Hey ba fam, It's time for another Hollaback Monday woo woop. This week, we're looking back at some of our favorite episodes from days past for memorable guests who unforgettable moment.
There's still so much to learn from the b A Vault. Take listen, Willia.
Hey, hey ba fam. I am so excited to introduce you to my guests this week. You may have seen her on your favorite channel and mind, HGTV. Page Turner is the incredible host of HGTV series Fix My Flip.
But beyond being an incredible host and real estate entrepreneur, she is in general a multi time entrepreneur, real estate broker, flipping expert, executive producer, TV host, vision strategist, and the founder of EGAP real Estate and Do the Work Inc. After working for many many years under the tutelage of humanitarians such as you know, Magic Johnson, No Big Deal. Paige is a self started and successful entrepreneur that has been a real estate broker, flipper and investor for two decades.
She's also a published author. You can check out her book The Go Life on Amazon, and she owns her own company Do the Work, Inc. And BLW Productions. She's the co creator and executive producer and host of her not one, but second hit HGTV show, Fix My Flip, and Paige Turner is here with us today. I'm Brown ambition Welcome.
To the show. Hey Mandy, Hey Brown Ambitioners. How are you guys?
You know, thriving, surviving all that? All of that and more so much? Tell me about so real estate flipping had such had such a huge I feel like I don't know, it was like part of everyone's fantasy, like I want to buy real estate and flip real estate over the past decade and then the pandemic hit, and I would love to talk to you about, like what does the real estate market look like now for people who are looking at it and saying like flipping sounds like a great you know, mine could be fun, can
be profitable, all that, but people are maybe freaked out by what the last couple of years have been like for the real estate market. How has it been for you? And let's just start that.
I love that you said that flipping can be fun, because that's the first myth.
It's not spending money might be fun, but the.
Flipping process that sometimes and most times is what keeps people from getting into the real estate industry. This is a business mistake number one. Thinking it's the real estate game. It's gonna be fun, and I'm like, m mmmm, the fun is interesting. You know, it gets fun at the end, you know, especially when you can sell the house.
But you know, to get in real estate right now.
I think at any time that somebody is ambitious enough to enter into the real estate field is the right time for them. Because real estate, no matter if we're in a high like we are now or a low like back in two thousand and seven during the recession, real estate is always selling. So it's really about your perseverance, it's really about your business plan, and it's really about what your purpose is for being in real estate.
That's the first question.
Yeah, right, So you can tell which one of us is the real estate investor in which one of us, and which one of us sits on the couch and watches HDTV and thinks that looks like fine, it's unglamorous. Is that what you're telling me?
Well, you know, this is the thing depending on who you are. When I'm old school, my mother raised me old school. My mother and my grandmother were back in the days where you dressed up to get on an airplane and you did not wear a scarf and some sweats and some flip flops. Okay, they wore heels, their pearls, and had their hats on. So wherever I go, I'm going to come with some glam. Okay, I don't care if I'm just running out to the store. That's because
that's how I was taught. Because you never know who you're gonna run into. So there is a glam in this business, but it's it's roll up your sleeves because you're putting down more money than you'll probably ever put in any one investment at one time in your life. So you have to keep that mindset. That why we see that it's so pretty on TV. It's a straight up business that you can either excel in or fail.
And it's either or well, let's bring me back. It's either or there is no in between. You're either going to sink or Asplam got it, cut throat. Well, tell me how you got your start in real estate? Was that your was that always your goal? You know when it came to your career.
No, I actually wanted to be like a music manager. Mobile I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't write anything, but I can connect people and I know great talent. So I wanted to be in the music industry. But then I happened to have three little babies, all by the time I was twenty three, all under the age of I was twenty three. I actually when I have my twins, and I said, well, you know, although I was born into a family of entrepreneurs, this is really
all I know. I still tried, and then it just wasn't working from my pocketbook like I needed to as a manager, and I just and I also working for Magic Johnson. So I worked long story short, I worked for him in all of the different departments he has in Magic Johnson Enterprises, and one of them was Magic Johnson Development, where we were going into urban areas and finding places to build black owned movie theaters owned by him.
And so at that time, Ken Lombard was his vice president, told me, you should get your real estate license because if we're buying this land, you might as well be the one selling it to us. Well, then I ended up moving to Nashville because I just couldn't.
Afford LA any longer.
I was going to be poor with my three children, and I was like, oh, no, I can't be poor. So I went to Nashville, lived there for twenty years and say, you know what, I'm going to get my license and so because I remember what Ken told me, and so I did, and I think flipping became natural, just a natural progression as an entrepreneur in the real estate industry. Not every realtor does that, and not every
realtor wants to. But for me, I'm all about the streams because I don't put all my eggs in one basket, you know, I have several baskets just to make sure income exactly. So that's how I got into flipping. It was just a part of my journey naturally.
So you had how many so you were you had a traditional sort of nine to five corporate career and then was flipping your which you have called it a side hustle at the time.
Well, I've never had a corporate career. I've always worked for entrepreneurs. I worked for Spike Lee that I worked for Magic Johnson, and so when we say nine to five corporate, it wasn't it wasn't a nine to five corporate.
You know, we were going to parties.
We worked really, really hard, but you know, I was working for a legend, so it was a lot different. And then I jumped into real estate full time. That's something else we have to just kind of stop saying,
Mandy the real estate hustle. I'm coming in and I'm changing mindsets, because in order for minorities to understand how much wealth there is in real estate and how we can close that gap, that wealth gap, we have to understand that it's a real business, and it takes a lot of time, a lot of tears for me, a lot of money, and a lot of wherewithal to run your business if you want to make it as your full time business.
So I went from working with.
Magic Johnson and right into real estate and it worked because I worked it.
Yeah, I mean talking about working for not necessarily traditional corporations. You're working for moguls and their own right, self made mocals. How did you end up working for the likes of Magic Johnson, Spike Lee? How did those relationships start?
What's cool about growing up in Los Angeles You kind of know somebody who knows somebody who knew somebody who can connect you with somebody. So it's like just you know, in la is not as big as people think it is. So my father was the first black optometrist that owned the first black optical business in Los Angeles, and it was called Page Optical, and it was right in the
heart of the Crenshaw district and community. And he designed all of those big glasses for the stars Black Hollywood, Stevie Wonder and Sammy Davis Junior with the rhinestones on them, the big square glasses that are back in style now. And you know, just by that virtue of my father knowing everybody in Black Hollywood. You know, I grew up with one of Quincy Jones' daughters. You know, you name it, I I know somebody. And that's how I started working
for for Irvin. I was working at Spike Lee had a clothing store out here and I was the assistant marketing director. We back in the day, it was called Spike's Joint West. You remember when Spike Lee's cloth We might be too young to remember that, but he had a clothing line.
And right clothing line. It was a huge clothing believer.
You have to believe it. It was amazing. And so she wanted to leave there my boss did. Her name was Taylor Michaels. She became my mentor, and she ran into like Denzel Washington, who owned a restaurant on Melrose. He was like, hey, you know, Magic's looking for some people to start this, you know, his medic John's Enterprises. She was like, okay, I'll call him. That's la right, I'll call him. So she called him and then she brought me along as her assistant, and then I grew in the company.
Now okay, so he really had gotten in when it was a startup.
Yeah, what yeah, because I led the Jowson Foundation and then I just came when he started Magic Johnson Enterprises.
What were some of the lessons or I mean, I imagine as you were working how many years with Magic Johnson was it was about seven? Seven years? I mean, did you always know I'm going to have my own I mean, obviously you wanted your different income streams, but did you always know you know, I'm working, I'm supporting him, but I'm going to own my own brand, my own company someday.
I did you know?
Looking back, I was twenty five twenty maybe twenty three to twenty seven when I was working for him, and no, No twenty one. I guess I used to so embarrassed sometimes I used to give him proposals on record labels. You know, I was just trying to figure out how to get out of this quote nine to five with him still you know, with me still in toe next to him, but saying, listen, let me go start my own thing.
You fund it, I'll run it.
You know. So I knew, I knew that, you know, I was there. It was a blessing. While I was there, I learned so much. He is a brilliant into businessman. I still have communication with him, you know. Right before the pandemic started, we were working on something really amazing just about the sign of the paperwork. Than the pandemic hit, so that's kind of derailed it a little bit. But most importantly, he taught me about relationships, you know, relationships,
being resourceful and winning, you know, winning. He knows who he is when he walks in a room, and he knows the value that that has.
Part of me is so happy to hear about a black woman who managed to find the kind of environment where she could thrive and be poured into, you know, by people in business, because I feel like with through brown ambition I've met and even in my own work, you know, I coach a lot of women through their careers, and so many of us are out there just like starving for those connections and those those places where we
can thrive. And I feel like, what's inspirational about your story is, you know, you do talk about those relationships. And for people who are maybe thinking, okay, well do I got to know Magic Johnson to be successful? What would you say to someone who's feeling okay, understand relationships, but what if the people that are within arm's reach of me don't necessarily have the means or the space for me to learn and to grow as a business person.
Well, they're okay. So that's a great question, and it's super layered. That was absolutely a once in a lifetime opportunity that landed in my lap that I said absolutely yes, right, And I was young, so I really didn't even know the power of Magic Johnson then, because I was twenty one, I think, and I grew into like, wow, I was like, I should have never left, you know, I should have
stayed with him, because entrepreneurialism is no joke. But this is what I would say, you have to swim upstream a lot of times to find that connection, to find those circles. And remember I said a few minutes ago, it's about relationship. Even if you live in Nebraska, there's somebody who knows somebody to get you to where you want to be. Now, you might have to pivot, you might have make you turns, you might have to go through some you know, stop, don't go this way, you know,
go the other way. But there's somebody wherever you need to go. You have to are building relationships to get there. And that comes from me, from serving. You know, I built strong relationships authentically and I did not mind starting as a receptionist at Magic Johnson Enterprises. You know, now I think we have more. This generation has a very microwave mentality where it's going to happen overnight and it never does. You know, there is a ten year process.
Ten years. You see these overnight sensations on TikTok and people think I want that, I want that. But if you really I'm sure if you really dig into their story and there are those successes, there are those you know, like how did that happen? You know, of course we have those, but the overnight. Success when you're building a
business is never overnight, you know. So I would say to that person who might be in the middle of nowhere and wants to, you know, stretch their arms across the lakes and meet the likes of a Magic Johnson, Let's say you just have to start working towards it and swimming towards it, and start connecting with people in your business and your industry, and just start moving up.
It will happen. You hear the stories all the time. It happened for me.
I'm a single mom three kids, and I was working for one of the greatest wonders in the world.
Yeah, And honestly, if you even take out the name Magic Johnson, what you really did was you followed your
gut and you invested in personal relationships. So forgetting even that the person, you know, you happen to be working for was this extremely famous celebrity and you know, quite successful and all of that, you were just a woman who got a job and impressed the hell out of her boss it sound like, you know, and the people that she worked around cultivated those relationships so that when you were branching out into your you know, your real estate, business.
I'm sure because of those relationships you could lean on people for support, advice, guidance and relationships. Relationships you are listening, That's what I'm talking about all the time. People matter. There's this connotation that it's like schmoozing or like this negative you know. Oh, I'm you know, making relationships. I can get something out of people, you know, and in a way that I don't know why we have that perception that building relationships can be somewhat nefarious, but it
can also be beautiful. You mentioned service and how to add value the same as much value as you were asking people to give you in return. And I think that's the I mean, would you agree that's like the secret to having those relationships where it's not purely you know, transaction.
I think the secret is not making it a secret.
I think that your heart has to be pure, and you have to have a servant's heart first, you know. And so when I say serving, if that means that you're going to get somebody some water, you know, you have to and there's nothing behind it other than I honor you and I respect you because I'm following your curve. Success leaves clues. So there's no reason why you would not want to go serve people. But if you don't have a servant's heart, it's never going to work for you.
Right Like I led with service, I led with yes, it was my job. But I also understood I didn't know this term back then. Of course we didn't have it. I understood the assignment of who I was working for and I honored that, so it was natural. So that's why I can call mister Johnson's office now, Hey, can I set up a meeting with Irvan?
And the answer is yes.
And I haven't worked for him for twenty two years, but I kept that relationship going because I honored him and Cookie and their children, you know. And I was there when they adopted Elisa in the chambers at the courthouse, you know, their daughter, So that means something not everybody's not going to have that.
This is so true. Everybody's not going to have that.
But there is a way where you can go into an industry and shake hands with people and just tell them I would like to work for you, and I'm here to serve.
What can I do?
Because success leaves clues and there's I don't need to create. There's nothing new under the sun. So anything we want to do has already been done, is just being done your way, but you have to learn first how to do it.
Well.
Well, talk to me about so you're getting your realtor license, that's where you started, right when you did, you set out to start, I'm going to start a real estate business, And talk to me about what that looked like for people who are listening. I think I was speaking about flipping houses as like, oh, maybe buy a house, fix it up, and you know, take a year or two years. But you were like, no, no, this is going to be a business. It's not going to be one property.
It's going to be dozens or I don't know how many hundreds of properties. What was your approach to that and how did you build it all these years?
Well, starting in two thousand and three, I was a realtor. I got my license. I was just selling houses and I had to learn the business. And guess what I had. I had a mentor. I found a woman that looks like me, that speaks like me, that understands me.
She had a small business.
So I didn't go to a big box, you know, I did for about two weeks. I take that back I did in two thousand and three for two weeks, and I found that nobody at that big box franchised real estate brokerage even looked at me twice. So then I sought out Nazarene Frasier Southern Realtors, and I said,
I want to come and work for you. I will run your errands will because you have a big house, you have a Cadillac truck when they first came out, and I want to be who you are and even better, you know, so please, whatever you need me to do, I'll put out yard signs. So I put my license with her. She became one of my first mentors. That's how it started. So in two thousand and three, you have to have your real estate license three years before you can become a broker if you don't have your
college degree, which I don't have. So I had to wait three years then. And she always knew that, because of how I grew up with entrepreneurs, that my next you know, journey, was going going to be opening my own brokerage, which was EGAP real Estate. So that's what I did in two thousand and six, and by that time, now I'm a broker.
Now I'm a broker owner.
Now I'm a black woman who owns my own brokerage, one of the first in Nashville, because Nashville is real small back then, and I said, okay, what else is going on in real estate? You know I need to learn more? You know you have to if you you have to learn every day something new about your business.
Yes, I'm a real estate expert.
But if you could see my desk right now, I have at least fifteen printouts. When I see articles, I just start printing them out so I can read them. You have to stay hungry for knowledge. Even when you are the expert, there's still somebody who knows more than you.
Okay, I will be right back with more from my conversation with Page Turner, the entrepreneur executive producer of HGTV show Fix My Flip. All right, I'm back. Here's more from my conversation with the incredible Page Turner from HGTVS Fix My Flip. So you started out, I love that mentor getting mentorship and finding it in a small boutique. It sounds like real estate broker, I did. I love that because you even recognize that when you're in a when you're a bigger fish in a smaller bowl. You
just get that. You get that attention and you get to you hear more.
It's a lot smaller.
You get to hear and observe and absorb so much more. That's brilliant. So when you when did you feel like you were ready? You said two thousand and six. So me, I started. I started covering finance as a journalist around two thousand and nine. And we all know what happened in that three year period of the real estate market was probably a scary time to be in it.
So what was that?
How did you weather the Great Recession in the housing crisis as a budding you know, real estate broker yourself?
Well, it was horrible. I fouled bankruptcy. I had to turn in my brand new escalade that I did get. I sure did get that beautiful escalade.
What her name, Quincy?
Her name was, oh, I forgot her name, but she was beautiful. We named my daughter's here, we named all of our cars. She was a beautiful escalade. And I owned a home and I had these three little babies. So it was either give back my escalade or make the mortgage payments. So, you know, I called cadillact like, hey, meet me around the corner because I live on a cul de sac and my neighbors are nosy and I'm just gonna give this truck back to you.
So it was horrible, and.
I said to my mom, well, should I go work at the post office? I've never had a job before, like, I've never had this corporate job that you mentioned before, and I'm in Nashville. We at that time, we didn't have big celebrities to go work for. So what was I gonna do? And my mother said, Paige, there are many many ways to continue to make money in real estate. Keep digging, keep praying, and go find them. And I
came across foreclosures. So guess what happened. I became the foreclosure listing agent queen for HUD and I had that contract for ten years and I made a ton of money during the recession.
So that first year two thousand and seven to two thousand.
And eight was horrible, horrible, and I was freaking out and I was just, you know, just take making sure my babies had food, that's in paying my mortgage. That's all I cared about, and that's all I could really do. And then this opportunity came up, which is what my book is about. Go life, seizing your greatest opportunity now, and you have to go find these opportunities. Sometimes they're not just gonna come. You can't be the best kept secret.
It's not a thing.
You have to get out there and find what you need to take care of yourself and your family.
So I weathered that storm.
For just over a year, got the HUD contract, and I was a HUD listing queen in Nashville for ten years. And it put my babies through private school during the recession. It put them through college during the recession, and I didn't have a diamond child support. So real estate and then flipping too, also buying properties during that time, it
wasn't a big bubble. So these people making two and three hundred thousand dollars off these flips, making ten and twenty thousand was normal then, and that's still a lot of money.
So HUD Okay, not the not where I thought that story was going to end up. But how did that contract? How did you? And I'm loving the twists and terms of this. Also single mom with three baby girls, I mean I was raised by a single mom, so I'll bow down to huh and I will say, oh, nothing like being the daughter of a strong single mom. I bet your kids are phenomenal. So tell me about that HUD contract. How did that come to be and what did that look like?
Well, so a lot of times people think HUD is just Section eight. You know, HUD is you know, housing urban development, so it covers all things related to housing that the government is part of, but not just low income housing. That means as you would know, that means FAHA loan, So everything is governed under HUD as it pertains to FAHA loans. And a foreclosed property with HUD is an FHA loan that's been defaulted. You know, the person could and pay, so the house goes into foreclosure.
But how that came about is I was scouring the internet like what am I going to do with my life in real estate? Because even here's the here's the other side of having a mentor who's part of a small boutique company and learning from them, it doesn't always mean you capture everything.
So in hindsight, I.
Should have learned from her and then also learned from those branchises as well, because they really like the remaxes of the world.
You know, the Keller Williams of the world.
They're really running the industry, right, we hear it, we you know, get the information fizzled down to us.
But so looking back, I didn't even know what a recession was.
But had I been paying a little bit more attention, I would have been prepared more for that curve that really, that curve ball that came and knocked us all out during the recession.
Looking at the Internet, I.
Saw a small blurb, it was just as big as eight font that said hudd is looking for listing agents.
And I said, what does that mean? I didn't even know what that meant. But I knew I was an agent.
I knew I was a broker, and I knew I was black, which means what there are minority contracts that they have to give out. They have to give a certain percentage to black and brown people. And I thought, hmm, and I'm a woman, this is this all night work. So I clicked on it, and I kept looking and digging and looking, and they were looking for proposals. I still didn't know what it meant, but I sent one in and I got it. Being a woman, being a black woman and being a broker owner, I was a
triple threat. They were exactly what the quota that they needed I could fill. So in Nashville, in my area, they selected me and I stayed part of that HUD family, which it wasn't family, but that group because it's the government.
So you know, for ten years, what were you what was your experience? Like I mean, you were basically listing foreclosed properties and then selling them to who, to real estate investor.
To buyers or investors as well. So what HUD does. HUT is not a real estate brokerage. So when a house goes do you want to hear all this? Okay? So when a house goes into foreclosure from an FAH loan, So let's say I'm Bank of America and you Mandy own a house that you purchase with an FAH loan and unfortunately you went into default and now I have to come and take as Bank of America take the
house back due to foreclosure. Well, because you purchase that home with an FAHA loan, that means HUD, the government is going to ensure that loan for Bank of America. Otherwise, if it wasn't insured by HUD, that house is now going to go into my red book, and now I'm losing money, and now my bank's going to go upside down instead, HUD says, because I'm insuring this house with Mandy's loan, I'm going to take that off your books and put it in a little HUD holding holding zone
in the sky. But because HUD's not a real estate broker, they hire and select con They give contracts to asset managers. The asset managers then find via a proposal and select the HUD listing agents. So I was boots on the ground. I go in the house, I secure the house after foreclosure, when the when the previous owner has moved out, after default, secure the house, list the house, market the house, sell the house. So that's two investors, and that's to the
general public as well. And actually that's what HUD wants to resell to owner occupants because that is what keeps the market going.
Not investors, which is why our market's so high right now.
Yeah, And I mean, having been in real estate for so long's it's similar to investing. I mean there's going to be these dips. I mean, obviously the two thousand and seven eight crisis was more than a dip. It was like a seismic event. But do you feel like your tolerance for those how are you sort of that tolerance?
How important is that for the risk involved and for understanding that there's going to be these like ups and downs, and how has that informed the way that you approach your business at your business ventures.
Now, I'll tell you what an old gentleman told me. I was showing a house in like two thousand and see the markets started coming back, so might have been twenty sixteen, and I couldn't believe that a house that was literally in Nashville one hundred and fifty thousand one day. The next day was three hundred thousand, literally, And I was standing outside of the house while the buyers were walking through by themselves. I like to give my clients a little space sometimes, And I was saying to the
listing agent who had to be there to show. I said, I just can't believe this house is three hundred thousand. I feel kind of bad because I know a couple months ago it was only one fifty. And he said to me, young lady, I've been in real estate for almost fifty years. He said, there are peaks and valleys in real estate. That will always happen highs and lows. When it's high, you ride it. When it's low, he said, when it's high, you sell and you save, and when
it's low, you bye bye bye. He said, So this is what happens. It's the nature of real estate. And I never forgot that. So when we're high, you do all you can in real estate and save all you can so that when we're low you can buy everything up. And it sounds horrible, and I said that because as a foreclosure listing agent for so long, if you think about it, I was selling the homes of people who lost their homes, which is horrible, but some Number one, somebody had to do it.
Number two, it's business.
And number three, I do have a different mindset behind people who go into foreclosure. Not everybody, but there is a mindset there, and a lot of people are just uneducated of what they can do when they're in trouble with the house. That's another podcast, so I could come back and talk to you about that another day. So you know, I tell people that there's highs and lows in real estate and that's just the nature of it. So my when I'm walking into when I'm thinking about
my business. That's what you have to prepare for in business, the highs and lows in any industry, you know, especially in the pandemic. Now we know how to survive a pandemic because we're both here. You know, we survived it, so we could probably each write a book on that. So it's preparation and planning.
Preparation, planning, and then that resiliency when not if, but when those valleys come, you know, and it's sometimes you have to go through it to know how to survive it. There's just it's hard to tell your you know, to know until you've gone through something that traumatic and that you know, terrifying, how to really come out on the other side. So today, I mean, obviously you've got your you still have the real estate business, right or is
it mostly you're focusing on your show? What what does Page Turner, Inc. Look Like? Because that's what we like to get into. You know, you mentioned all those different streams of income. Talk to me about the way that you would kind of approach your your business strategy and that one.
Question, Well, I have I've been selling and you know, listening and selling real estate for twenty years, and I'm I was in a burnout phase. So when the television opportunity came, I was like, this is cool. You know I've been doing I can still do what I love. And then you know, add this as well, and now being on the second show on HGTV, which is amazing
and such a blessing I am. Now I don't know if you know this, Mandy, but I'm also co creator and executive producer of the show and host, so I get to see behind the scenes.
And now I have fallen in love with executive producing.
So my writing partner who's also my business partner and my manager, we have created like six more shows that we're shopping and now I'm on a whole new journey. So I still flip even outside of the TV show, because that's just good to do. It's just a good income. It's hard, but it's you know, it's what I love
to do. And now being in front of the camera and then also doing you know, EP work behind the camera, I have found this amazing passion for that I am looking to focus on and continue to develop.
That's incredible. And can we go back to when you were talking about Baby Page dreaming of being a talent manager, and all these years later, it seems like you're finding your way there ultimately. Now, maybe not in the way that you envisioned it, maybe not music, but if you can create six new pages with incredible shows, you know, is that sort of the vision there.
Including one of my daughters moved back to Los Angeles with me, and she's an aspiring model and so she just got a contract.
I manage her.
You know, she just got a contract with an agent. So that's really fun to see that. And I, oh, gosh, I just I love it. Oh, I love what you said. Five or six little pages. Yes, that's what I want to see because I'm a I'm still a servant and I want to see everybody I can win when, you know. So if I'm in this position and I know somebody and you're good people, I'm connecting you. You know, don't embarrass me, right, you gotta good people, I'm connecting you. If I see we just grow my partner. I just
scroll through Instagram. I'm like, oh, look at her, she's amazing. Let's just tap in and see how she's doing today, you know. And that's how we found are the we just got we haven't got greenlit yet, but we just signed with the production company to develop a show for another young woman to be on television in the home space.
Ah, that's incredible.
I love it.
I feel like that. The more we need, like a million more av Duvernets, more Shonda Rhimes, you know, and all the different niches and.
Get me. I love it, yes, because there's room. There's room for all of us.
Yeah, absolutely, there's so much room. Talk to me a little bit about for those curious, and just kind of to round out our conversation with the show. Talk about the show, what happens on the show, why should we be watching? And what was it like for you to be under the microscope like that, Like it's one thing to do your job, but then to have cameras following you around, it must be a whole different level of I don't know, excitement, stressed. I don't know if you tell.
Me, because I'm hyper aware of me. And this is why I love HDTV for this. I answer your second question, Alsten, your second question. First, I love HDTV for this number one because they are working their tails off to diversify this network and bring black and brown people and every other color under the rainbow on the network, and I
applaud them for that. Number two, they have allowed me, in any person of color, to really open the conversation with production with them too, Like the way my hair flows on TV is different than the way another woman's hair might flow. That's of a different hue than me, you know. So if you guys want to do demo day and then have a follow up, you know, do
three scenes in one day. I can't do demo first because my hair is gonna explode in this heat out here in California and I don't have a present calm on site, and nor do I have a hairstyles. So you know, they've allowed really, but it's true because I'm like, listen, if my track is showing, you have to tap me on the shoulder, you know, And there's just we move different, you know. And also you know I have melasma under all this makeup, and it's like you got it, and they work with me on it.
You know.
My skin is not in a great space right now, and so I love that because of hyperpimentation, which comes from the sun, which we around the sun working a lot, and that doesn't really have anything to do with color. Other than listen understand what I'm going through and let's have the conversation, which they allow us to have now and not you know, look, not to say they ever look down upon us, but nobody understood it. Now people are willing to listen to understand, and I appreciate that.
What was it like for you to all of a sudden go from being a business mogul to then being one on TV? And what was that transition like?
Well, oh, and you say it was a stressful or exciting.
It is exciting seeing the end result because it all works out, but it is stressful during the process, just because not only min in front of the camera, but I'm also paying attention to what's going on behind the camera as well, because this is a show that I created and pitched and got green lit during the pandemic.
So that's amazing too, pat On back.
But oh, so you pitched the show, Okay, because you said HGTV came Colin, But no, I mean you came up with the idea and pitched it got it sold.
Oh Well, when I said came calling, what I meant was they literally called and said, hey, we want to put a show together for you and get you back on the network and I said, well, hey, I already wrote a show and they were like, well, hey.
Pitch it.
It was on a zoom and I said right now. And it was about August of twenty twenty and I said, they said yeah, and I said, oh, let me just stretch real quick. And I went off camera and I stretched for like, you know, twenty seconds. I came back and I pitched it and they loved it. They were like, let's do it, and I was greenlit right after that casual That goes back in preparation, though, but you were prepared for the moment, prepared for them. I was prepared
for the moment. And I had good relationship Mandy. When I was on the first show. You know, I always said thank you. I always emailed everybody please and thank you. Even when the show got canceled, which the whole franchise did, they just moved on from it. I was like, hey, thanks for the run, because guess what life happens pivot time, and I just went on to the next you know, pursuit of passion and purpose. So it came right back to me and that relationship kicked right back in right.
What is it like it's amazing. It's thrilling during a pandemic, you know, hair makeup. That that's very serious to me. But at the end of the day, I'm living a dream that I went and caught. I stopped chasing dreams a long time ago. I'm too old to do that. I'm in the phase of my life now where I'm catching dreams and being able to do that is amazing. And then to grow from it too as an executive producer and creator for other shows.
Oh, I mean, it's like every day I'm so grateful.
Yeah, the power of not just being the talent in front of the camera, but also having not only I mean it probably opens you up, correct me if I'm wrong, to even more monetary gain being the owner of the EP on the back end.
Three streams of one show you just named every one of them.
Okay, lovely, I get it. But for creators out there, I mean, obviously not all of us have TV shows of our own, but to I think that message is coming through for those of us who are who are watching people like you succeed. It's oh, but they own, but they are executive producing. It's more than its Yes, be the talent, but it's more important. It's also important for us to have a seat at table.
Yeah, there's more money behind the camera too, So you know, it's just like in the music industry. People see all of these you know, artists out here singing, but they travel so much because they only make real money when they're on the stage. That's when they get paid directly, you know. But if they're not writing or producing themselves, then they're just a paid talent for that moment.
You know.
Royalties is what it makes people wealthy. And so even though there's no royalties in reality TV, there is just additional they called line items right on the budget in television, and you get additional line items in addition to just being hosts, not just because being host is amazing, but to being host there's more so learning the business on the other side behind the camera.
That's that is top notch. That's like wow.
Yeah. For someone who's listening right now, and maybe they're not necessarily in real estate, but they may be thinking, I want to share my talent, I want to be I want to executive produce my own reality show. What would be your message to them if there's one thing that you can sort of take away from this conversation or do today to kind of put yourself on that path, because you're proving it's possible. So what would be one piece of advice or guidance you could offer.
Find somewhere, find a show, find a production company, call them and say, hey, I want to be PA. That's production assistant. So they're the ones that really they really hold the show together, even though they're running around, even if it's giving out water, going to get lunch. You know, it's it's seems like the smallest role, but it will have the biggest effect because they're the ones that are really interacting with the host and the producers the most.
So go and start somewhere. Even if you're a writer, like I don't want to be a PA production assistant, you know, because they seem like they're the you know, they just run the errands. You have to start somewhere, So why not start there. Call all the production companies in your area and say, hey, how can I get on set? Get your resume together, and then start that way and work.
Your way up.
I see I have seen pas grow or even second camera assistants, you know, they're they're the assistant to the camera man or woman, and it seems like they're just like, you know, doing grunt work. But they're not, because I've seen them grow to be first camera men or women, you know, even on my show, like oh my god, Matthew, you know your camera one. Now, that's amazing because they moved up. But you have to start somewhere. And people are like, I don't know what's going on with this
new generation. They don't want to work. They just want to have TikTok.
Hey hey now, But some other.
Ones that I see, I'm like, you have to do the work, you know. That's one of my companies is called do the work. And it's not I'm not talking about do the work from not being lazy. I'm talking about do the work through perseverance, through the tears, through the nose, through the pivots. You have to keep going. But I've said this for years, Matty, shake hands and kiss babies. That's like a politician. That's how you start building relationships.
Putting yourself also, I'm hearing from what you're saying, put yourself in the environment where people are doing the dream job that you want to do, or doing the work that you be doing. It's sitting, Yeah, sitting and feeling isolated in Nebraska. Like you said it out, you probably won't get you there.
You can't be the best kept secret. You have to get out there.
And now that the world is opening back up again, go find the people who leave the clues to success and go follow them and do like they do.
I bet you what they do every day.
You're not doing follow the clues that leads you to success, and you cannot be the best kept secret. Brag on yourself, share your story just like you be a page turner who's got the most incredible name ever. Shout out to Page's mom for that little.
Bit of wordplay.
I'm delighted.
Thank you.
As a fellow writer, I see that. I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Paige for embodying brown ambition and for joining our show. It's been such a pleasure to get to know you, and I wish you continued success in all of your endeavors.
Mannie, thank you for allowing me to be here. I love what you're doing. Your platform is amazing, your questions were amazing, and I just super feel connected.
So thank you so much.