From Tactical to Transformational: Real Estate, Conferences & Conversations

In this powerhouse episode, real estate mogul and entrepreneur Ashley Wilson joins Derek Dombeck for a candid, unscripted conversation that dives deep into multifamily real estate, the true value of in-person networking, and her mission to bring transparency and innovation to the conference world. Ashley unpacks her journey from clinical research to managing over $160M in real estate assets, co-founding Apartment Addicts, and launching the platform Conference Connect. The discussion also tackles the current multifamily market, negotiation dynamics, personal accountability, and the future of live events. Whether you’re a new investor, a seasoned operator, or someone passionate about personal growth—this episode hits on all cylinders.

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And here she is, the biggest Green Bay Packer fan who lives in Philly, Miss Ashley Wilson. Ashley, welcome to the Generations of Wealth Show. Thank you so much for having me. Go Birds! Oh boy. We were talking before we started recording, and this episode will air after the Super Bowl. We’ll know before anyone listens to this who actually won. But of course, we were talking a little bit about football. And hopefully Philadelphia can knock the Chiefs off their three -peat pedestal, right? I hope so. Absolutely. Well, football aside, why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? And you’ve got a very impressive bio. You’ve got all kinds of accomplishments and awards and things which I will never do justice. So you start and then we’ll just jump into an awesome conversation.

So I started in clinical research and development and worked in that field for a few years and got introduced to real estate while I was working in that field through my husband and through the way that most people get introduced to real estate, which is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I read that, drank the Kool -Aid, was hooked, started investing on the side. Shortly after that, I left my W -2, pursued a few other things while still doing real estate and eventually turned to real estate. since it was such a lucrative venture and it seemed to fit my ultimate goals out of life of having time, freedom, and financial freedom. Fast forward, I’ve done everything from short -term rentals, long -term rentals, flipping, high -end flipping, and commercial real estate, specifically large multifamily acquisitions and operations. So I’ve acquired over $160 million or so. I’m not really into all of the data points that most people spew! off, but of course I know that gives credibility. So it’s somewhere around there. I’ve managed over 15 plus million in construction. My dad’s a general contractor, so I had that as a benefit, I guess, to getting my foot in the door. So I’ve managed a significant amount of construction and I’ve done operations across these properties as well. Most recently, I launched my seventh company that I’ve launched to date, which is called Conference Connect. It’s a marketplace platform that brings together event organizers, attendees, speakers, and vendors on a single platform. It’s industry agnostic, so it’s not limited to just real estate. And that launched approximately a year ago on February 7th. That’s doing really well as well. And then I also have a coaching platform. I wasn’t a huge proponent for coaching originally. And then I actually joined a coaching program years ago when I first got started in commercial real estate. It was hugely beneficial to me, not only education, but most importantly, the network. So I wanted to pay it forward and create a coaching program with my partner, Jay Scott. So the two of us launched Apartment Addicts about four years ago. And we’ve helped hundreds of students not only follow in our footsteps, but just support them along whatever journey they wanted to take. in pursuing real estate as the vehicle to achieve financial freedom.

So you’ve done a couple things is what you’re saying. Just a few. Nice, nice. Well, Conference Connect is very interesting. I’ve been on that platform and looked at it as a speaker myself and getting out there. It was the first of its kind to the best of my knowledge. And was there the goal behind that really just to build a network or is that something to monetize and turn into a financial windfall? Hopefully the latter, right? But really all of my companies I’ve created have become companies in large part due to the fact that I’ve seen inefficiencies in some aspect. So with respect to the conference event expo summit space, there are a lot of inefficiencies when it comes to identifying conferences to attend. There’s not a single platform you can go on. You can read reviews and pick which event you want to go to. With conferences on the rise, coupled with pricing to attend those conferences on the rise, it’s a good safeguard for attendees to be able to vet which events they want to spend their money on, which events have the highest impact and value for them. A couple with that are speakers. I obviously speak all over the country on a lot of different topics, but what I’ve started to notice is events have been turning to these social media influencers as opposed to true experts in the industry. I’m not saying all of the people that are social influencers are not experts in the industry, but there is definitely a portion of it. And the reason behind it is because they need to sell tickets. I get that. I get that’s the business of how they’re going to be able to host events, but I think there’s another way. So having reviews of speakers, having more visibility to a diverse group of speakers that you can filter on by industry topic, you can look at what previous events that they’ve spoken at and read their bio and get more a sense of their credibility as opposed to how many followers they have. I think that supports events at getting a more diverse speaker lineup, which will then attract a more diverse audience and then achieve the same results because it’s all about just creating demand off of the supply that you’re offering. It’s always a basic economics question for me. So in terms of problem solving, these two issues, combining it into one platform has been very well received by the audience. But then on top of that, there have been other issues that have been identified and brought to my attention that we’re also incorporating onto the platform. For example, vendor visibility. I used to think that events struggled to find vendors that wanted to sponsor, when in reality it’s the other way around. Vendors actually have more difficulty finding events to sponsor and have a good ROI on their investment when they go to sponsor based off of leads and future customer acquisition. So providing a platform that will be able to help them identify those yields is beneficial to vendors as well. So there are a lot of things that have come out of creating this platform that I’m really grateful to help people. At the end of the day, I think that there’s only two ways in the world that you can make money. One is by helping the few with having massive impact or by helping the masses with incremental impact. I think Conference Connect helps the masses with incremental impact.

I agree. And the part that I like about it the most when I was looking at it is, as you mentioned, it’s a way to vet where you’re going. So I put on events. And in fact, as we’re recording this in a few days, I’m I’m getting on a Royal Caribbean cruise for our Generations of Wealth Voyage and, you know, an event that we do on a cruise ship every year. And it’s getting harder and harder for anybody that puts on events to justify the costs, the marketing, the venues, everything else, because we are competing with YouTube University. And those of you listening or watching this show on YouTube later on, still love you. Glad you found us on YouTube. But the reality is we have a lot of quote unquote experts now that can just throw stuff up on social media and on YouTube and anywhere else. And the one that drives me crazy is people giving legal advice about entity structures and asset protection and things like that. I mean, you don’t know how many people you’re possibly setting up for serious liability issues in the future. And I’ve always, personally, I’ve always liked learning in person way more than on a screen. So I always wanted to go to live events. But it’s really tough now for those of us that try to educate that way to, number one, not even make a living at it, but to afford to even put these events on. I can tell the entire world publicly, I have not been cashflow positive on a generations of wealth voyage in five years of doing it. It’s just, it’s something that we do because yes, we get the benefit of growing our network and we love helping people and educating people. And it does funnel them into other avenues that we would likely do business together, but it’s a tough business.

I think that there are really two aspects to education. One is a tactical approach and one is a strategic approach. And you hit the nail on the head when you were talking about YouTube University. That answers the technical standpoint. So from a technical standpoint, you have the know -how on what you’re doing or potentially even why you’re doing it, who, what, when, where, how, why, all of those questions are answered. But the other aspect is the strategic and part of education. So the tactical versus strategic, the strategic aspect can’t be replaced through YouTube university. Strategic comes from experience and it comes from networking and it comes from potential partnerships that can’t be replaced. So for example, when I joined a coaching program years ago, which I alluded to earlier, the tactical aspect of that coaching program, yes, it helps me potentially in the moment, hopefully evergreen. It helps me for a lifetime. At least it gets me on a path of learning what to do, how to do it, or where to ask questions. But the strategic aspect of joining a coaching program, that is forever a benefit. That And what’s incredible about that is when I look back at the coaching program I joined, or when you go to an event and you network, those relationships potentially lead to multi -million dollars and they continue to grow if you foster them. I think the tactical side, it helps you maybe add potentially seven figures, but the strategic side helps you potentially grow to nine or 10 figures. You know, it doesn’t have a ceiling. I think technically you can always find different aspects through free education. But I fully believe, and the data has shown, especially in the event space during COVID, they thought that a lot of forecasting of the event data points on how many events and whether or not those events would be in person, most people saw COVID as an accelerator event, specifically, you know, Zoom and other technology advances to lead us to more virtual settings. And that made people forecast that the event industry would turn more to a virtual aspect. And it actually didn’t. Data has shown that live in -person hybrid events, virtual events are still there and they’re still growing in popularity because of the expense offset is so minimal compared to an in -person live event. But what’s interesting is in -person live events actually doubled down. They are continuing to grow. And then this new class emerge, which is hybrid events that taps into people who can’t physically be there, but still want to be a part of it. But there’s still that piece of people who want to network in person, which is hugely beneficial. I don’t think technology has replaced that in -person connection yet. I don’t know if it ever will, because there’s an aspect of communicating that I think we as human beings need that live interaction. Even when you have meetings for a company, there are things that are said that happen on a webinar or a live call that don’t get said when they’re in person or other ways to interact happen in person versus over Zoom, let’s say. So I think that there will always be this element of physical connection that can’t be replaced through a computer.

I agree 175%. And the reason that I think that you’re spot on is when you’re in a live setting, it’s not all business. But when you’re on Zoom, it’s all business. So how I would explain that if you go to a conference, and you go to dinner in the evening with half a dozen other attendees, that’s where you start to talk about your family life, your hobbies, other travels, different things you do. And that’s where you start to bond and find common ground outside of business. And that’s the relationships that I believe over that period of time, the nine figure, 10 figures, as you mentioned, that could be your next private investor, that could be your next partner, that could be who knows. But I would I find it very hard to to get that level of trust and bonding over a computer screen. Now, I know it’s possible, and I’m pretty sure you were involved with BiggerPockets a fair bit. You mentioned Jay Scott. Jay Scott’s been around with BiggerPockets for a long, long time. I used to spend quite a bit of time in the forums on BiggerPockets answering people’s questions, and you certainly can get to a level of comfort with some of the people that are on there on a regular basis and you’re seeing who’s truly knowledgeable who’s kind of full of shit um that type of stuff but I can’t ever say that I got a real connection that led to the comfort level that I would get meeting somebody in person.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think there’s a part that whether everyone wants to admit this or not, but there’s energy that people give off. And I think that that can only be perceived and felt when it’s in person. I think that when you look at motivational speakers, why are they not turning to virtual events? They’re not turning to virtual events because the impact isn’t the same. So they’re maybe providing some technical advice, how to, you know, self -help advice and ways to overcome challenges. But their real value in attending an in -person motivational event is the energy in the room. It’s the energy from the speaker. It’s infectious. That’s very hard to translate over a live, like an online call. Some could argue that maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe the future generations will be able to have that feeling that doesn’t need to occur in person. But I fundamentally disagree. I think it’s more based on us as human beings as opposed to it’s a generational construct. Well, my challenge with the generation discussion is the younger generation may not even know what they’re missing because they’ve never had it. And I think that’s going to be a huge downfall. I teach a negotiations training course and I do a bi -weekly thing called the Elite Negotiations Academy. And what we do is we take a pre -recorded negotiation for about an hour and we pick it apart, right? And we just discuss what could be different and how do you read tone and body language and all these different things. And when I get somebody that’s in their 20s that we’re discussing how to negotiate, which just is a social interaction, it’s just a conversation. Many of them are lost because they’ve never done anything that wasn’t, you know, on their phones or on social media. They don’t do this face -to -face conversation that we’re having right now. And I think that’s going to really hurt society in general, but business owners, up and coming business owners, they can definitely run a business without ever having a conversation if they choose. I think they’re losing a lot of opportunity. And I think like, I see gurus out there that are pitching products where you just go make enough offers virtually. And yes, a certain percentage of them will get accepted and you will be able to buy real estate. That has always bothered me because I’m a people person. I want to be across the kitchen table from somebody solving their problem not just working a math formula and working the masses and seeing who i can dare i say trick into accepting my my lowball offer um i don’t know i’m kind of rambling about it but it does bother me that just society in general now doesn’t give a shit about that social side of it Yeah,

I agree. I mean, we recently did a change in our leasing where our team actually reaches out and calls prospects and it significantly increased our conversion. So we removed the technology, we removed AI, we removed the bots, we removed all of these things that have been sold to us as more efficient models in managing leasing. And the data doesn’t lie, the data says the opposite. There’s a sense of human interaction that I think will always be needed. I think that you can supplement that interaction to your point with negotiation. There is a piece of being able to negotiate virtually that is important. But at the same side of the coin, speaking about benefits to negotiating, why would you limit what tools you have in your toolbox by only knowing how to negotiate virtually as opposed to in person? It puts you at a much more advantageous position if you can negotiate regardless of the medium in which you’re negotiating. So for me, I think there is a huge benefit to understand, especially when you’re considering who is the avatar of whom you’re negotiating with. When it comes to real estate, most likely you’re speaking with older generations and older generations tend to favor in -person negotiation. So to me, if you’re negotiating with someone and you’re negotiating in person versus someone else is negotiating virtually, you already have the upper hand because you have that personal connection. As long as you play your cards right, obviously you don’t want to offend the person. You know, there’s other outlying variables to the situation, but all things considered equal, there’s that personal connection. We purchased a house one time, my father and I, and it was solely off of the attached story about a father -daughter business. And that is what got us the home. People offered significantly more. And we’re talking about 20 plus offers. And yet we got the house because the woman, the elderly woman selling the house loved the fact that even though it was being flipped and we were very transparent about it, that we are a father -daughter team, that we keep the history of a house intact because it was an early 1900s home, but we just modernize it with updated mechanicals. And that was something that she really appreciated. She understood the house did need work, but she liked the fact that we were going to restore the original beauty back in our house being a father -daughter team. I think if we had just said, you know, we were flippers, we wouldn’t have gotten the house. So there’s that personal element. And how do you get that personal element when you’re not in person on negotiations? If you don’t know the difference between in -person negotiations and not, you don’t know how to incorporate some personal aspects when you have to resort to a third party negotiation or a virtual setting.

I couldn’t agree more I I could tell dozens and dozens of stories that are very similar to that and and the quick one that I will say is last year I bought a waterfront estate and I ended up subdividing it and you know rehabbing all the buildings that were on it and everything but the main kicker there was they absolutely could have probably sold for a hundred plus thousand more than what I gave them if they would just clean off the property, which they couldn’t do. This was a pain point for them. But the second pain point was they were very concerned the grandson had built a house on adjoining property that his grandmother had given him with water frontage as well. And his concern was that he didn’t ever want anybody to build between us, between the houses. So I said, I will give you a slice of land that makes it impossible for anybody to have enough setback to ever build next to you. And that was all it took. And it literally did not devalue my property at all. But again, another example of you have to find out what their challenges and often it is not the money. Almost always it’s not the money. Yeah. Very, very, very rarely when you negotiate does it come down to money. It normally is some other reason.

Definitely. Well, let’s switch gears a little bit. Those of you watching the video, you can see there’s a book over your shoulder, The Only Woman in the Room. Could you tell us a little bit about that? So this book originated because I was at an event and there were 450 people in attendance, two of which were the co -founders of the Real Estate Investor community. And they asked every woman at the event to have lunch together, which was essentially two tables pushed together and 16 of us. And I sat at the table looking around the room in disbelief that only 16 women out of 450 were women. So on the way home, I told my husband that I was going to write a book. It was going to be called The Only Woman in the Room. And it was going to highlight women’s stories in real estate investing. I didn’t know, to be honest with you, the format. So The Only Woman in the Room is a collection of 20 stories, but each chapter is written by a different woman. And I wanted any single person, male or female, to be able to pick up the book and read it. In fact, I think there’s only two mentions throughout the entire book about being the only woman in a male -dominated industry. That wasn’t the point of the book. The other aspect of the book is I noticed that every single keynote of an event that I had attended had always been a man. Anytime that there was a woman on stage, it was either on a panel or on a side stage. And one of the things I noticed in common is that every single keynote had a book behind their name. So it was really important to me that I create a platform that all of these women, I was really important to become a bestseller, which we did on multiple categories several times over on Amazon, that we could then use that book as a platform to get those keynote opportunities. So for me, it was just something that kind of spawned out of seeing a problem in the industry, creating more diversity for voices to be heard. I’m a huge believer that diversity creates opportunity for everyone involved. And I think solutions are better conceived out of more heterogeneous groups. Data supports that as well. I was a psychology undergrad and there was a study conducted on homogeneous groups tend to arrive at a conclusion or solution faster, but heterogeneous groups tend to arrive at a better solution. It may take more time, but the solution is typically better. So I think by providing more diversity, providing more visibility to the few women that are in the industry, we’ll encourage more women to come into the industry, have a voice, or at least, I mean, everyone has a voice, but have that voice be heard, create more opportunities for partnerships. My partner is Jay. It’s not another woman. It’s a man. So the collaboration between the different ways in which we look at things, I think, has huge value to how we go about solving problems because we think of things in a very diverse way. But we’re very aligned on other aspects. So it’s something that I think a lot of people have gravitated to. And ironically, the most positive feedback I get on the book is all from men. Men can’t believe how much information is in the book that they can act on immediately in terms of having a roadmap outlined on how to do certain asset classes. So that’s been really kind of a second stamp of approval, so to speak, in terms of the book resonating with everyone.

Well, I love, I want to make sure that we talked about it because number one, I’ve been in this business 20 plus years. I’ve met some bad -ass women in this industry that I couldn’t keep up with if I tried. And, and I feel like I’m, I’m pretty good. Um, and they’re great. I really have built such incredible relationships with all different types of people from all over the world in this real estate industry. And I love that you’re being out there and being an advocate for that because you’re right. There is definitely a shortage when you go into any conference room and you look around the room and that can go from small RIA groups to large multi -thousand people attended events. But it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be recognized. so definitely something that I want to get and everybody can just get it on Amazon right the only woman in the room by Ashley Wilson jump on Amazon and get that last question I do this with most of my people I interview what is one question I should have asked you today that I did not I’m in multifamily and I think a lot of people want to know my opinions on where I think the multifamily market is headed, especially because of the turbulence that we’ve all gone through over the past couple of years. So I don’t know if I would say that’s a question you should have asked me, but I think that’s a question that people like to hear because I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. I think it’s very unique. Normally I don’t get to talk about these topics, so I really I do like where this conversation has gone, but that’s maybe what I’ll default and say.

So what’s your answer then? My answer to that is I think we’re in more of a treading water situation, and it’s longer than people expected. There was a saying that in 2024, just survive to 25. And I think we’re going to be in this situation a lot longer than most people think. I think that there have been a lot of challenges to the industry over the past two years that are a culmination of lack of regulation within the industry. The commercial real estate sector has always been the wild, wild west. And when you have a run -up in the market of a specific sector that lacks regulation, you see the problems in that industry magnified. And one of the huge issues is all of the capital it attracted. It was on the heels of people doing really well in residential real estate. So a lot of people who transitioned, myself included, transitioned from residential to commercial real estate. And I ride horses and I do what’s called hunter jumpers. And what we do is we jump over fences and it’s to mimic the hunt field, but it’s in a ring. And long story short is that when you are really good, the jumps get higher, which is obvious. Most people would understand that without even knowing the horse industry. But what’s interesting and telling about this analogy is that someone can make a mistake when the jump is two feet off the ground and you barely notice the mistake. But if the same ride happens when the jump is four feet, it could be traumatic. It could be something that causes an injury. And I think what we’re seeing in the industry today, and we have seen over the past couple years, is people were making mistakes at two feet when they were doing residential real estate, but it wasn’t on steroids until they went into the commercial real estate aspect. So when you look at the lack of oversight when it comes to operations, I think people were able to get by because the industry carried them. The cap rates carried them. The interest rates carried them. the lack of, you know, what’s it called, natural disasters we had carried them. All of a sudden, we have this perfect storm of interest rates, tax rates, and insurance rates coming together and going haywire coupled with a lot of inexperienced folks in the industry. it really shows everyone’s true experience and their resilience in terms of getting over that hurdle. So I think there’s still fallout in the residential real estate. The transactions happen really quickly. The average market transaction in the U .S. is 45 days. In commercial industry, it’s on average 60 to 75 days pre -COVID. Since COVID, it’s closer to 90 to 120 days per transaction. And because of that, there’s a huge lag effect. That’s why people say within the commercial industry, it’s going to be very hard to time the bottom of the market because once the bottom of the market hits, we won’t know it until about 120 days later, which is a significant amount of time later. So I think what we’re seeing in the industry is this lag effect happening in commercial real estate just by the pure nature of how this industry is created, the lack of regulations. So I think we’re going to see a lot more regulations come in. We’re already seeing it on the landlord side of things with respect to evictions. Even landlord -friendly states have very difficult eviction timelines to process through. We have properties in Texas. We used to be able to issue evictions within 15 days of nonpayment. And now we’re in a situation where it’s 60, 90 days easily as the starting point to evict. And that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, especially at the conclusion of 2024. Any government -backed loan now has a 30 -day window of notice regardless of the state. So that’s something that was not in existence pre -COVID. But once again, this whole situation we’re in really showed all of the shortcomings in the commercial sector.

Yeah, and when Texas is having those types of issues, that’s not great news for the rest of the country. Because typically they’re very pro -business and pro -landlord, pro -real estate. So personally, the biggest thing that bothers me with the whole multifamily space is the people that went from the two -foot jumps to the four -foot jumps. and they raised private money in a syndication. And then, you know, that syndication is in second position behind an institutional lender. And there’s a lot of private money that’s going to get wiped out or is getting wiped out as we speak. And as somebody that’s always raised private money for my own transactions, I had a hard money lending company for years. That was all private capital. You know, I see these people coming back to me now and they’re like, Eric, what do we do? This, this happened, that happened. I’m like, you’re pretty much shit out of luck. Like it’s just the way it is. You’re, you know, it’s, it’s an investment and you lost it, but that’s the part I saw, but I do like, and I’m, I’m public about this on my show. I do like the changing of the markets. I do like the changing of the regulations and the thinning of the herd, so to speak, because we saw such a run up over the last five years of real estate agents and wannabe flippers and wannabe landlords and all these things, right? And everything that comes with that, including the lack of professionalism. And when they thin out, those of us that have been around for a long time and those of us that survive, there’s opportunity and there will be and is currently a lot of opportunity if you know what to look for. I couldn’t agree with you more. I have a very, I guess, aggressive stance on this whole perspective. Watching people lose money is awful. Let me start there. I do not want to see anyone lose money. However, I’m not one of the bad guys. And I have spent countless hours educating myself on how to manage these assets. I did not ride the interest rate nor the cap rate compression wave. I knew what I was doing because I worked my butt off to learn it. And I said years ago on stage, I think it was in 2018, operations are important, but in a down market, they are the most important and we are overdue for a down market in commercial real estate. And not a lot of people would listen to that. A lot of people were turned off by the fact that I told investors that they should be vetting operators more thoroughly. I think most people come from residential real estate where it’s not as much money to lose or they know the person personally. So they never learned how to vet someone correctly. But at the end of the day, right now, all the fallout is across the entire industry. And I think that’s unwarranted because there are a lot of people in the industry who are doing things right, who did work really hard to learn the right way to do it, who didn’t jeopardize people’s investments because they safeguarded them, which is the number one responsibility that we are supposed to do. And number two is we do it by operating multifamily. So for me, where I see the parallel is I see a lot of people who used to complain about contractors and have this blanket statement that all contractors are bad, when in reality, the truth is you just don’t know how to vet contractors. A lot of people get turned off by that statement, but they should look at that statement and realize that then they have the power. When you say that all contractors are bad, that means that you are always at the will of the contractor. You don’t have control over the situation. Once you realize that you’re the one who made the mistake hiring the wrong contractor, you can put safeguards in place and learn how to vet contractors more thoroughly so you don’t put yourself in the same predicament. I had friends who decided not to invest with me which is fine but they opted to invest with talking heads online uh what they’re calling is like um what is it called fincelu fincelers like financial influencers um but those folks they are were on social media grandstanding and they believe their follower account dictated the trustworthiness of what they were doing and the credibility. And reality is that you should have vetted them regardless. Some of those folks are good, but some of them aren’t good. So I think the importance is really understanding where you made a mistake and how to fix it as opposed to just pointing fingers at the industry at large.

Well, again, my listeners know this i like i got my butt kicked when the markets crashed in 07 and we lost damn near everything and we had to rebuild and start over and so most of what we do today is because of the hard lessons we learned back then and you mentioned um contractors getting lumped in right like all contractors are bad well the same could be said across the board every time there’s a down market back in 07 08 09 every appraiser was fraudulent every lender was a scam every you know bank you name it right management companies all this stuff well because nobody wants to take responsibility for their own damn actions and their own decisions i lost everything because did i did i get taken advantage of sure was there things that were fraudulent sure but at the end of the day when I made the decisions to do those deals from 2004 until 2007 when it crashed that was my signature on the dotted line that makes it my responsibility to do the vetting and if I don’t know what I don’t know that’s my own fault and here’s the challenge nobody thinks that way anymore nobody barely anybody thought that way back in 07 nobody thinks that way now It’s, you know, there wasn’t social media in 07. Can you imagine if social media was ramped up like it is today when that market crashed in 07? Good Lord. It would have been worse.

Oh, for sure. Absolutely worse than what it was. Yeah. So now everybody can have an opinion without the fear of getting punched in the nose. And when there’s these down markets, it’s always somebody else’s fault. Contractors, management company, fill in the blank. And that is, again, I’m just rambling and getting fired up here, but it just, it drives me crazy when people can’t take responsibility for their own damn actions. So. But I think the power is in the fact that you, you just have to own it. You have to own your mistake. And once you own the mistake, you can move on and figure out what the solution is and how to safeguard yourself from doing that in the future. But when you just stay hyper -focused on the problem and pointing fingers at everyone else, as opposed to looking at yourself first, you lose all power to solve the problem.

Not only that, I would further that in this point, Ashley. When you embrace the fact that you were the one that screwed up and you learned from it, it gives you this feeling of almost like a superhero, right? Like I know where I made my mistakes early in my career, and I know that’s why we went down. But there’s a reason that people now spend money to spend time with me to get educated or just to follow the Generations of Wealth podcast or our masterminds or whatever it is. And it’s not because I went through the last 21 years of my career blaming everybody else for my failures. It’s because we did take responsibility. We learned from it. And now we’re able to help people based off of what we learned as well as helping ourselves. So those that are just pointing the fingers at everybody else saying, feel sorry for me, you’re also missing the point. You’re so busy blaming the rest of the world. There’s opportunity around you every day of your life, but you’re not seeing it because you’re too busy. You’re too busy blaming. So, well, I really enjoyed this conversation, Ashley. You’ve got a wealth of knowledge and so many different avenues. And obviously you’re a thought leader and a leader in the world of women and your book, The Only Woman in the Room. Again, everybody go to Amazon and look that up and take that in. Is there any other way that my listeners can follow you, Ashley?

You can follow me on Instagram at Bad ash Investor. You can also go to BadashInvestor.com and you can link to everything there. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. When we have these unscripted conversations, which is pretty much every one of my shows, time just flies by. Like I’m looking at the clock saying, wow, that’s been a good show. So yeah, thank you so much.

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About Ashley Wilson