873. How She Bridged the Gap Between Poverty and Prosperity

Lisa Phillips

“I wasn’t alone. This was during the 2009 meltdown where everyone was going through foreclosure, where everyone was losing their job. But, because of knowing it wasn’t just me, I was able to release the guilt and the shame around it.”

In the recession of 2009, Lisa Phillips lost her job and then her home to foreclosure. She was left with a $35,000 condo and only enough money to renovate the place doing the work herself to stretch her unemployment check. She clearly had reached the bottom, an electrical engineer with no job, coping with her new reality. She came upon a strategy of owning inexpensive rental properties for cash flow that was possible, even when a traditional mortgage was not obtainable. As her strategy started to show consistent results she started teaching others about it on her platform, Affordable Real Estate Investments.

The Most Impactful Turning Point?

In 2006 Lisa bought her first house at the top of the Las Vegas market. By 2008 it was worth less than half of its value because of the real estate crash, and the year after that she got laid off. After many tries she got a job in Ohio. She rented out her house and bought a condo in her new city, with a mortgage payment of about $350 a month plus the cost of repairs. A year later she got laid off again, and the house in Las Vegas went into foreclosure. At that point, she really appreciated and loved the safety that the low-cost condo was providing her in a pinch and she decided to try to create a system and find more properties like this. When she got her next job, she bought a house in Baltimore to fix up. Then she did the same in Virginia and started telling other people about these properties, which richer investors were passing over. And that’s how her real estate platform got started.

The Most Powerful Lessons and Experiences?

1) I got an electrical engineering degree just because I was fascinated with the creation and the experimentation side of being an electrical engineer. I actually ended up not going into the field because it just didn’t have the excitement and fun I wanted. I jumped into a consulting job with IBM. They appreciated the engineering degree and I was made a technical consultant.

2) The engineering background does give you an analytical mindset that helps in other endeavors or careers other than electrical engineering.

3) Right before 2009, which was a very scary recession, I had a rude awakening. I’m sending out applications and no one is responding back. The engineering degree that I worked so hard for did not assure me of a job during these hard times.

4) Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert T. Kiyosaki, had a very profound effect on me by letting people know that you may be thinking a certain way because you’re born into poverty. This book is how you start breaking down those thoughts and go for what you want.

5) Having passive income from the real estate investing and the online business gave me the opportunity for the last three years to go internal, go spiritual, find out who I am and what my purpose is. I found that what I did in real estate investing was definitely phase one of my purpose, to help bridge the gap between poverty and prosperity for people who come to my real estate investing channel. Phase two I have found is that I am a healer. So I do healings with people. It’s very deep, very powerful. That’s my gift and that’s what I’m here to do.