240: Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Best Life with Erica Cicero

Erica: 0:00

I remember as a teenager I always said I wanted to go before God at the end of my life and say I used it all. I used every single bit of talent, energy, drive that you gave me. There's nothing left.

Camille: 0:20

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Welcome back everyone to Call Me CEO.

Camille: 0:42

This is your host, Camille Walker, and today we are talking about is it possible to really have it all as a mother, a wife, a business owner. Is that even a possibility? I love this topic and especially our guest that we're going to have today, because she took that question and that challenge and has really made a life for herself where she really feels like she has it all. We're going to dive in what that means and what that is for her, but she is Erica Cicero, who is the founder of Cicero Law Firm. So she took her practice in a big corporate world, brought it into her own home so that she could create a balance that really felt like she had hit the lottery. So, Erica, thank you so much for being on the show today. I can't wait to hear more about your story.

Erica: 1:29

Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here.

Camille: 1:32

Oh, you're so sweet. Thank you, you're so sweet. I love when I have people on the show who have heard other women's stories and relate with the struggle that it is to like figure out all the pieces, especially as a mom. That brings in a dynamic that really changes and challenges what it means to have it all. So tell us a little bit about where you live, your family and what it is that you do.

Erica: 1:57

So I live in Mandeville, louisiana, which is about a 45 minute drive outside of New Orleans across the longest causeway in the world and it's kind of a Hallmark town and it looks like it's in a Hallmark movie. It's absolutely beautiful, and I live here with my husband We've been together almost 10 years and my two little girls. I have two toddlers and they are just absolutely delightful, and so my husband and I met in law school. So we are the dreaded lawyer couple that everybody, everybody says you should not do that, and we did.

Camille: 2:38

You know. It's interesting though, because so my husband runs a law firm in Salt Lake City, and I have really been interested in learning more from the attorneys and their spouses, whether it's male or female. The number one complaint that I hear them say is the hours that they're working, that it really is a challenge and a pressure for the family. So I'd imagine being married to an attorney. You both understand the pressures of what that work demands, and then also it put you into a place where you're like maybe we should reformulate this, and you created your own path with that, which I think is amazing.

Erica: 3:15

Yeah, it was. It was difficult because so my husband is a total powerhouse. He's an award-winning litigator, all the things right. He's the stereotype.

Erica: 3:25

And I took a few years off after law school because I was so exhausted and burnt out and so I watched him just work and work, and work while I prepped for the bar and I wrote a few novels and living my life, my best life.

Erica: 3:47

And I realized that after I sat for the bar I didn't want to go back into that heavy hitter legal world like he was in, and that I had gotten out of that, had burnt me out so fast. And so I kind of created this boutique practice where I was just doing estate planning, because I really wanted to be a mom and that was my number one goal and I didn't want to miss a thing. So I said, look, I got my law license, I practice, I can do that on the side, no big deal, and I'll just be a mom full time. And eventually it blossomed into my husband working 90 hours a week, going from different firms, having people bid on him for where he could go, and eventually we just said why doesn't he come and work with my firm? And um, because my firm was just snowballing and exploding and I had these two children at home and, yeah, it's been wild, it's been a wild journey, wow.

Camille: 4:42

Yeah, so take me back a few steps, because obviously you are very successful in your own right. Was it hard for you to walk away from, you know, taking the bar and thinking, oh, I've taken this many years to get here and be a part of this and now, like, was that a hard transition for you to take a step back from that?

Erica: 5:03

Oh, it was so hard it got. It went down to my health, though. So after law school I started. We got married right out of law school and moved from Cleveland to to Mandeville, and my husband had these great jobs and everything, but my health from the stress of law school was deteriorating, and so that's why I had to take time off and um, and then, when I was prepping for the bar, I developed all these crazy issues.

Erica: 5:31

I was having autoimmune issues and all that from stress, and so he kind of had a sit down with me and he was like you don't have to do this, You're putting so much stress on yourself. And he knew I wanted to be a mom and we, I just couldn't get pregnant. It was everything, it was just my body just couldn't do it. And so I kind of just accepted that I may not be able to handle the stress and everything and, um, I think giving myself the grace to say I can walk away if I need to is what allowed this to go from. I just work a little bit to having this multi-million dollar empire that I've created, because I've given myself the permission to ask for help, hire people when I need them, hiring staff and being able to take a step back and say, no, I need some time off, or that kind of thing. That's really. What was the game changer for me? No, I need some time off, or that kind of thing.

Camille: 6:25

That's really what was the game changer for me? That's really interesting and I think that that applies to so many of us where it's sometimes, when we're holding on to something so tight that it especially with our health, you know where, if you're burning yourself at both ends and not giving yourself that time and space to it's really interesting because I feel like, in a way, this relates to I was watching the Grammys and Chapel Roan was accepting, or she was getting. It was like the pre-show and they were saying what do you think it is that makes you such a powerful and strong artist, like you're new here, and she said well, actually I've been doing this for over a decade, but the thing that makes me really powerful is that I have walk away power. And it was Gail Oprah's best friend who was interviewing her and she really related with that. She's like, oh, that makes so much sense to me Because I feel like there is a sense in our lives where sometimes, when we're holding onto something that's not meant for us so tightly that it'll affect our relationships, our health, and health is wealth.

Camille: 7:33

It doesn't matter how much money you make at that point, right. But then to say, okay, I'm going to create a situation for myself where I have that walk away power, where I know that I need to take a step back and really pause for myself, where I have that walk away power, where I know that I need to take a step back and really pause for myself and create something that works for me, and I feel like that's what you've done. Is it's that walk away power? Would you agree?

Erica: 7:55

Oh, absolutely. I think that that's been what has allowed me to build this so large is that I have the walk away power from the beginning, and I also have so many people behind me who can help me because, um, I realized I couldn't do this without a village. Because, um, I think my my biggest flaw as a person is that I'm incapable of accepting my own limitations. For example, I was telling my book club this we just read Onyx Storm, the fourth wing book. Oh, yes, I'm reading that right now. Oh, it's so good. And so I was telling them like, oh, I definitely would cross the parapet, I would definitely be a dragon, I'd be the best dragon rider there ever were.

Erica: 8:44

I'm one of those people where, if you tell me like, oh, you can't run a marathon, I'd be like give me a year, I'll be the fastest runner you've ever seen. It's just, I'm delusional, completely delusional, about how I have no limits. And so I think that now that I kind of accept this is what my businesses are and I'm, you know, I have people who can help me. I can do what I want. This is my choice. I can walk away, I can change my schedule. That has given me all the power in my life and a lot of peace, and yeah, it's really wonderful.

Camille: 9:18

A lot of happiness has resulted in that, and I would imagine your health improved as well.

Erica: 9:24

Oh yeah, I um, magically all of these health problems. I thought that I had crazy autoimmune issues. We were, you know, looking into that kind of thing. I had, um, all these issues, they all just disappeared. So a lot of it was, you know, stress, stressful so quickly, and lack of sleep and, um, which is probably a huge issue of mine cause I, I don't really have a lot of time to sleep, but yeah, so it's definitely changed around my health. That is so great.

Camille: 9:53

Well, let's. So let's take some steps back, because you're in a place where you're like I want to do something different. I'm going to create this boutique law firm. My husband is going to come on board with me. You're starting to build a team. What does that look like? Exactly Like what are you offering? What is, what are your businesses? You've mentioned more than one. Tell us what it is that you do.

Erica: 10:14

Okay. So it's kind of, I guess I should tell you like where it came from, because when my husband he was a roofer for 25 years, right, and so he had all of these cases where he did first party property, he would sue insurance companies for property owners. Well, all the roofers and contractors he worked with had other legal needs. They had business needs, they needed people to look over contracts and all that he couldn't do that at the law firm that he worked at, and so I ended up representing them as a business attorney and I was doing a bunch of different representing them as a business attorney and I was doing a bunch of different kind of a jack of all trades with business. And so it turned from estate planning to this business law and I became kind of a small business, not expert, but that became my specialty. And so eventually, when he decided to jump ship from you know big law and corporate law because he was never home, he was never seeing our girls and that was really missing ballet. I remember he missed ballet class and it was like the most heartbreaking thing for him and he was like I have to get out. And so he, yeah, he came to work with me, and so he was actually able to take on those clients that he had a relationship with in his first party property you know world and expand it. And so we were able to expand this business into representing small business owners.

Erica: 11:37

So we kind of have we have multiple different methods that we go about representing businesses. We have a tiered program, so it's almost like a subscription service. So, depending on your legal needs for your business, you can kind of pick a plan and you pay per month and we are on call for you. You know we'll draft things, we'll send demand letters, we'll do all the things, or we can just do stuff a la carte, like a typical attorney does. It just depends on if you need in-house counsel right, and a lot of these businesses they need in-house counsel, but they can't afford a quarter million dollars a year for an attorney with benefits and all of that.

Erica: 12:17

So they hire us and just do a monthly subscription and so, yeah, we have become in-house counsel on demand, which is what we've coined it because we're the on-demand attorneys, and so we've done that and he still does his first party work and I still do estate planning as well, but we've blown up as business attorneys. In addition to that I have, I have quite a hobby for rentals and real estate. So I have several rentals. I have beautiful townhomes and in Mandeville, right by a hospital, and we have just the most cute little private block and I bought several on the on the block and I rent them out and, yeah, and I flip homes as well. So, yeah, I know I you are a dragon writer.

Erica: 13:12

And so the current house that I'm in now I'm actually about to list it because we bought it a year ago and I flipped it. It looked like the olive garden and I turned it into this beautiful, sleek, modern, colonial, super elegant. I think I added six or seven chandeliers, just really upgraded it, and that's my passion, all of these things.

Camille: 13:36

That's amazing. Yeah, that is multiple businesses, and I think the a la carte attorney subscription makes sense because people don't need an in-house attorney all the time. But any business owner knows that laws and being sued and things happen that you don't expect, so that makes a lot of sense. Was that an idea that you had heard someone else doing, or how did you even come up with that concept?

Erica: 14:02

Yeah, so it.

Erica: 14:03

It kind of it formed out of a public adjuster that I work with a lot and, um, he was a referral from my husband originally back in the day and I became his business attorney and it got to the point where I would get a text message from him and he would say I need you to jump on a call with me in 15 minutes and it would just become thousands and thousands of dollars a month that I'm billing him to sit on phone calls with him and he doesn't say anything.

Erica: 14:31

That's going to be a liability, or me looking over a contract or him just sending me something to review. And it was getting to the point where it was insanely expensive for him and I realized that if we did a subscription type idea, a lot of other people would be interested in it, and so he was able to become one of our first clients with that and I kind of tested it out and I lowered my hourly fee and I did a lot of things included in that and it just became so seamless and because of that we've been able to really expand the firm, because we have people on a monthly basis and checks are coming in really regularly. So it's been really good because I realized how many people wanted that type of relationship with an attorney.

Camille: 15:22

To just say I have an attorney I'm going to call right now relationship with an attorney to just say I have an attorney I'm going to call right now. Yes, ooh, that's so smart and with your love of so, take me back a little bit with growing the business. Where was that? I know that you said you had your girls and your husband wanted to come in. What was the timeline of like, okay, I'm going to start my own boutique thing. This is getting big. Now I'm a mom Like how are you balancing the different parts of your business and how did that build up?

Erica: 15:50

So it was a very strange timeline and trajectory, because so both of my pregnancies they were really difficult, and so when I got pregnant the first time and then miscarried and then the second, it became a very dangerous type of situation. I couldn't walk at the end because I had sciatic nerve pain. My husband literally carried me to take a shower. It was rough, and so I had started the business right before I was able to get pregnant, and so I had this book of clients and I felt like I was doing really well, and then I kind of had to take a huge step back, and so it was one of those things where I felt grateful that I didn't work for someone else, because I did have the luxury of just saying I'm not taking on new clients right now.

Erica: 16:42

But I felt really disheartened after I had my first daughter because I just wasn't working as much I would do. I would take on maybe one or two clients a month. It was very, very minimal work, maybe 10 hours a month at the most. And then I wanted to have, I wanted to try to have another child right away, and we got pregnant with the second, and so I was pregnant back to back, and that one was also risky because she was a twin and we lost the twin. And so, yeah, it was, it was, it was very, it was a struggle, and so I just I completely stopped working with that second pregnancy. It was just, I wasn't in a good place emotionally with the loss, just, you know, I was so afraid that we'd lose her and it was a mess. And so I remember thinking and talking to my husband when I was about six months pregnant, saying like I think I'm done, I think I'm retiring, and he just said, well, you have the business, you can take a client here and there. The business doesn't cost us any money. Really, you know it's. You know I wasn't renting office space, I was doing it all remotely, so he's like, just keep it open.

Erica: 17:49

And so, yeah, it was three months after she was born, it felt like I just shed that skin of, just like the mourning and over the loss of, you know, two babies, and then you know the postpartum, just everything, I felt like a human again. You know, yes, I was able to realize that I could balance something. You know, I could balance it. And so I started taking on a client here and there and then I really liked it and then it started snowballing. Within two months I had maybe 15 or 20 clients and it was just. It was becoming so much that I couldn't quite handle it all myself because I was a one woman show at that point. And then I brought on a paralegal and then we got office space. And then my husband started to express over that year that he was less and less happy working at a firm. He was missing out on everything. He was constantly in Texas and Florida just for work, flying everywhere missing everything.

Erica: 18:52

And so we kind of made the decision that he was going to come and work with me and I was working with half of his clients anyways with other topics. So you know, it just made sense. And so, yeah, this boutique firm that went from just a few clients quickly snowballed. Once I was a few months postpartum with my second and just kind of got out of control.

Camille: 19:16

That's amazing and I love that it lined up with what you needed in terms of giving you the balance of okay, I need a minute and recalibrating after pregnancy and loss and the hormones alone. I feel like it's at three months that you really are kind of just getting that breath of fresh air of like oh yeah, I am a human. You're just kind of in this fog.

Erica: 19:41

So yeah, that's all of that. It's like you don't. You don't even have your own body and it's just, it's a lot, and so I was very fortunate that I felt like it was. It was divine intervention the way I had the firm and it was slow growing, but I was still there, people still contacted me and then it just took off.

Camille: 20:01

That's awesome. So, as far as figuring out that balance of now being this business owner having these two little babies how old are they now Like? What are the ages they were, how old are they now? What's the timeline with that to give us a perspective?

Camille: 20:16

Hey moms, if you feel like life is a nonstop juggling act school drop-offs, business calls, meal prep, trying to find a single moment for yourself I've got something for you. First you need to sign up for my newsletter. It is free. I always include the episodes, what's upcoming, what is the takeaway from that week, and I will include a free recipe as well as, sometimes, activities that have to do with the upcoming events happening in today's world. But I have the mom balance playbook for free. It is a simple, practical guide to managing the mayhem of mom life so you can finally stop feeling like you're dropping the ball. It's time to bring more balance, joy and structure into your home, without the burnout. And the best part, it is totally free. Head to camillewalkerco to grab your free copy now, or grab it from the link below in the show notes from the link below in the show notes.

Erica: 21:10

So my oldest Ilaria, she is two and a half.

Camille: 21:21

And your oldest is two and a half.

Erica: 21:22

Uh huh, this is like very recent. Oh yeah, babies. Yeah, okay, two and a half. And then my. My second is, I think is it 14 months. She was born November of 2023. So I think that's 14 months. So, yeah, she's um, uh, giovanna and um, yeah, they're. They're just, they kind of act like they're twins because they're so close in age. They're 15 months apart and so they um, it's kind of convenient now that I'm out of the craziness with, like, babies, you know.

Camille: 21:49

Yeah, so yeah, they're walking around. Now they're just getting into everything and running around everything. So how do you manage now? What pieces have you put into place? I know you said you grew your team, so tell us a little bit about that.

Erica: 22:04

Yeah, so when things started getting out of control and snowballing, I was able to bring on a paralegal a good friend of ours and I trust him with everything right. And then when we brought Chaz on and he left his firm, we were really able to move locations, office locations. We were able to have administrative staff at the office, we were able to have paralegals you know, administrative staff at the office. We were able to have paralegals and I was actually able to kind of take a bigger step back and do more business development and client relations than anything else. So it's, I still do.

Erica: 22:42

I do work the cases, but I don't touch litigation anymore. That's Chaz's job. He's he's excellent at it. I do a lot of the paperwork, so I write contracts, I review contracts, I draft things, I approve all of our media stuff and I'm very fortunate, one of my really good friends is a media guru, so she does a lot of that for us. But yeah, I was able to kind of take a step back and be more of the face of the company and practice law in a more non-traditional way and have people kind of help me with the backend.

Camille: 23:18

Yeah, gosh, I think that's the way it should be Because, again, that's the number one complaint I get when I talk with people, because by nature, I love to interview and ask people questions, and that's the number one complaint is that home life balance of you know, I have a son who's very gifted and in debate he acts like an attorney, without knowing that that's how he is, and when we've said, the one thing that's held me back is oh, it's hard for your family life. So I love that you've been able to create something that makes so much sense in terms of owning a business and being a parent and having a partner. That's amazing.

Erica: 24:01

Well, one of the big things I remember my dear friend, my mom friend, melanie, said to me three months postpartum after my oldest, she has a daughter who's six months older. Right, she said the biggest lie we were sold is that women can have it all. We can't. And she was in the trenches, you know, she had a nine-month-old.

Erica: 24:22

It was rough and I really felt that and so I thought more about it and I'm like how am I going to do this? How am I going to balance all of this? Because, like I said, my biggest flaw is that I think I can do it all and I I remember as a teenager I wanted I always said I wanted to go before God at the end of my life and say I used it all. I used every single bit of talent, energy, drive that you gave me. There's nothing left, right, I left it all on the table and I was like I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm a mom and being a mom was something that I wanted to do, be you know, for so long that I felt really disheartened and realizing that I could actually become an attorney who just oversees more and I can have paralegals draft stuff for me if I can't, and I can do client meetings and all of that. That has really helped Having my mother-in-law here half the time because she lives in Cleveland and she lives with us about half the time now and she has been invaluable.

Erica: 25:28

I couldn't do that without her. I don't have a nanny because we have her, but I don't want full-time help because I want to be with my girls. But sometimes it's hard because my husband's going to be in Texas all week, for example, and you know I don't have childcare if I need to go to a meeting real quick, that kind of thing. So it's all about balancing that and figuring out how I can fulfill my dream of being a full-time stay-at-home mom and also using all these talents that I have and not burning myself out completely.

Camille: 26:04

I love that Advice for people who are listening and maybe trying to figure out a balance that works for them. What would your advice be to them about striking that balance to have it all? What advice would you give to them?

Erica: 26:21

So I guess my biggest advice would be things look different for different women. Some women are being a homemaker and a stay at home mom is that's what they want to do. They don't want to run businesses, they don't want to expand it. They have the luxury of staying at home and I think that's awesome. If that's where their cup is full, then do it.

Erica: 26:43

But some women feel discontented, you know, by that, and they want to expand, they want to grow a business. They don't want to work for someone else. They want to kind of define their own destiny. And I would say that each season of your life it has to be defined and analyzed in a different way. So if you're newly postpartum, that may look completely different than it does five years later, because your children have so much, they have a lot more needs and you're going to be sleeping a lot less and your sanity is going to be on the line to start. And so I think that analyzing the situation during each season and seeing where your needs are and where you're happiest and what you want, and just asking yourself very realistically give me five words what do you want? I think that's. If you ask yourself that regularly, it's going to change and you'll be able to shift your focus and make your life more meaningful and, I guess, driven towards your personal goals at that season.

Camille: 27:50

Yeah, oh, I believe that a hundred percent having. I now have teenagers. My oldest is seven, almost 17. And my youngest is.

Camille: 27:59

I know it's so crazy and my life looks so different now than it did even five years ago, and I think that we in the day to day can get lost in the demands of what is going on, in the moment that we think, oh, this is what I'm in forever. But it's not like it really goes so quickly and our, our ability to adapt to that is really so powerful, because you do need to do it on purpose, though, because it's happening whether you want it to or not, just how things change and it's so beautiful and I think, to really embrace the moment that you're in, because it is fleeting, it really is.

Erica: 28:39

Yeah, that's how I feel. I know that my, my children are so small now and they are with me all the time. I'm very. Maybe three times a week I leave them for meetings for an hour or two, Like I am with them all the time and I know in 10 years they're probably not going to want to hang out with me like this. And these are the years that are so pivotal and fundamental in their upbringing and they're never going to remember it. It's just for me. No, my, my daughter's not going to remember. Like working on the alphabet this morning.

Erica: 29:13

You know, doing those kinds of activities, but I'm always going to and I don't want to miss out on that and so. But in 10 years, when they need me less, maybe I will be, you know, in the courtroom more, maybe I will be expanding the business in a different direction. I can't even imagine that I wouldn't be willing to do today, because I don't want to sacrifice my time with my children.

Camille: 29:36

A hundred percent. That's amazing. I love that for you and I do not regret choices I made either for being able to be there with my kids. And what's interesting, I just had this there with my kids and, what's interesting, I just had this conversation with my kids this morning where my husband and I can now we go on weekly dates, sometimes more because we have our kids are old enough now. At first it was, oh, we have a kid old enough that can babysit, and there were times that we got babysitters, but pretty rare when they were young, just because we couldn't afford it, or whatever sitters, but pretty rare when they were young, just because we couldn't afford it or whatever.

Camille: 30:12

And now I go out with my husband all the time and I love it and it's so good for us to keep our relationship strong. And I was telling them this morning you have a different mom now than I was five years ago. I never left, I was never gone at night and now I can actually get out. So you know, and they were like, yeah, it's good mom, it's good that you, that you get to go out, and they're so supportive of it, because I feel like if your kids see you and know that you've invested time into them and you have open communication with who you are. As a human needing time away, or you know a date with dad or whatever the thing is, they understand it. Because they know that you've invested your time with them, they feel filled up.

Erica: 30:51

So, and I think one of the big things for me is that I realized very quickly that children, they need to see their parents happy and that marriage has to be the priority. And so it's if you're really disconnected from your spouse, which is so easy when you have small children.

Erica: 31:11

It's just, you know, it makes it everybody feels it, and so it's really nice when you can go on dates and that kind of thing. And so, yeah, and I think that children seeing their mother happy and not just self-sacrificing, I think that when we, as women, are just self-sacrificing, you know, it's just, it's in our nature. We. We give everything for our families and our children. And it's really nice, though, when your children can look at you and say it's so good to see you doing what you want to do and that you're happy. I love that, and so, yeah, that's my goal is for my girls to say you know, my mom was so happy and she, you know she did everything she wanted to do you know I don't want to say, oh, because I've heard so many people say you know, my mom could have been great.

Erica: 32:03

She always said I could have done this, I could have done that, but then she was stuck. And it's like I don't want to be the woman who's stuck, you know, and I think a lot of us fall into that because it's so easy to do.

Camille: 32:20

Yeah, yeah, and I feel like the generation of mothers today have a lot more opportunities where we can create different avenues of income and have access to being more in control of our schedules. Not everyone is in that situation, but I'm so grateful that more and more are. That's the whole reason why I did this podcast was, I hope, for everyone. Listening is they think and listen to stories like yours where they think how could I adjust my situation, where I do have a little more autonomy and I do have that space to be more in control of what it is that I'm doing.

Erica: 32:54

And the more as time goes on, this next generation, I think they're going to because of us, because we are the kind of pioneers of saying no, I'm working from home, I'm working part-time, I'm doing this or that. My schedule has got to be flexible. We're the ones demanding a future for them, so that the next generation of moms which is crazy to think that that'll be my girls it's like I'm trying to demand a future for them so they can say, you know, if they want to have children, that they can say, no, I'm going to work and this is how my schedule is going to be, so I can do whatever I want to do.

Camille: 33:29

Yeah, ooh, I love it, I love it. I want to switch gears just a little bit because I am selfishly curious. Tell me a bit more about how you got into real estate and what were those first steps. And I'm not like buying a block, I'm like that sounds amazing. Tell us how you got into real estate and advice that you would have for people who have that ambition as well.

Erica: 33:54

So I think real estate probably was in my blood my dad and his brother. Well, my dad wasn't a contractor, but all of his brothers were and my grandfather was. And so my dad, when he was still, um, when he was still with us, he built every home my mom lived in and he built it exactly as she wanted it and, um, it was always like his love letter to her. Um, I remember hearing my family staging homes all the time and this would be a really good way to stage a house so that you could sell it. You got to have neutrals do this. That it's just a lot of talk, you know.

Erica: 34:28

And so, when, um, my husband and I were no longer poor out of law school cause there was a time when we were, uh, we didn't have law school debt, but you know how it goes, being in school for nine years and, um, when we finally had the money, we bought, um, a town home and it was just the two of us and it was my. It was my favorite home. I turned it into everything I wanted it to be and it's just. It's that house is just has my heart, and we quickly outgrew it and knew that we wanted to rent it out. Well, I did. My husband wants nothing to do with real estate. He's like I don't have time for that.

Erica: 35:04

It is a job it is, and I make him fix a lot of things, which he just loves, and so, and so, yeah, I decided to rent it out and it's a very desirable rental. It's right next to a super reputable hospital in a very great area that doesn't flood and it's raised, and so, yeah, I was able to turn it into a high end rental and we moved into another home that I flipped and then I ended up just buying another one on the block, and, who knows, I might buy another one on that block.

Camille: 35:38

Like Monopoly. That's amazing.

Erica: 35:40

Yeah, and I'm the HOA president, so I make sure that everything's beautiful, that the home value is really high. So, yeah, it's wonderful, and I joked at first that the first home that we got that we rented out was going to be my oldest daughter's college fund. And then I joked that the second one on that block was going to be the youngest daughter's college fund. And now I realize how this type of business if you have the capital to invest money to get a loan to have tenants pay off a property you end up getting a check every month and you're paying yourself a paycheck. And, as a woman who may be shifting her life around, may not be working as much to stay at home, having tenants and being a landlord in many situations is extremely lucrative and it can supplement your income, so it's been really good.

Camille: 36:39

That's awesome. I love that so much. Well, there are three questions that I ask all of our guests that come on the show, and it is what are you reading, writing or listening to? Sorry, reading, watching or listening to? There we go, and the next question is a motherhood moment that you would like to share.

Erica: 36:59

Okay. So I aggressively listen to audio books Me too. My girls do not let me hold paper books and so I am currently it's actually on my phone I'm listening to. It's called Assassin's Blade by the Throne of Glass series. Yes, so I started with the prequel, which I know was written third, and so I'm I don't know a few hours into that, and it's really good Because I just finished the Avatar series and the fourth wing series. So, yeah, I'm really enjoying the, the fairy, the fairy realm and the romantic. And, let's see, I'm not watching really anything Because I'm reading so much and I'm currently getting my house ready to sell, so I'm mostly just listening to books and painting at night.

Erica: 37:53

And my motherhood moment, oh yeah. So my oldest and I the baby goes to bed an hour earlier, right, and so my husband had put the baby to bed and my oldest and I were cuddling in my bed and she she was watching her show Blippi, and um, I moved wrong and my back was killing me because I'd just been working carrying around the baby, who's 30 pounds, you know, yeah, painting, uh-huh, oh yeah, pounds. You know, painting, uh huh, oh yeah. So my back is just shot at this point and, um, she said, oh, what's wrong? And I said, oh, mommy's back hurts. She got up cause she was sitting like against my chest, and she got behind me, rubbed my back and then kissed my back and said mommy's back is better. And I'm like, oh, I know. And so I was just like it's so sweet, it's really. Um, yeah, seeing them being so caring and loving is just really sweet.

Camille: 38:53

So oh, I love that so much. Yeah, I had a similar experience a week or so ago. I had I was, I had a fever for four days and I had gotten sick from my youngest and it was so sweet to see him take care of me the way I had taken care of him. And he got me my water and he said and if you wake up in the middle of the night and he needs some Advil, I'll put it right here next to your bed, cause that's what I had done for him. And, mom, can I brush your hair, cause I know you really like that. And I was like, oh my gosh, you're the sweetest kid and it's really sweet. Oh, I love that so much. To see that love reciprocated is just the best thing ever.

Erica: 39:41

And it's it's a reflection of how they view you as a mother too, because it's like your son was mimicking you know, the caring and loving that you were giving him, and it's just like, oh, this is how they see us and so, yeah, it's really wonderful.

Camille: 39:51

Best job ever. Well, this has been such an awesome conversation. I've learned so much from you. I would love for you to share where other people can connect with you online and maybe even hire you if they're looking for an attorney on call, because who doesn't need that?

Erica: 40:09

So yeah, so I'm on most social medias, so I think it's ericaciceroesquire for Instagram and Facebook, and then my website is cicero-law-llccom and all of our contact information is there and so they can email in, they can call DM me. You know all the things where we have someone available pretty much 24 7 to answer stuff, so awesome.

Camille: 40:39

Well, thank you, we'll make sure to put those links below in the show notes. And again, as always, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you found it helpful, please share it with someone else. A review and a five-star review on our any channel that you're listening to is a huge help to us. So, erica, thank you so much for being on the show today. I appreciate it so much.

Erica: 41:01

Thank you. I really it was so exciting, Thank you.

Camille: 41:06

Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast, and remember you are the boss.