Ep 7: Visualize and Actualize the Impossible Dream with Dr. Elaine Stageberg

Join us for Part 1 of a breathtaking conversation with Dr. Elaine Stageberg as she shares how she went from a child growing up in an unstable home with very poor housing conditions to achieving multiple impossible dreams.  She not only became a physician, but also gained financial freedom before she graduated residency.  Along with her husband, she now runs a Real Estate business where she provides safe and clean housing for families in need.   She has the superpower of visualizing seemingly impossible dreams, formulating a plan then actualizing those dreams.

Dr. Elaine Stageberg is a graceful embodiment of the Dare to Dream Physician. She isn't afraid to ask herself probing questions about how she wants to live her life.  She cherishes the freedoms she has gained in her relatively short lifetime: the freedoms of time, money, location and decision.  She is also passionate about helping as many people as possible to gain the same freedoms in their lives.

Learn more about Dr. Elaine Stageberg
On her website Black Swan Real Estate at https://www.blackswan.realestate/
Join her community at https://www.blackswan.realestate/connect


You can sign up for one-on-one life planning at Dare to Dream Physician (https://daretodreamphysician.com)

Transcript

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician podcast. Do I have a treat for our listeners today? Our guest today is Dr. Elaine Stog Berg who is a very wise soul. And I can't wait to have her share her story with our listeners today. She is a psychiatrist who currently resides in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the founder and owner, along with her husband, Nick of black Swan real estate. In addition to being very seasoned real estate investors themselves, they work with dozens of other investors, mostly physicians to help others with their own real estate journeys, through single family homes and large multi-family projects. Dr. Steinberg graduated from Mayo clinic with the psychiatry residency in 2020. And at the young age of 35, she has already reached financial independence. Welcome to this show.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 1:09

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I've had such a great time connecting with you and excited to record this episode for you.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 1:18

The reason why I thought I had to get you on the show was I've been following certain panels that you're in. And then earlier this year at the leverage and growth summit, you're one of the speakers. And you shared your experience about investing in real estate, but there was a line you said in there that really captured me. And you said and this is a paraphrase because I don't have the exact quote, but you said that, you, you feel incredibly blessed because you are living your dream life, right? And I thought, wow, I didn't know how old you were, you look down and and I thought she is someone who is young, younger than I am, and is living her dream life. most physicians are not financially independent, but even, when we get there, when we get to financial independence, I don't think it's automatic that then we start living our dream life. It brings me to one of the questions that we use in the life planning process which was originally written by George kinder, decades ago. I've shared with our listeners in episode three what these three questions. But I'll ask again today. That is, I want you to imagine. That you are financially secure, that you have enough money to take care of your needs now and in the future. And the question is how would you live your life? What would you do with the money? Would you change anything? Let yourself go. Don't hold back on your dreams. Describe a life that is complete. That is richly yours. And so I, I just thought that you're the perfect person to give us at least one vision of how that life is because you're living it. I'm so excited to learn.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 3:02

Yeah. Awesome. That question is such an important question. And I loved when we had a chance to talk about that, that life analysis because I think it gives the human brain such an opportunity to discover and to play with new ideas and to, daydream, and then to put that into visioning and then into planning and then into execution. Like all humans, I was very shaped by my childhood. And without getting into too many of the specifics, I had a pretty challenging upbringing. My parents struggled with substance abuse. My father ultimately died of a drug overdose before I started medical school. Um, And we really struggled with poverty for most of my childhood. I was legally emancipated the week after my 16th birthday. Um, I just was looking around at the adults in my life and felt like I probably had a better chance of success in a different environment. And so made that, that big leap. And I lived in section eight housing and had very little money finished high school, put myself through college. And as I got older, I learned to see that those formative years where I was living, like literally on just a few hundred dollars per month. I mean, Every penny mattered were so important to my journey because it gave me such freedom, freedom to know that any decision I made financially or in my career, or later on in my business as an entrepreneur, There was, there was no further place down than where I had already been. I had already been, I had already lived in such struggle for much of my childhood. And then in my very early adult years when I was living independently. So I was able to explore and to do things that at the time seemed crazy. Like Take out a lot of student loans to put myself through college. And then later take out a lot of student loans to put myself through medical school. Those were things that growing up would have seemed. I mean, It might as well have been, going to the moon, but I was able to have freedom in that decision because I already had such financial struggles. And then I also think that I have really honed the skill of visioning.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 5:34

Hm.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 5:35

And it's something that I would recommend everyone do because it's free. It's easy. It can be done in 60 seconds. If you just literally have one minute in your day and you parked the car at your job and you just sit in the car for one minute before going in for the day, or it can be done for several hours. If you find yourself with a free afternoon and as a child, I really had to hone that skill to survive. So when I saw the adults in my life, making very poor decisions and coming home and toxicant it and fearing for my safety and for the safety of my brother, I had to envision a different future in order to cope with that struggle as a child. And I've learned as an adult, that's my super power because now I can envision things like that. Goals I have for our real estate business or goals I have for our family or goals I have for our charitable giving. I want to give away$10 million in the next 10 years just to I feel silly saying it, but I know that the more I close my eyes and use my mind to envision that future, the more likely it is to become true. Um, So those those formative experiences allowed me to reach financial independence at a very young age. I was in my second year of residency when we reached financial independence and really about a year after that was when we were really comfortable when we could cover everything like health insurance for ourselves. And those sorts of things that people typically get from an employer that are quite expensive when someone is venturing out into the world of financial independence and. The saying, I said it at leverage and gross because I say it quite often is every day I get to wake up and live in full alignment of my dreams. And it's such a freeing feeling that if anything ever feels heavy, it feels like I don't want to do it anymore. Or it's not where my purpose in life lies or the highest and best use of my time. I can let it go. And I can choose to just focus on the things that I really want to focus on, which right now is enjoying my family, growing my real estate business and helping as many other people as possible, get this financial freedom through real estate investing that I've enjoyed because it's been so life changing and I can do it in a way where I don't have to think about it. Paying the bills with my family or meeting any certain financial metrics or anything because all of that is already taken care of. Um, I think about the freedoms of time and money and location and decision. And when someone has those four freedoms, they're really able to do whatever they want with their human life and through a lot of what I've just talked about. And then also just a lot of grace I've been blessed with those freedoms at a relatively young age, and now just want as many people as possible to share in those freedoms as well. I love that you're doing this podcast to expose this message to as many people as possible so that other people can see real life human beings. I'm a mom, I'm a wife, there's Cheerios all over the floor. My car is a mask. I yell at my kids. It has been an ice squabble like, but other people can see. Real life humans and know that it's possible. The dare to dream. I love your tagline. It's just amazing.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 9:11

Wow. Thank you. There's so many gems in there that I want to unpack some of it, but wow. Just so amazing. See I knew that's why I had to get you on my podcast. Cause every word you say is just breathing out wisdom. You said you were a child, you were living in a very a difficult childhood, a lot of instability, a lot of insecurity. And you said that the one thing that you could do was just to visualize a different life to imagine, to start to, to dream of this different life. How old were you when you did this?

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 9:42

I didn't really start figuring out that's what I was doing until I was in high school, but I remember doing it very early, probably as early as six or seven or eight. And sometimes it would be very simple. So if, things were hectic at home and maybe there was yelling or discomfort or something like that. I would just envision a nicer time I had maybe I would envision going to the pool with my friends or something like that. So just displacing my mind to a happier place. And then in high school, I really had to start thinking about what was life going to look like after high school for me. And when I looked around at my family members, I didn't see much opportunity there. And so I had to envision a very different life path for myself of going to college. And at that time, never could I have imagined going to first graduate school and then medical school. But I had great adults in my life like guidance, counselors and teachers, and the importance of models is so important of someone who has been on that path before, who can help you envision the future, who can ask probing questions like. What about this? Or have you thought about that? Or what would your perfect dream be? At the time I was so naive and I had so little guidance for my family to remember. I didn't have a difference between undergraduate education and graduate education. And this was when I was like a sophomore in high school. And I was like who wants to do under anything? I just want to go straight to grad school.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 11:23

Oh, I love it.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 11:25

So to have models to, to just even, teach the basics of this is what it's like to take the sat or to apply to college or to apply for scholarships. And then it really became powerful when I had finished undergrad, I had then gone on to graduate school and I was working and I worked for a very wonderful developmental and behavioral pediatrician, Dr. Laura McGwynn. And she really had such a gift for teaching me the power of visioning. And, she asked why didn't you go to medical school? And I would say, oh, no, I'm not good enough for medical school or kids from, families like mine, don't go to medical school or, I'm not rich enough to go to medical school or any of the other, millions of limiting beliefs. And remember. So distinctly the night we were at her house having dinner, which was extremely gracious. I was an employee of hers and I said something to that effect, a limiting belief about my potential. And she said she and her husband were physicians. And she said you're here having dinner with physicians. What makes you think you couldn't be one of us?

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 12:35

Wow.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 12:36

And it was just such a powerful moment. And that was like really the first time that I had a conscious understanding of the power of visualization. And if I could just see myself as belonging in that group or reaching whatever goal I set myself to, then I could make it happen.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 12:53

That is really wonderful. And then, like you said it's free. It doesn't cost anything to do this. I'm trying to think of the other millions of pearls that you've already dropped that I want to also unpack more. Okay. So you had this very financially scars upbringing and now you are, financially independent. Like you said, you went to undergrad, you went to grad school, you went to medical school and those required loans. And I think a lot of our listeners can relate to that, right? Oftentimes that's actually a burden. I've found myself with a big burden when I had, about a quarter million dollars in loans at 6.8%. And the only way to pay it back is to, go the traditional route to finish my residency and to get a job as a physician, because I didn't see any other way I felt like I was digging myself in a bigger hole by taking on these loans. And so you had education, but you didn't only rely on your education to get to where you are now. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 13:51

Yeah. Excellent question. So I started real estate investing the year before I started medical school. So I was 24. At that time. I started medical school a little bit later because I had gone to graduate school and then I'd worked for a couple of years and I always I'm always very transparent with people that I was extremely reluctant to start real estate investing. I owned a home. I had bought a home while I was in graduate school and then I met my husband and he also owned a home and we decided to move into his home. It was a little bit bigger and I very much wanted to sell the home that I lived in. He did not, he wanted to rent it. And this was in 2011. And if you think back to what was happening in 2011, the real estate market was the exact opposite of where it is today in 2021 prices were low home, sat on the market for a long time. I had use like a first-time homeowner program. So I had purchased my home with very little money down. So if I had needed to sell it, I would have needed to bring a lot of money to the closing table to close that transaction. And my husband basically said why don't we give it a try? And I said, okay, quite like that with a sigh, you know, definitely like I was not excited. I didn't want to do it. And then within about a year, I actually really liked it. Um, So I was able to see that the tenants were taking great care of that property. We knew the property quite well, so maintaining, it was fairly easy. It was something that we were able to do and add value to. We didn't have children at the time. It was, this was the year before I started medical school. So we had more free time. And whenever there was a little maintenance call or landscaping needed to happen or something, it was something we could do together to feel like we were accomplishing something. Our mortgage was going down as we continued to pay the mortgage. And then the value is going up because the market was improving around that time. So then we decided to purposefully invest and we saved up all of our money. It was slow going at the time. My husband was working. I had quit working to start medical school. So we were a one income family. And I share that to be, again, an example of what is possible. I will often hear people say I'm just primary care or I'm just a pediatrician or some sort of other limiting belief. And listen, I get it right. Like I just shared some very serious limiting beliefs that I myself have had. The whole time my husband and I were investing we never had a household income up of over$150,000. And most of it was under six figures for much of those years. So we bought a fixer upper. It was a home that had been vacant for nine years. It was a foreclosure. Basically everything in it needed to be replaced except the foundation and the walls. And we did most of that ourselves. Again, this was pre-children. We had a little more time on our hands. We didn't have as much money, so we needed to bring the labor ourselves. And I would say that was really when I was bit by the real estate bug, because I was able to see with my own eyes, this home that had been vacant for nine years had been all boarded up and bring it back to life and get so much reward from the neighbors who would come and say, who are you guys? And what are you doing? And we're so excited that now we get to live in a neighborhood that doesn't have a boarded up house in it. And then uh, a single mother and her three children moved into that home. They ended up living there for about five years and it just felt so nice to see, real life human beings that were benefiting from a nice fixed up house in a good neighborhood. And I thought I was just want to do this as much as I possibly can. And from an investment perspective, the business plan that we use is to purchase a distressed property renovated, and then in doing so that improves the value. And so then we're able to get, what's called a cash out, refinance mortgage from the bank to get that bucket of money back, have a mortgage on that property that is paid for by the tenants rent, and then take that bucket of money and do it over and over again, we just kept doing that. And along the way, our business processes improved. We had great relationships with our contractors, our skilled tradespeople, like our heating and air conditioning person, our plumber, those sorts of things. We built systems and processes around leasing. So then we started working with passive investors where people would invest money in our business. We would use that money to purchase these homes, renovate them and pay a fixed 10% interest rate to our investors. Once we had a bigger bucket of money, we were able to buy and renovate more homes more quickly, and then just continuing to snowball so much like anything in life. Investing and entrepreneurship is very much a snowball. It takes on a life of its own and we just kept growing. Then my husband became a real estate agent. We made the cost, but exciting decision for him to leave his career as a technologist to run our company. We created a property management company to manage our own properties. Then people started coming to us and saying, I see you're buying all these homes and it looks like you're managing them really well. Will you buy one for me? So that's how we started working with investors, doing single family homes. And then, again, just growing organically and then people would come to us and say, I'd like to do like a larger project. So we've done several larger projects now, like a whole neighborhood of town homes, several apartment complexes. And it just all has grown very organically but rooted in a desire to improve housing, a desire to provide good, safe, high quality housing. We've coupled that with extremely good customer service. So both my husband and I, my husband had. Similar childhood to mine. And we both have lived in housing and that was in poor repair. And I remember living in a house with open sewage in the basement and my parents would call the property owner time and time again. And we just basically got no help. And we were young kids. We were like five and six years old and there was sewage in our home. And my parents as renters had little ability to really do anything about that. And those experiences have totally shaped our property management company. We strive to have exceptional customer service, extremely high standards for maintenance and just give people the housing experience that, that everybody wants to be treated fairly, to have a wonderful home to live in. And so just this really beautiful relationship in the universe. Adding value and giving value. And then it always when you put out value and purpose into the universe, it always finds its way back.

audio_only_1_16778242_Weili_Gray 20:44

I just got tingles in my spine and my body listening to that. How you come back full circle from when you were a young child living in section eight, housing or living in housing that was in very poor condition. And now you're able to provide housing to similar families. So similar kids that just amazing. This is also a relatively new concept for me, because I was not raised in a family with, entrepreneurs and for a long time, I thought of entrepreneurship as like a, almost like a dirty word, like only sleazy people become business. People only sleazy people, do this. And the reason why they're doing it is to make quick money or to, at least make money off of, other people's suffering. It was just maybe two years ago, I was introduced to the conscious capitalism movement. The idea that, business can be source of good for the world. And this is exactly what you and your husband are doing.

audio_only_1_16779266_Elaine_Stageberg 21:45

Yeah, there's a, another book that I love. It's called the soul centered entrepreneur. And I totally agree with you about some of those limiting beliefs around the entrepreneurship. I remember when I was in my late teenage years, I worked at a restaurant and I had a good relationship with the manager. And one day I said, Hey, Betty, what's your husband? Do. And she said, he's an entrepreneur. And I remember thinking at the time, of course I didn't say it to her, but I remember thinking, oh, that means he's unemployed. And I think some of it is a cultural shift away from the eighties and nineties of more and more gimme gimme materialism that our culture is shifting more toward really adding value and doing so in a way that's good for other humans. That's good for employees. That's good for the environment. Good business practices lead to profitability and they lead to happy employees and happy customers. But then also as I've leaned more into entrepreneurship, really having the belief that, we'll talk about housing since that's the area of entrepreneurship that I'm in, that someone has to provide housing, It'd be provided by someone and it might as well be me. And it might as well be with the values that I want to lead in business. And I have an opportunity to do that. And then as my business grew, I've developed more of a sense of I have an obligation to do this. This is for whatever reason, this is what I was put on earth to do, which is surprising because I've trained as a psychiatrist. And before that got a degree in business. And before that got a degree in biology, never would I have imagined that I would be a real estate investor in a real estate developer.

23:27

Okay everybody. How amazing. Was Dr. Elaine stock birth story. Before I end today's episode. I just want to point out how Dr. Elaine stock Berg is such a graceful embodiment of the dare to dream physician. She has the three hallmark qualities that we discussed in episode one, who is a dare to dream physician. Number one. No yourself. Doctors dog Berg takes the energy to really know herself. Even as a child, she knew she was more than the immediate circumstances that surround her. And every step along the way in her growth journey. She asked herself probing questions so she could stay true to her own values and formulate her own vision. Number two. Is grow yourself. Starting as a very young child. Living in an unstable family. In poverty-stricken conditions. Dr. Elaine was living in housing where there was open sewage. End. As a young child, she started practicing. Visualization. She visualized eight better reality. And then as she grew up. She took steps in high school and college and beyond to actualize those dreams. At one point, she didn't even dare to dream. Of becoming a physician. Even in college and after college. And it was only until she met a mentor. Who happened to be a physician? That she sought out later who helped Realize that what she thought was the Wasn't so out of reach. And her mentor asked her. What makes you think you couldn't be one of us? And Dr. Elaine stock bird answered. Not only that. She went way beyond and also became an entrepreneur while in medical school and residency. And through her entrepreneurial pursuits. By the second year of her residency, she had already achieved financial independence. And I just get chills thinking about how she has now at the young age of 35 come full circle. Or her business, black Swan real estate is able to provide safe and clean housing to families that were just like hers. So their kids don't have to live in such an environment that Dr. Elaine grew Number three. Is love abundance flow out of yourself. Dr. Steinberg could have just stopped at financial independence. But she continues to make it her life mission to help others. Did you hear her goal to give away$10 million in the next 10 And she said that she is. Making this goal and speaking the school out loud, even though. It sounds like a stretch, even though it makes her She's also passionate about helping others reach the same financial independence goals. I can tell you just from my interactions with Dr. Steinberg, she has been so generous with her time with her knowledge and with her energy. She really just radiates abundance and generosity. By being who she is, she is truly creating a world that is more abundant and she is inspiring others to be generous. So I hope you got as much value and wisdom as I have. Out of this episode. And in fact, our conversation was so good. And she gave us so many pearls that I decided to make it into two parts. So believe it or not next week, we have part two of her interview. I promise it's going to be just as amazing, just as inspiring. If not more. Then part one of her interview. So stay tuned and i look forward to having you join us again In the meantime, you can find Dr. Elaine Steinberg on her website, black Swan real estate. That's at black swan dot real she also has a mailing list and a facebook group you can join i will leave the links for you in the show notes