
• 17:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And that was the same with me because at the time his course costed a lot of money for my perspective as a beginning nurse.
• 17:38
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I had to really plan to save this money and reimburse my credit card and really do well to not have this awful death through months of interest.
• 17:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And when I applied this and when I invested my own money which seemed like a lot of money at the time.
• 17:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I was responsible to take action when I did that because it's one thing to read a cheap book or somebody tells you, offers you a free webinar.
• 17:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's wonderful.
• 18:00
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But if you don't invest your own cash, you don't put your money in the fire, so to speak your skin in the fire, you won't commit.
• 18:06
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I was the exact same case.
• 18:08
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So that's how I learned because it was the best money ever spent on that real estate coaching program.
• 18:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I immediately applied it like literally four months later, we came to Arizona from Syracuse, New York, and I spent the first month building my real estate team.
• 18:21
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It was insane busy.
• 18:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then I had to purchase the first property two months later, but you commit when you actually spend the money.
• 18:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it's sad that most people's brains work that way.
• 18:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But when you commit money, when you pay for your education, for your improvement, for your growth, then you say, okay, so I spent all that money.
• 18:39
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Might as well take action.
• 18:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, if you don't take action after that, my time is just as valuable people, so you pay me for my time because I don't need clients.
• 18:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Like I said, I really have perfectly well arranged financial life already, but if you want my time and my knowledge and you want to really commit, you will pay for it because otherwise you won't commit.
• 18:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, I've seen it so many times, especially with myself too.
• 19:00
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I'm just as guilty as have been.
• 19:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Just as guilty, not being able to take action or not being decisive enough after I do something.
• 19:07
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You read a book that's given for me for free as a marketing tool.
• 19:10
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I said, and I did try to take steps and now I can do it better.
• 19:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But when I first started with my self improvement and growth, forget it.
• 19:17
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, I would do steps, but it's just some psychological thing about investing in yourself, actually paying someone to teach you.
• 19:23
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it worked great for me and I've seen it working great for other people because they become more self obligated when that happens.
• 19:30
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Everybody works hard for their money.
• 19:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Most people do.
• 19:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And especially people who are at the beginning of their crisis crossroads in life, a bad midlife crisis, they don't have all the money that they want to have.
• 19:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So if that person spends the money, you know they really are serious about their business and you see great progress in them.
• 19:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's wonderful.
• 19:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then it pays tenfold afterwards.
• 19:49
  Tom: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's not money lost.
• 19:50
  Tom: That's great.
• 19:51
  Tom: So just kind of a side question here, but have you ever had to fire a client because they aren't doing the work?
• 19:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Oh I fired him at the start because see, the first coaching session is free.
• 20:01
  Alexandra Dotcheva: One, two, three hours free.
• 20:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I instantly know if that's, I will very quickly tell when the conversation is going in the wrong direction, how many justifications they have for their laziness, for their reluctance to do this, and this.
• 20:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I can tell because people's behavior tends to repeat.
• 20:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I just want to know for how long they've repeated certain mistakes.
• 20:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it's also very important what motivates them to change because some motives are false.
• 20:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And they may or may not know it, but if we discuss that and we see that it's not going to work, I don't even take a penny from them and that they're fired right from the start.
• 20:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: If they start with me, I haven't had to fire them because they're now committed.
• 20:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: mean, we might get some unpleasant conversations along the way and that inevitably happens with some people.
• 20:37
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But I haven't had to fire them because they're now invested.
• 20:39
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And plus there is a contract.
• 20:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, you don't get your money back.
• 20:41
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Once you start, you go to the grocery store, you pay for groceries and you go home, same thing.
• 20:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But After an hour, two, three hours of conversation, we can tell if we're not for each other and we're part friends.
• 20:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That's the best way to do it because that's like you screen every client that way.
• 20:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Same with residents for your property to do some screening.
• 20:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Can you be wrong with the screenings?
• 20:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Absolutely.
• 20:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But with coaching, it's just a different dynamic.
• 21:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's not like, with the real estate business.
• 21:04
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So, so far so good.
• 21:05
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Good question though.
• 21:06
  Tom: That's really great too.
• 21:07
  Tom: And I want to repeat what you said there, that having that first initial conversation and whether it's free or low dollar amount is so critical to find out if they are a good fit for you and if you're a good fit for them.
• 21:20
  Tom: And then you can part friends, like you said, and not go down the road a month later and go, Oh gosh, I really don't want to have that call again with this client.
• 21:28
  Tom: And then you're not bringing your full self.
• 21:30
  Tom: They're not bringing their full self and they're not getting, and then just I've had that issue with fitness training and never worked out.
• 21:36
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Yeah no, it doesn't.
• 21:37
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And or sometimes you have the conversation with the client and you say, okay, so why don't you, instead of spending, you know, over 3,500 dollars on your 12 week session, why don't you get the book first?
• 21:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because the paperback is 19 bucks and the eBook, which is the exact same book, will be 7 bucks, 6.99.
• 21:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, come on, get that, see that, and see if it makes sense.
• 21:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And if it makes sense, great.
• 21:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Come to me.
• 21:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: If you shouldn't come to me after, if you do what I told you to do, you really shouldn't have to come me at all.
• 22:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Right.
• 22:02
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But in case you still want some reassurance, emotional support, whatever, nitty gritty, because we get into a lot of detail in the coaching.
• 22:08
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Okay.
• 22:09
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's really drilling them with details and it's extremely intense.
• 22:12
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I hold them accountable for.
• 22:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: A lot.
• 22:14
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I mean, some people don't like that.
• 22:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Most people don't.
• 22:16
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But that's what my coaches did with me.
• 22:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, the first thing was the time management tool.
• 22:20
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it's just so important to see how much time you waste.
• 22:22
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And it was funny Tom, because when I had to fill that time thing for my coach for a week I started doing and then I started changing it because I realized what I was going to write was stupid because I did something completely time.
• 22:33
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Okay, so I have to really write what I did and then the next week I'll do better because you confront your own lack of integrity when you say that you spent four hours doing things that didn't contribute to your personal growth and you want to tell your coach that you didn't do that.
• 22:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's because I'm online now.
• 22:48
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So no, let's say that in the course.
• 22:50
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So it is four hours on Monday.
• 22:51
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Why did you exactly have to do this and not this?
• 22:53
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I said, well, yeah, I know.
• 22:55
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Next week I'll do better.
• 22:56
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Honestly, I did better and I've had an honest account for the coach.
• 22:59
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So this is really important.
• 23:01
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And everything depends on your time management and discipline.
• 23:04
  Tom: Yeah.
• 23:04
  Tom: Well, those tools of any kind of tracking tool is so valuable, you know, tracking your time, tracking your sales, tracking your food, even like all of that is, you know, is so
• 23:15
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Especially your food.
• 23:16
  Tom: Especially food.
• 23:17
  Tom: Right.
• 23:17
  Tom: And I think there was a study done where they had a group of people that same diet, one tracked it, one didn't track.
• 23:24
  Tom: And the people who tracked lost more weight than the people who did not track because they weren't completely honest with what they were eating.
• 23:30
  Tom: So yeah, tracking is such a cool tool.
• 23:33
  Tom: That's awesome.
• 23:33
  Tom: So Alexandra, how can people learn more about you and what you do and potentially get some of your help?
• 23:40
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I have a website, it's called holisticselfconfidence.com.
• 23:43
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So they can email me for a coaching session there.
• 23:45
  Alexandra Dotcheva: They can purchase the book.
• 23:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Here is the book.
• 23:47
  Alexandra Dotcheva: That's what it looks like.
• 23:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Okay.
• 23:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It really is simple, a holistic approach to self confidence.
• 23:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Come on it's not a hard read though.
• 23:53
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's really isn't because it's just so, I try to structure it as simply as possible.
• 23:57
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I don't have the biggest English, largest English vocabulary.
• 24:00
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I did my best to express myself very understandably yet.
• 24:04
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, it's not always sugarcoated in the book because I'm, like I said, I'm very blunt, so there are some pesky moments there might irritate some people, but I don't care because the point is to irritate you so you can start working on yourself and see that, you know, you're most of what your arguments are BS, right?
• 24:18
  Alexandra Dotcheva: Because I went through the same path.
• 24:20
  Alexandra Dotcheva: It's not like I'm tearing somebody apart without first done it with me.
• 24:24
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I've described that in the book as well, but holisticselfconfidence.com is the website.
• 24:28
  Alexandra Dotcheva: There is a blog there.
• 24:29
  Alexandra Dotcheva: There are coaching material.
• 24:31
  Alexandra Dotcheva: I mean, the coaching page.
• 24:32
  Alexandra Dotcheva: You can see what I teach them if they're interested.
• 24:34
  Alexandra Dotcheva: But like I said, get the book first, if at all, because you will already learn so much about mental techniques to overcome certain handicaps in thinking in mindset that you may really not need my coaching in the end.
• 24:46
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And I hope you don't, if I really did a good job with the book.
• 24:49
  Alexandra Dotcheva: So holisticselfconfidence.com is where you start.
• 24:52
  Alexandra Dotcheva: And then he has links to my socials, YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, all that.
• 24:57
  Tom: Awesome.
• 24:57
  Tom: Well, we'll link all that up into the show notes as well.
• 25:00
  Tom: So it'd be easy for people to find it, click there and check out what you're doing.
• 25:04
  Tom: I want to thank you so much for sharing your story, and sharing your advice as well.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.