Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

From Real Estate to Soul Coach: Jennifer Maher's Journey of Transformation

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 334

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Jennifer Maher's return to the Be The Solution podcast takes us on a profound journey from her days as a real estate professional to her current calling as a soulful prosperity coach. What begins as a conversation about Buddhist philosophy—Jennifer reveals she's an ordained Buddhist priest—quickly evolves into a masterclass on personal transformation and authentic living.

Drawing from her remarkable life story that includes overcoming addiction in her twenties, Jennifer shares the exact moment she discovered the freedom that comes from making decisions based on alignment rather than fear. "When my business partnership suddenly dissolved and I lost everything overnight, I felt no fear—only freedom," she explains. This watershed moment launched her coaching business and cemented her philosophy of living "untethered" from scarcity mindsets.

At the heart of Jennifer's approach is a revolutionary concept: building businesses that support dream lifestyles rather than consume them. Through her "Beyond Limits" coaching program, she guides entrepreneurs to break free from the common trap of starting businesses for freedom only to end up hating their companies, clients, and having no time. The secret? Understanding that your personality creates your reality, and transformational change requires reinventing who you are at your core.

The conversation reaches its most powerful moments when Jennifer discusses radical responsibility and the liberation from judgment. Through compelling examples—from coffee spills to car accidents—she demonstrates how taking complete ownership for everything in your life creates unprecedented freedom. "Once I became 100% responsible for my circumstances and emotions, that's when I found true freedom," she reflects.

Perhaps most profound is Jennifer's perspective on judgment. By releasing our need to label experiences as good or bad, we open ourselves to unexpected opportunities and align with divine flow. She concludes with a simple yet transformative practice: living in gratitude as your default state. "You can't be grateful and angry at the same time," she notes, sharing how responding to "How are you?" with "Grateful" creates an immediate energetic shift.

Whether you're seeking professional reinvention, greater alignment in your business, or simply a more intentional approach to daily life, Jennifer's wisdom offers a roadmap to becoming truly untethered and authentically prosperous.

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Maria Quattrone:

This is the Be the Solution podcast and I'm your host, maria Quattrone, and today I have a return guest and friend of the podcast, jennifer Mayer. Welcome, jennifer, I'm excited to speak with you today and jump into what you have going on. I have a quote specifically for you today. Every morning, we are born again. What we do today is what matters most. According to a quote attributed to buddha, every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most I picked that for you.

Jennifer Maher:

I love that. I'm a huge fan. I don't know if you know that I'm an ordained Buddhist priest. Not everybody knows that. No, yes, I went through a seven-year course 20-something years ago and Buddhism is really the center of my life, my practice and who I am. It really is probably. Buddha and John Czeplak are the two major influences on my transformation in my life.

Maria Quattrone:

So I love that quote.

Jennifer Maher:

I love that quote because I spent a lot of my life, my adulthood, with a lot of shame. I went through a lot of dark times in my 20s. I got pregnant under the worst of circumstances but that sort of changed me, woke me up. I was addicted to drugs and on the streets in my 20s Really crazy. A lot of trauma, a lot of intense things. I got pregnant under really bad circumstances with my daughter and that just woke me up and gave me, like I felt, a connection to this world finally and an understanding of who I am and why I'm here. Becoming a mother, kind of, was the beginning of that, but I struggled for a long time and then, you know, when my daughter was probably about 10, maybe a little older, I stumbled across Buddhism and that's where my personal growth journey really really began.

Jennifer Maher:

So perfect quote to pick and that whole thing about every day is a new day and every day you get the chance to be whoever you are. It really is all a choice. You get to choose who you want to be, you get to choose the life you want to live, you get to choose the kind of day you want to have, regardless of the circumstances and once you can grasp that concept and, like I even dumb it down sometimes for myself, it's almost like you're, you're, you're you're in a movie and you get to choose what character you want to be, what role, what scene, the whole thing, the whole nine. You get to choose that. And so when you wake up in the morning, if you can set those intentions for who you want to be today, how you want to show up and what you want to happen, you'd be amazed at the outcomes that come out of that.

Maria Quattrone:

It was only so easy.

Jennifer Maher:

It's one of those things. It's not easy but it's simple. Right, that expression that I'm thinking of. Yes, it's not simple, but it's easy. Whatever it is easy, but the thing is it takes you out of your comfort zone, right, and so anything. So I don't know if you know who Dr Joe Dispenza is, I do, okay. So he has a concept about your personality, creates your reality, and so if you want a new reality, you actually have to reinvent your personality. And so what I just spoke about is literally, but to create your reality, your personality has to match that reality that you desire.

Jennifer Maher:

So that's where it's not easy, because we have so much programming, so much habit, energy. Habit, energy is things that we're born with. We're not even aware of why we do some of the things that we do and make some of the choices that we make. It's literally programmed in us. So that's the hard work, is reinventing. And even John Tuff like I mentioned him a lot because he's both of our coach you're coaching with him presently and I'm not but, um, his first book, I think his only book, was interrupt the pattern, and that's really what it's all about is making different choices, creating new habits, and that's, you know, that's the part that hard. But once you set that intention and decide this is the life that I want, this is the person I want to be, then just aligning your choices and your habits to match that and once you get past that first part, it's kind of not any different than starting going to the gym, right, or quitting sugar. But you know, sometimes it can be really easy.

Jennifer Maher:

I gave up alcohol four years ago, john Shep Black inspired, and it's like, if you do enough internal discovery of who you are, what you want, and you know how I ended up quitting drinking alcohol. I went back through my journals and I had never done that before. I was pretty consistent journaler, but I never went back and read them. So I went back and read them and it said like I wish I drank less, I wish I didn't drink. Just it mentioned it a lot and I didn't have alcohol related issues in my life at that time. All right, you know, uh. But when I read that I was like wow.

Jennifer Maher:

And then I remember that night, after reading my journals, I got home. It was a long day why I hear a voice in my head and I never really had actually heard it say yeah, have a glass of wine, and then, all of a sudden, I could. I could realize what the hell is that it's obviously not me, because I'm the one journaling I wish. So that's when I was really able to hear, discern and separate my thoughts from myself.

Jennifer Maher:

Our thoughts are not who we are, they are the programming, they are society, they are all kinds of things, but they are not necessarily us. And so when you can really start to discern that and that's where it's hard, that's where it's difficult, being able to separate that when these thoughts come through and for me personally, my thoughts were always talking me out of my deepest desires, like you're, in ways like you know well, you're not smart enough, you're not good enough, you're not rich enough, you're not skinny enough, you're not whatever. And so once I was able to begin to observe those thoughts, as opposed to allow them to make the decisions and choices in my life for me, things changed. So good quote Morgan Wow. So so much has changed since I was on here last.

Maria Quattrone:

Right, not in real estate.

Jennifer Maher:

No, of course, I'm still with exp um. I love still kind of, you know, being in the world from the outside, but no, I completely transitioned into a business coach and it's been amazing journey and watching you guys in the industry um has been interesting. You guys are going through a lot. It's tough all around, nothing easy in real estate right now. But the good news is that the truly committed, the ones that get it, they're still here and they're hanging tough and they're hanging strong and they're doing the right things for their clients, like you still here.

Maria Quattrone:

I want to know um talk about why, how you made the transition so why now?

Jennifer Maher:

so it really began for me through the pandemic. So the last you know, I was in real estate 28 years or 29 years, and the last 10 years of my real estate career, when I met you, I was uh, you know, uh, recruiting, training, coaching, uh, mentoring, and loved it. So then, through the pandemic, I founded my local business council, the Putnam County Business Council, and I was no longer the chairwoman, but I was still like on the board as a sufficient and all the emails came to me and real estate shut down. And then all of a sudden, these businesses are emailing the Putnam County Business Council, completely freaking out I mean freaking out, such a high level of now we're in a very Republican area, so there was a lot of anger with how New York was handling the pandemic. You know just everything was shut down and so on and so forth. So there was a lot of anger, a lot of fear, and I got to work. I was at my dining room table in heels, dressed as if I was going somewhere, and had webinars, podcasts, getting on calls, one-on-one with business owners and walking them through, not only being able to survive but thriving through the pandemic. And then all of a sudden, I realized I was so lit up. This was what I was meant to do and I kind of started, you know, but then my business partner was not quite as alive as I was through the pandemic, and I ended up having to step in as COO of the entire company and fast forward. I 10x that company from 30 million to 300 million, from 20 something agents to 100 and something agents, and two years you know, june of 2022, something happened and my business partner basically ambushed me and I did not have everything in writing and the next thing, you know, boom, it's all. It's all, it's all blown up, my income, my investment gone, and it was literally. I could feel the freedom and there was no fear.

Jennifer Maher:

Now, I did not have a ton of savings, I didn't have any savings and I did not. You know, I was just putting all my money into this company and, you know, spending time with my family, living life, enjoying life. The money will keep coming. I'll get everything straightened out. You know, blah, blah, blah, the rug ripped out from underneath me and something changed in me. I had not one ounce of fear and immediately the next day, launched my coaching business. Now I had already somewhat launched, I was doing more mostly real estate related kind of things.

Jennifer Maher:

And so I spent the first probably six months kind of trying to be a real estate in the real estate industry, real estate coach. But it gave me up the same way when I was doing what I was doing through the pandemic. And that's when I realized that I was kind of clinging to being a real estate coach out of fear, out of scarcity. So there was a little bit of it right, because that's my safety, out of fear, out of scarcity. So there was a little bit of it right Because that's my safety. And that's when I decided, no, I'm going all in and I'm going to work with all kinds of businesses.

Jennifer Maher:

And I've been, you know, building the plane while flying, and now I finally have landed on an amazing program that I've been doing mostly one-on-one with um.

Jennifer Maher:

The bulk of my business has been solopreneurs and entrepreneurs and um and also, you know, now have some small to medium-sized businesses you know with. I have one client that uh own, you know, started his own physical therapy franchise and has like 40 franchises. But I now have taken about a dozen solopreneurs and entrepreneurs through this six month program that I have called Beyond Limits and what I'm to, why I call myself a soulful prosperity coach, is to build a business that supports the life of your dreams, not the opposite. Because one of the things I have noticed, and I'm sure you agree, is when I'm speaking to business owners they got into the business that they're in because they loved it most of the time, because they wanted freedom, and the next thing, you know, they hate their business, they hate their employees, they hate their clients and they have no time and we fall into that trap, and a lot of that is from that programming that I spoke about.

Jennifer Maher:

It's about not being conscious of making decisions out of fear and out of scarcity. So, thank God, I had been doing this work. So, you know, throughout my building of my coaching business, I've had several times where I had that wake up call. So the first was in the first six months when I realized I was trying to coach real. You know in the real estate industry that that wasn't me up, but I was doing it out of fear and scarcity.

Jennifer Maher:

So I made that pivot and then I, you know, knew in my heart that I wanted to be fully remote, that I wanted to be fully remote and out of fear and scarcity and out of the fact that, like I'm so well known in my area here, easy for me to get clients locally. But they all really wanted me in person. And I spent a, you know, almost a year acquiescing to that and then, beginning of 2024, I said no more and I let go of like $8,000 a month in income, which I really needed, you know, at that time. But I didn't care. So that was the first time I really made a full decision without having financial insecurity or fears attached to it. And I can't even tell you the transformation that began when I was able to become completely untethered, as I like to call it untethered, the untethered soul.

Jennifer Maher:

There's a book yeah, michael Singer, yeah, amazing book. Read all of his books. He is amazing and resonate so much with his work and and gave this courage to like okay, so your bank account doesn't quite say that you should go to portugal right now, but you're aligned and that's what the alignment is all about. Right, who do I want to be? What is the life that I desire? And then you become impeccable with your actions, your choices, your habits. Not become impeccable with your actions, your choices, your habits, not perfect, impeccable. There's a huge difference. And the difference is you're doing the best that you can with where you're at right now, the tools that you have, the resources that you have and skill set or whatever, right, whatever you are right now. And so when you you are completely aligned, then you can live in faith and just know.

Jennifer Maher:

And the funny thing is and I said this to you before we come on so when I started to live in this faith and I used to have like a not good relationship with the word faith, because I don't have a great relationship with religions or I didn't, I now do, to be honest um, but I have realized that faith is really understanding your connection to the universe, the divine to God, that you are reflection you are, you are, you believe in whatever, that higher power that you believe in. And so faith is really just knowing who you are, what you're capable of, how you're going to show up and that, no matter what happens, you're going to be perfect, you're going to. It's all meant for you, it's all happening for you, it's all happening through you. And so we spend a lot of time judging Like I could spend a lot of time judging my business partner. Why did that happen?

Jennifer Maher:

I don't have to use victim language either. Like why would he do that to me? I had a role in that. You know, I didn't do everything perfectly. I had no malice.

Jennifer Maher:

No.

Maria Quattrone:

That's the thing.

Jennifer Maher:

Like people don't understand that we play a role in everything and so that I didn't have any malice there was no, you know, theft or like any of the things that were put out there but I had a role, I contributed to that outcome, and that's another concept.

Jennifer Maher:

Once I became 100% responsible for my circumstances and my emotions and the results of my communication. That's freedom, I think, the freedom we spend so much time as human beings blaming the circumstances, the people. What we're actually doing is burying ourselves deeper and ourselves, when we can just come out and be a hundred percent responsible. And that does not mean being a scapegoat, because that that was a pattern for me, you know. Being a scapegoat for people, no, that's not what that means. It means taking a hundred percent responsibility for your part in everything I talked about that yesterday with somebody.

Maria Quattrone:

I said radical awareness, radical responsibility. And I said okay, I'll give you an example. You're at the light, a car hits you. You're in your car, you're at the light, you're stopped. The car behind you hits you. Whose fault is it? Almost everybody. I'd say 90, probably five. I'm going to say 90% of people say the car behind you. I said no, it's your fault because I was there. So let me give you another example. I'm holding a cup of coffee. I'm holding this cup of coffee and I'm standing here and somebody walks over. I'm standing, they trip, fall into me, the coffee pours all over me and I'm wearing all white.

Jennifer Maher:

Whose fault is it? You chose to wear white, you chose to have a cup of coffee, you chose to be there in that space and time, right? I almost think that if we get rid of the word fault and just understand right and that's been my greatest practice in the last year is letting go of the judgment and the labeling. Good and bad. So, oh, this is bad, that this coffee spilled all over me and that my white thing is dressed.

Maria Quattrone:

You have no idea.

Jennifer Maher:

Maybe maybe you having that coffee spilled all over you and now you have to go change, maybe that saved your life. Maybe there was a truck about to come by, you know, had you gotten your car right then. Or you know, whatever you get what I'm saying. Or maybe when you went to change your clothes you call that you would have missed. That was an opportunity of a lifetime.

Jennifer Maher:

But we're so busy judging whether something, a circumstance, a person, a behavior is good or bad. That's not where we're not attached and connected to the divine when we are doing that, because listen and we judge even things in the world that are happening as good and bad. If you just study nature, nature has violence, nature has chaos, nature has every single element that there is. But meanwhile we spend our time judging human nature. It's all necessary, the ugly, the beautiful, you know there's, there's no. Without a negative, it doesn't exist.

Jennifer Maher:

But yet we want to like just spend all our time focusing and focusing on the negative, and what we're doing is actually missing out on the other side of that. And the thing with ourselves, when we deny the ugly sides of ourselves, the dark sides of ourselves, the not so perfect, the shadow parts of ourselves, dark sides of ourselves, the not so perfect, the shadow parts of ourselves. And that's one of the things that really bonded me to John Chaplock too, because he he the book that he recommended. But when I first got off the streets in my 20, I read this book called the Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford, and John recommends to his clients another book. But it's like Debbie Ford, deepak Chopra and somebody else.

Jennifer Maher:

But, it's also about the shadow, and so I had the book when I first got off the streets and I read it and it impacted and resonated. But the true shadow work did not. I didn't really, I just did two years of deep shadow work after the business blew up. I just did two years of deep shadow work after the business blew up, and then my husband and all of that like really trying to understand my patterns and who I am. So my point is, when you deny your own, what perceived bad parts of yourself or negative parts or blah, blah, blah deny that, that the potentiality. Or even when you're judging others like oh my God, I would never do that and I would never do this, you are also denying the potentiality of the greater good. So anytime you're denying your capability of bad things, you are also denying the other side of that. And so if you can get to a place where you're not judging what's good and what's bad, you just are part of this universe and you're going with the flow and you're adjusting, but yet you have your intentions very clear. You know who you are and who you want to be and why you're here. It's just beautiful, right? That's. That's where it comes from, but we spend so much time judging. I can't believe. This coffee spilled on me, this ruined my whole morning and meanwhile you have no idea that maybe you were just just saved you, or this opportunity would never have come across if that coffee didn't get spilled on you. We don't know.

Jennifer Maher:

Sometimes it'll happen and it's crystal clear, but I would say 99.9 of life happens without us knowing. What a beautiful gift, what a miracle it is, because we're too busy judging and that's a hard one. So so I lived with both my daughters and my granddaughter and boy. Is that a practice in not judging? Because you know, as a mom, we judge, we're scared and it's really about us and we want them to be okay and we worry, we love. What we're really doing is judging, and so I got a great opportunity to to be observed and, like you know, can have an opinion, but you don't let it affect you. You then don't start manipulating and controlling and fixing because of your judgment.

Maria Quattrone:

Wow.

Jennifer Maher:

There's a lot.

Maria Quattrone:

That's a lot, but it's what it really is about and I think a lot of times we go through life unaware, even aware. People go through life unaware. I'm aware, but I'm still unaware. Yeah, I mean.

Jennifer Maher:

I'm aware.

Maria Quattrone:

I'm going to take responsibility, but I'm still unaware and I also find myself like if I don't. I look at somebody. I'm like what are they thinking?

Jennifer Maher:

right, so I have to like I literally catch myself and go no judging like you know, I'll see eyebrow things, I'll hear nose things we wouldn't need any botox if we didn't judge tat it up, like, up, like face, tad it Like I don't.

Maria Quattrone:

Arms are one thing, face, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no that your things Like I'm like.

Jennifer Maher:

What I get it. But you know, live and let live. And if you go back to what I said, Live and let live. If you go back to what I said earlier about, if we view this like, my daughter is very woke young lady. She's a lesbian, she came out of the closet, she's the most feminine, beautiful woman you'll ever see and we live in a very, you know, trump centric area and they're like so up in flames about drag queens and all of this and they've like popped up shop across from her boutique and you know she spent like a year of being like very angry and then I just said it to her.

Jennifer Maher:

I'm like no honey, they got to choose their role. Think about how much fun it would be to come into the world and be so, you know, dedicated to something or a belief, or a person, or a cause or this um, where you really don't care what anybody else is thinking, and you're and you're, you know, driving around with your confederate flag on your truck and you know, you know all kinds of extremes and you don't give a flying f. I'm like how much fun is that? They're not thinking about you, they're not worried about you. Now you do the same thing with your role. You decide, but don't don't allow to impact you. And you don't impact them. Just stay out of judgment. They're doing them and all of it is necessary. And so when we we're judging it, we're missing out, on the other side, the potentiality of the good. And also when we're focused in judging on the negative, what we perceive is the negative size.

Jennifer Maher:

People like what's happening with the democratic party right now, with trump, they're making whatever they perceive as negative a greater reality, whereas if we were taking, it was now like, oh, we love that Trump did this and we love that Trump did that, and we and only focused on the good part, that you know that everybody has good and bad. But if you're only hyper-focused on the negative, that becomes a much larger reality. And who is it harming? Confirmation bias, confirmation bias big time. And that's the state the world is living in right now and it's mind-blowing and it's heartbreaking. I saw somebody and I'm very neutral here, I probably always have been I hate Trump, I don't love Trump, I don't love the Democratic Party. Right now I see more, I mean in New York City, like to put up Cuomo for mayor. You just betrayed, like the entire party, like you know, this guy did some bad things as governor and it was very public. They put him up for mayor.

Maria Quattrone:

So I try to stay out of that and judge that.

Jennifer Maher:

But of course there's a part of you that's going to go in there. I forgot the point that I was going to make. But just, you know not being in that space and not allowing it. But that doesn't mean be passive, it doesn't mean not care, it doesn't mean care, it doesn't mean, you know, don't do your part, um, it just means don't allow it to affect you, aff, affect you where your choices and you know you're you're, you're sacrificing your, your health, relationships and joy and your presence. You know, being on the phone, checking the news all day and all that like no can't do it, it doesn't allow you to move forward.

Maria Quattrone:

Then you're just stuck in a little circle. It goes around and around. There's no, there's no movement. So, being all energy, energy is constantly moving. Even if I have my hand out like this, doesn't look like it's moving, but there are little things that are always. We're moving. So how to stay around the good, positive energy? And that's what I try to do. I do try my best to do that. I don't always succeed, but I try, and I think there's, you know, trying and getting better, and trying and getting better. It's a process.

Jennifer Maher:

I mean with my clients, I, you know, I I make a weekly activation. Be able to purposefully step into the highest and best version of yourself, which is the highest frequency energy that you can tap into Gratitude. Gratitude is the ultimate space to live in and if you are judging, you're not in gratitude. Not in gratitude which you can't be grateful and angry at the same time. You can't be grateful and sad at the same time. You can't be grateful in almost anything. You're grateful and you're grateful. And I'll tell you the story.

Jennifer Maher:

You know, remember, like maybe 10 years ago, they started coming out with the word of the year and like, as I was coaching more and more, I was so judgy of this. I'm like word of the year. I have like 50 words that I want to embody, that I want to be part of my values, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, so see it coming out, I roll my eyes, come on. And then it came to me my word is grateful and it will be every year. And when people say how are you doing, the best response Because you know, like I've had a lot going on. And so when someone says how are you doing, your brain starts going. And but if you immediately go grateful, grateful that's how I'm doing you feel it physically shift everything in you.

Jennifer Maher:

So that's my recommendation Stay in gratitude, you know, and go beyond just a gratitude list Like show it. You know like you got me thinking about John Shepak today. So there will be a message to John. I love you, I'm grateful for you and thank you for how you've impacted my life. Like embody the gratitude. Don't just write it down on a book.

Maria Quattrone:

Embody gratitude. I think about that and talk about it all the time. Being grateful, being grateful. I read something. Actually, I listened to it with my dad. In order for you to be born, about 4,200 people or so came before you Ancestors.

Jennifer Maher:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

Your mother, your father, your grandmother, your great-grandmother, great-grandfather, great-great-great-great-great-great. It's 4,200 plus people sacrificed and had to live and be born for you to be born.

Jennifer Maher:

So true, so true.

Maria Quattrone:

You know, I have a responsibility. I believe to be the best that we can, and my word happens to be and I do the word of the year. It's impact, impact and impact, and I think like impact, impact others, but but as I'm seeing it right now, and we're more than halfway through the year, I'm like, what about impact myself?

Jennifer Maher:

yeah, oh, my god, maria, once I put myself first which john really helped me with I became a better, better mother, a better coach, a better friend, a better daughter, a better everything. Once I put myself first, I am a recovered people pleaser and I did not know it and really we think we're people pleasing for everybody else, but I was people pleasing because I was insecure, didn't think people would love me if I didn't do everything for them and blah, blah, blah. That is an empty cup. I was pouring from an empty cup for the bulk of my adult childhood. So that putting yourself first key crucial self-care so critical.

Maria Quattrone:

It's so critical. I love it. You're like it's amazing to see you. You look amazing, Sound amazing. You have so many good things to share. I love it. You are the solution. You are being the solution for your life and I'm grateful.

Jennifer Maher:

I'm grateful too. Thank you, I'm so glad that you asked me to be on.

Maria Quattrone:

really good stuff amazing and I'm not going to forget about. I had no idea about the buddha teaching, so that's crazy.

Jennifer Maher:

I picked that but yeah, that's the divine in in process a thousand.

Maria Quattrone:

There's a thousand quotes. Yeah, every morning I pick one for yes, yeah.

Jennifer Maher:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

I love it, thank you.

Jennifer Maher:

Thank you.