How a Solo Parent of 3 Built a Business Empire | Clare Nation

Faced with the sudden death of her husband, Clare Nation found herself navigating the challenges of solo parenting 3 children, whilst building a real estate business.

Despite personal tragedy, she built a remarkable brand and cultivated a thriving community empire.

Today, Clare is the Director at Haiven Property Central (Perth). With 26 years of experience, she's made an impressive 70 sales in the last 12 months where the average house price is $880K.

The entire training is only in the Real Estate Gym

Transcript

Tom Panos: 0:00

So obviously, the passing of your, it was your husband, right, it was your husband. Yes, you were married. Yeah, the passing of your husband would have been a real challenging time. How old were your kids when that happened?

Clare Nation: 0:16

Five, 15 and 12. So young.

Tom Panos: 0:20

Did you keep working?

Clare Nation: 0:22

Yeah, the whole time.

Tom Panos: 0:24

Right. Looking back, is there any tips that you can share to anyone when they're faced with and that's a big punch in the face, right, it's not a small punch, you know Like you get different sort of punches, you know, without having to go into detail, I know that his passing was all of a sudden I want to ask you is there any learnings you've learned on how to navigate when things fall apart? How do you navigate through a situation? You've got three kids. You've got a business, because it was your business then or you want.

Clare Nation: 1:09

At that time, no, I was working as cfo for another business okay, so, regardless, you're the provider to your kids.

Tom Panos: 1:19

Um, is there anything that you look back? That thought that kept you going, kept you sane?

Clare Nation: 1:26

It's interesting now, 11 years later, to probably start to get some full perspective on exactly what happened, because at the time you literally just go into fight mode and for me it was all about my kids and having them looked after, but creating some sort of normality with my life. So for me, I have always worked, even having children at a young age. Work for me has been my one grounding piece. So for me, to continue working and to show my children that, no matter what happens, you really still have to get up and go. There is no sitting back and waiting for something else to happen for you, all of a sudden, I was a solo parent.

Clare Nation: 2:12

It's not being a single parent, it's being a solo parent and provider for these three little humans, very unexpectedly, and I didn't have the chance to really sit back and think about me during that time it was all about continuing going and it was also the fact that I was running a business and they also had, you know, 25 people and their families to look after, and so that kept me going. It didn't stop me from being in the space of grief or just trying to understand what happened to me, but it was just more about, I feel like actually, in a way, what I was doing was inspiring other people, so that then kept me going, because they looked at me and went, wow, she's still pushing through, she still has her goals sort of set, because no way what was ever going to happen was going to define me and me as a person, and me in my business, if anything. It was just. It just motivated me more.

Tom Panos: 3:18

Look, claire, there's a big learning. And to everyone that's watching and listening to this, whether it's live or on on repeat, I think I think what you need to do is understand when, when the shit goes down. And I think, claire, it's highly unlikely that a person is going to get a free run in life without copying something right like it's. It's highly unlikely that a person is going to get a free run in life without copying something right like it's. It's highly unlikely. And if it's not, you know your husband, it's your kid. If it's not your kid, it could be you, it, you know it. Bad diagnosis, whatever, whatever, right that. But the bottom line is what you're sort of saying is you actually felt like one thing that inspired you to keep going? Is that in your head? You're also an example to those that are watching. Look at how she's handling it. Is that what I'm hearing from?

Clare Nation: 4:10

you Absolutely and like, more importantly, my children. I mean they had an enormous amount of resilience and you know, I had just thought in my head one day I want them to look back and go wow, my mum went through that and she still built her little empire of what she wanted to do as well, and nothing was going to stop her. It didn't come at the cost of anything. Because I'm not someone that believes in work-life balance. For me it doesn't exist. You know, I just I'm a work-life blender. I just keep going with it and I literally just try and blend it all quite organically and I feel that works well, because the minute I start putting pressure on any type of balance in my life, it just doesn't work.

Tom Panos: 4:54

I'm glad you said that because I see with a lot of and particularly the female agents, they sometimes feel guilty and they beat themselves up right, feeling like, oh, I should be at home more, or I should be, I should have been at the carnival, or this and that right, like you do what you can, you do the best that you can right, and the best that you can was like you had one issue and that was it was a sole household, but by the sounds of it, you didn't want to create another issue and that is, uh, financially, to have financial problems.

Clare Nation: 5:29

Yeah, I mean ladies. I mean I think that I look at other women in real estate and we do carry a heavier mental load. It's just natural. It's not good, bad or indifferent, but how we manage it, I think it's just taking that expectation off ourselves and once we do that and we just let things happen. If I'm having to make a phone call five minutes before my son was racing at the sports carnival, I would just do it. No one actually really cared and as long as the kids were looked after and they felt secure and my clients they loved the fact that there was a balance there or there was a blend there in my life I never, hid it and it didn't detriment my career whatsoever.

Clare Nation: 6:08

In actual fact, it invited people into my life more, and then that established that trust, that connection, and that's what I base my sort of business model on.

Tom Panos: 6:18

One of our agents now that are watching this that gets inspired and says I want to build my brand, like Claire Nation build her brand. What are some of the things that you think of that are good brand building stuff? You've covered a couple. Obviously, that's given you a test ride of the real estate gym. In the real estate gym, we've got all the information you need to succeed, whether it's prospecting, listing, presentations, scripts, dialogues, how to actually have the best templates and have a process-driven business. You can join the real estate gym. The doors are open now and it is less than one coffee a day as an investment.