Meet Ashleigh Schuellerman

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashleigh Schuellerman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashleigh below.

Hi Ashleigh, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

Honestly, I don’t see myself as overly generous. I simply treat people the way I would want to be treated in any given situation. I want to make people feel better in a tough moment and do everything I can to help them out of that tough moment, because that’s what I would want someone to do for me. I don’t expect anyone to drop what they’re doing to help me out if I need it, but I would do anything I could to help someone if they need it. It’s just something that’s always felt right to me.

If there is a lost pet in need, you best believe I’ll do what I can to help it. It’s free to give them water and take them to my veterinarian to get them scanned for a microchip and reunited with their owner. It’s a no brainer for me.

Of course, it doesn’t just stop at helping people or lost pets. You can absolutely catch me at box stores rearranging plants that need more light and making sure they get an adequate amount.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Last year, I took the real estate exam and became a Realtor. With that career change, comes the uncertainty of having a strictly commission based income. Because of that, I came up with a side gig of selling some of my TCG collection online.

With my husband’s support, I went through my personal collection of Magic: The Gathering cards and separated the cards that held sentimental value with the ones I felt like I could live without. I posted the cards with no sentimental value online and from that, my side gig started. My husband encouraged me to draw up a logo for my online store, and helped me with sorting through cards. Very recently, within the last month, with my online store having taken off faster than either one of us anticipated, he encouraged me to LLC it. So I’m now, officially, a business owner on top of being a realtor.

Everyone who orders cards also gets a token card that I’ve drawn, which also doubles as my business card. Even though nearly everyone who has bought cards from my shop doesn’t live in Texas, I still give them a card so that they can use the token while playing Magic: The Gathering, and in the event that they know someone moving to or from Texas, they have someone they can contact, whose information is on the other side of the token card.

I’ve been sponsoring local TCG events and holding raffles and handing out the token cards. I’m still genuinely shocked at the amount of people who tell me I should sell them or have offered me money for them. I give them out for free at every event I sponsor and love seeing people’s faces light up when they see what I drew. Everyone I’ve met in the local TCG community has been incredibly kind and encouraging, as well. They give me tips on what I should draw next and ideas for upcoming events. Talking to everyone who stops by my table is my favorite part of any event.

My goal is to one day open a brick and mortar store, where I can have space to sell TCG products and do real estate business at the same time. I also want to continue to hand out tokens to everyone I see, but have thought about selling them online as well, for people who don’t live in Texas.

I have all of these dreams and goals around both my real estate business, and now my TCG business, that I sometimes feel like I’m aiming too high. But I genuinely think with the encouragement and support from the people I’ve met in the community and my husband, I can reach those goals.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1) Communication
2) The ability to take constructive criticism
3) Asking for advice from people who have been in the career field longer than you have / attending as many additional training webinars or courses as you can to make sure you’re as knowledgeable as possible

Communication is key. Being a good communicator is, in my opinion, the most important quality you can have when it comes to building a career from the ground up. Following up with people, keeping an open line of communication, touching base when you haven’t heard from someone, etc. That being said, being personable is also important. No one wants to hear your rehearsed sales pitch with the fake enthusiasm. People can pick up on a fake personality very quickly and it can be off putting. Be yourself, but know when to be more professional if the situation calls for it.

Seek out constructive criticism and don’t take it personally. Use it to better what you’re already doing. When I wrap things up with a client, I always ask “What could I have done to make this easier or better? What do you think you would change about my approach to this situation?” I only have my own point of view and how I felt things went, so I seek out =other’s points of view. If they can’t come up with something that they would do better, then I ask them why they think everything went smoothly, so that I can keep doing what my clients feel like I’m doing right.

Lastly, pick the brains of people who have been in the industry for longer than you have. Ask them about the hard times and the great times. Everyone goes through ebbs and flows and having the personal knowledge and wisdom from someone who has been in the career field is incredibly beneficial. What worked for them? What didn’t work out? What is something they feel like they would change, if they could? Etc. Take notes on what they say and incorporate it into your own business. If additional training or webinar courses are available to you, sign up for those as well. Soak up any and all knowledge from those. It will benefit you in the long run, even if you think it won’t in the moment. Keep all of your notes and textbooks from training so that you can reference them at any time, as well.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

Definitely pushing myself out of my comfort zone and talking to more people when I’m out and about or sponsoring events. My social anxiety and awkwardness has often kept me from being outgoing, but pushing through that shyness and anxiety has let me build long lasting relationships with people I’ve met through my work. On top of that, something that I once dreaded doing has become my favorite part of my businesses.

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Image Credits

RCQ poster – Sean Soderman

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