Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

The Power of Discipline and Relentlessness: Michelle Berman - Mikel's Journey

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 338

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What if the question that annoyed you throughout childhood became the guiding principle for your success? For Michelle Berman-Mikel, founder of Beyond the Method, her father's persistent question after every swim meet—"Was that the best you could do today?"—transformed from a frustrating interrogation into the cornerstone of her business philosophy.

Michelle reveals how discipline and relentlessness became her defining traits, sharing candidly how these qualities enabled her to build a thriving business, secure major speaking engagements, and write her upcoming book. With refreshing honesty, she dismantles the myth that content virality leads to business success, explaining instead that "virality doesn't pay bills—appointments do." Her systematic approach to follow-up sets her apart in an industry where most give up far too soon.

What makes Michelle's methodology unique is her recognition that we must work with our authentic selves rather than against them. Her "value series" approach places content creators in environments where their passion naturally shines through, making videos more engaging and genuine. This philosophy extends to her personal journey as well—from the moment she spotted her future husband at the gym and knew instantly he was "the one" (despite never having spoken), to marrying him just two months after their first date, to navigating the heartbreaking loss of a child while writing her book.

The pivotal realization that she wasn't a social media expert but a prospecting expert transformed both her business and her understanding of her purpose. Now, as she prepares to launch her book on August 25th, Michelle's message resonates with anyone seeking sustainable success: identify what truly sets you apart, commit to consistent daily actions, and never stop following up on opportunities. Ready to transform your approach to business and life? Michelle's story shows how small, consistent choices ultimately create who we become.

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Maria Quattrone:

I'm Maria Quattrone and this is the Be the Solution podcast, and today I'm very excited to bring Michelle Berman-Mikel on. Welcome Michelle.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Thank you so much, maria, excited to be here.

Maria Quattrone:

Excited to spend some time with you. We've known each other through social media, but it is great to connect on the podcast and if you know anything about me and my podcast, I have a quote specifically that I thought about for you, specifically for you, this morning. Here's, here's the quote for you you make your choices and then your choices make you.

Maria Quattrone:

I love that you make your choices and then your choices make you. I love that you make your choices and then your choices make you, and I thought that this quote was important for you because you've made some really important choices in your life and you've made them and you kept making the right ones. Over time, of course, we make the ones that throw us off the path, but I think it's important and we talk about you know, it really is the small things tiny hinges, swing big doors, all the difference in um, in our lives, and how. It's not any magical big thing that's going to happen yep, no, it's not I agree so you know your journey.

Maria Quattrone:

Like, let's talk about your journey how it started and how you got to where you are right now yeah.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Well, we can go all the way back. We can start as far back as as I can remember, or we could start more on the work side, um, but I'll tell you. You know, there's some pivotal moments in my life that have happened over the years. One is recently, as late last year, and then you know the first one that I think I can talk about very confidently as being one of those hinges right that have opened more doors is back in the day. Most of those people who are most of you all listening to this may know, but I've been an athlete my entire life.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I started swimming competitively at five and that was a big, big part of my upbringing. I was not really like the party girl. I did go out here and there, but for the most part I put my head down and I swam a lot and I got really good grades. But with that, there was a saying that my dad said to me for years and years and years of almost all 20 years of my swimming career, and after every race, no matter if I won, no matter if I got a personal best time, no matter if I got dead last and totally sucked, the question was always the same, and it was. You know, honey, was that the best you could do today? And I remember, as a younger girl, being very frustrated by that question and kind of irritated of like dad, didn't you just see me win? Or you know, dad, what are you talking about? Didn't you just see me totally crap the bed? Like that was horrible. But it was always the same question. And what I didn't understand then that I understand now is he was priming me for my adult life no-transcript. So in the moment, you know you're frustrated, you're like what do you mean, dad? And and as I've grown up over the years, right, and especially starting my entrepreneurial journey in 2014, you know the question stayed very poignant for me of was that the best I could do today? And did I show up with 100% of what I had that day? You know, in some days we don't have 100% of ourselves. Some days we only have 70 or 80% of who we normally are. But then even the question still lies, right, did we give ourselves 100% of the 70% that we had that day, or the 80% we had that day?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And, um, you know, I'll never forget when I had the flu, when I got home about a year ago from a trip I was at, a big work trip came home and it was my husband and my son had had the flu before I left but I thought I had circumvented it. Thankfully, of course, that was not the case. Get home and it was the worst flu I have ever had. It was eight days of just on my butt like did not, could not do anything. It was horrible.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, and I just kept telling myself throughout the week all I have to do is get the one priority thing done today. That's it Just the one priority thing done. You know most people would be like, well, I have the flu, I'll just take the whole week off. And there were deadlines that had to be made, there were clients that needed things, there were stuff that needed to get done. So, yes, a lot of that stuff that wasn't priority got pushed off. But I made a commitment every single day of those eight days, even though I felt like shit right, that I was going to get that one thing done that needed to really get done. And I did and I'm proud of that. So it all comes back to that question again of did you give yourself or did you give your people 100% of what you had that day, even if it was only you know half of your normal capacity.

Maria Quattrone:

I love that. Was that the best that you can do today? Because really it's what it comes down to, and we don't always have a hundred percent. For lots of reasons, sick didn't sleep all night. For lots of reasons, sick didn't sleep all night, baby crying you know, something woke us up in the middle of the night and we were up for three hours. But can we accept that?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what we can do today.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I think it even goes down to something as simple as like working out right, like there are many a days where I don't want to do it because I'm tired or I've had a long day. But every time I say, you know what I've had, I'm tired, I've had a long day, I'll just skip it. I feel like crap about it. I feel like crap about myself, right, it's like that almost thing in the back of my mind that I'm just like, oh, I should have just done it Right. So in the moment, yeah, the answer would have been easy to say, nobody would have been surprised. Oh, michelle didn't work out today, or Michelle didn't do a run today because she was on Zoom for seven hours, or you know, this happened or that happened, whatever we can justify it however much we want, but we, we are the only ones that really feel that feeling on the inside of man. I really should have just done what I said I was going to do, or what I was capable of doing, and I chose not to.

Maria Quattrone:

Right. So integrity doing what you say you're going to do and the only person that integrity affects really is yourself, because each time you don't do what you say you're going to do, a little bit of your confidence is destroyed, is gone, Because then we stop trusting ourselves. So if you don't trust yourself, you don't you're going to trust anybody else. You have to trust yourself. In order to trust yourself is keeping the commitments that you say you're going to do, whatever it is.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

It's really that simple.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

It really is that simple.

Maria Quattrone:

It's that simple because that simple. It's that simple because, you know, I thought about a time when I started to lift weights and I would say, okay, I'm going to do it these days. And then each time I did it and I got a little bit better, I got more confidence. And when you had the more confidence, the confidence gave you more confidence and made you want to do more, because now you're winning. So I don't know anybody that doesn't want to win. Michelle, do you?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

no, I don't, I mean, and no, I mean even people that are not in sales, right, I mean, I know a lot of my close friends that are all not in sales, that you know, just work a normal I don't want to say normal because that sounds bad, but like just a, a traditional nine to five that isn't rooted in commission or anything like that, and they still want to do the best they can do every day.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

You know they they visit or emotionally, not physically, but they emotionally attach almost like their self worth right of to did I do the best I could do at my job today.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Right, one of my next door neighbors, a couple doors over, um, her and I have gotten super close since they've moved in and, um, same thing, she works for a big or not a big mortgage company, I'm sorry. She works for a big company called train, very popular company, most people know it. Um, and she describes her work day to me and I'm just like damn girl, like what you have to do every day. That's, it's crazy what you have to accomplish in a day, you know, and she's not commission based, she just gets her salary, but you can hear it when she's talking about what she does, how important showing up her best or in her best capacity for her job really is, not just to her company but to her Right. So I think you know we're obviously commission based employees, as I'm sure most people listening to this are, but it doesn't matter if you are or aren't. I think the principle is full-fledged.

Maria Quattrone:

It's pride, and the pride of doing the best that you can do, yes, and that carries into other areas of your life, because we don't live in a vacuum. It's not just like you know, work, michelle, and real life, michelle, and Maria, it's like for me.

Maria Quattrone:

Me, it's the same same there's not a different person that's going to show up. No, this is, I guarantee you, you're this, it's the same. Where we're showing up right now is how we show up across the board. Yes, you know the old saying of how you do one thing is how you do everything. Absolutely, I love, I'm like, I love quotes. I'm a quote person and I I really take like them to meaning. You know, one of my favorite ones is um and I talked a lot about this in sales is whether you think you can or think you can't, or think you can't. Either way, you are right. So your belief system about whether you could do something or not, and even if you haven't done it, you can take a borrowed belief from somebody who has done it before, because is there somebody that came before you that is doing what?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

you want to do 100%.

Maria Quattrone:

And if there is, then you can do it as well, as long as you put the time, energy, work into it and goes back to the tiny wins. So I want to talk about that. You know, before we got on today, I asked you about your speaking and how you started to get involved in speaking and being on stages and training companies, and so I want to go back to how you went from here to over to this side and what that looked like and what you had to do and who, most importantly who you had to become to do it.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yeah, it's. This is is a. It's an interesting world to be in. Right, being a speaker is a really challenging um dynamic. It's a. It's a space that breaking into is an uphill battle. Every day, every day right, and also every at bat of being on stage directly correlates to the next one, and I think that that's something that I've learned over the years. But I will tell you, I started speaking in very late 2021 and I had a baby in August of 2021, during COVID, and right after that, I had a random company reach out and ask if I would come do a training in their office.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Okay, that that was a cool introduction to it. Well, there happened to be about 150 real estate agents in that office. So this wasn't a small little thing and I had no concept of you know what I was really walking into. Other it was other than it was in a Keller Williams office at the time. Um, so I walk in and I'm, you know, training in front of this room of 150 agents, and I wasn't a speaker at the time. I was very much so more of a teacher, and I still am more of a teacher than I am a speaker.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

But what I can tell you is. I caught the bug right. I started seeing all these light bulbs go off all over the place in the room with people. People were coming up to me and when I was done talking, it was a 90 minute training session. At the end I mean I could not leave. I had a line of people that wanted to talk to me and wanted to pick my brain about things and I remember going home and just telling my husband I was like, man, that was freaking fun but I'm exhausted. Like that was hard, you know. But it was so much fun and I caught this bug of wow, I can really serve on a one to many level and I can do it in a way that feeds my pipeline for my company and for what I do.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So I started actively pursuing more of those and one of the things that I did was making sure that I would market. Hey, I had done this thing publicly on social so that other companies would see that I was available quote unquote to do that. So it became a part of my marketing strategy to post this to the world that, hey, I was doing this, but 2022, 2023, I was doing this, but um 2022, 2023,. Every year it's progressed, it's gotten bigger and bigger. Um, this past year, in 2025, um, some of the biggest speaking opportunities I could have ever imagined happening have happened.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, I spoke at mastermind summit in Vegas a couple of weeks ago and you know about 500 people in the room, at least even on the last day of the event, which was amazing, and it was on a big stage in a big hotel in Vegas and it was wow. Why is this happening to me? And I'll be speaking later this year at Fuse, which is a big broker event for the mortgage broker community, which is wild to me. I never, three, four years ago, ever would have expected to be on that stage, especially not in such a short timeframe.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, but what I can tell you, marie, to answer your question, is it was a daily decision that I made every single day to do, and that daily decision I talk so much about in every keynote. It's in my book coming out. It's a big part of my philosophy of beyond the method, um, but it's one single daily act that I must do every single day without fail in order to create an opportunity for myself, and that one single daily act is sending a message to someone that I do not know with the intention of creating an opportunity and doing it through leverage. So I'll say it again for you know, I know you like let's unpack that, because there's a lot in that.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So much yeah. But also I'll say, even though, yes, I've been very successful at getting on stages, now there's still that dopamine that happens every time you get an email that says, hey, so-and-so wants you to come in and speak, or hey, are you available on this day. But I will also tell you I'm not necessarily where I want to be, in that you know I still have to fight the fight every single day to get the opportunities. Now, I'm not saying that ever goes away. I think you always have to fight your fight and put your name into the hat and say, hey, I'm available. But I do think that you know it gets easier, right? I would say half of my opportunities come to me and the other half I have to go find, whereas in, you know, 2022, 2023, I had to go find all of them, every single one of them, and so that pendulum kind of switches back to the other side, right?

Maria Quattrone:

In the beginning, Kind of like listing real estate. People call and say I want to list my home with you, and then the other people we have to find them. Maybe they expired and we're cold calling them from a list. It's the same thing same thing now you've taken it to one to many instead of one to one yeah, I mean, that's the only way to scale right.

Maria Quattrone:

That's the only way it is truly the only way to scale, but there's a mindset around it. So the question is who did you have to become for that to happen?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Well, I think I already was her back, you know, all the way from the very early stages of my life. But you know, I have a couple of words that I would use to describe who did I have to become, and the two words I would use is disciplined, and the other word I would use is relentless. Relentless is a personality trait. It's not in your DNA, right? It's a, I guess, kind of it is in your DNA, but the reality of it is is it's a choice to be that way, right? So it's a personality trait of I am choosing to be this person. But on the DNA side, I would say the discipline it was just ingrained in me from a very early age.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I had a very easy, I would say, in some circumstances, upbringing great family. Dad worked really hard, mom worked really hard, I got to swim all over the country all the time. Yeah, we weren't rich by any means, but we certainly weren't poor, and it was kind of that normal middle class life that I was living. So for me, discipline came from the choice that my parents made, which was to put me in a pool, and then the relentlessness came from. I wanted to win, right. So discipline was showing up to the pool every day because my parents were dropping me off at class or at practice, and the relentlessness came from my decision of when I was there. I wasn't just there to be there, right, my parents were spending money and time and effort to put me into something, to give me a choice to create or to give me a chance to create a good life for myself and to learn skills, and that is where the relentlessness was really born in my mind. So, from a very early age, discipline was ingrained in me. Relentlessness was born in me, and fast forward to today, I don't know anyone that's more relentless than I am.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I've met some that are very close, but I get complimented regularly. Michelle, I've never met somebody better at follow-up than you. I get recruited to come be a realtor or be a mortgage professional, like I swear every single day because people are like oh my gosh, you would make a great realtor. Oh my gosh, michelle, you'd make a great lender. Because my follow-up game is paramount. Nothing overshadows my follow-up game. That is always first on my list every single day, of following up with the people that need to be followed up with. So that's that relentlessness that's in you and you have to make that a choice right. The discipline of doing the things that make relentlessness make sense. Right, because if I relentlessly pursued opportunities but didn't have a structure behind me, then it would fall flat and it wouldn't work right. So it's not one or the other. I really think that both of those words feed into one another.

Maria Quattrone:

All of the uh, all the business, the opportunities I don't care what industry you're in all come from the follow-up. If you look at what sales are 80, 80 of sales come after the fifth to 12th conversation. In some industries it may be a little bit more, but very few follow-up is that many times more, but very few follow-up is that many times? And in regards to say, your follow-up strategy, what does that look like? Yeah, that can be. That can go into any industry.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Oh, no matter what industry, absolutely. So I have a list that I make and a lot of it's in my head. But also I have these little cards. I don't know if everyone's going to be able to see us, but I have these little cards that I use and I can send you the link, maria, if you want to give it to people. But it's called analog I couldn't say the word for a second analog and it was recommended to me by my coach, renee Rodriguez, back about a year and a half ago when I took his amplify course.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And it's these little cards that you write down on and you like, highlight the circle halfway next to the whatever the thing is you wrote down. You highlight it halfway once you started the project and then you highlight it the whole way once you finished it. And, unlike a planner which I used to be a planner person, like hardcore, like a written planner, I'd bring it everywhere with me, never left my side, right, and the thing with a planner that was really interesting to me psychologically, that I then learned on, learned about later on, is with a planner, we close it Right, so it's closed and it's next to us, or it's closed and it's in our backpack when we write our notes down. The thing with these cards is it sits on my desk right next to me in this little thing and it stares at me all day, right? So I know exactly what's in front of me and I know exactly.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Hey, I made a list of seven things and I only did one of them today. So my work isn't done today until I get through another one or two more of them, right? So it's sort of this analog style system that psychologically breeds get shit done. But I write the names on of the people. I also have a sales call log, so I have probably 10 to 15 sales calls a week, um, and when I have a call with someone, I obviously take notes on them. But the most important thing I do and this is for everybody, regardless of what industry you're in, if you're in sales is I schedule my followup call with that person before we get off the phone.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So if I don't sell, them if I don't sell them on the phone which happens, you know, at least 50% of the time then I will put them on my calendar and I always say to the person I have a very strict 48 hour rule for following up. I'm looking at my calendar. Today is Thursday. I know we're heading into the weekend, so are you available tomorrow? Or I can talk to you first thing Monday morning. Monday, I've got a 9am. Does that work for you, right? So I don't give. Let them tell me what works for them. I give them a time and let them say no, and then we find a new time, right. And by putting them on my calendar it also creates that need in them to hopefully not ghost me, which people still ghost, you know. Whatever, that's just sales, but it creates a significantly smaller amount. That will do that, especially if they accepted the calendar invite for the next call.

Maria Quattrone:

And yeah, yes, that's really important. I always stress that schedule the call when you're on the call, the next call, and sometimes I'm guilty myself of giving them too much breathing room. Yes, I just thought about yesterday's meeting with somebody. I met with them and I didn't nail down specifically the next time based on the way the meeting went. And I think back to that now and I have to question myself for why I didn't nail that time down.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

So that's an interesting system. I don't know, because you know I have a little notebook right here I write in, but you know it gets closed.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yep, that's the difference.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

It gets closed and then guess what happens Gets put away and you forget what's on there. And it gets closed and then guess what happens gets put away and you forget what's on there. Um, my mind gets closed. I'm telling you it's such a simple thing and you would be like, wow, that's. You know, I, I'm a planner person, whatever, I'm good. But, like I'm telling you, it is game changing for productivity.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, and I did some research on the gentleman who created the system the formal name of it is like Ugmonk, but it's called the analog system and I did some research on the guy, watched some of his YouTube videos and just like kind of went down the wormhole and I'm like this guy is brilliant, like all he's done is getting us back, or gotten us humans back to the basics right, which is what I know you're teaching all of your team members and all of the people that are learning from you, and I know for sure that's what I'm teaching my people of just getting back to the basics.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And psychologically, we spend so much time trying to find the next new thing or the next shiny object to keep us excited, when in reality, the true thing, the true differentiator between me and somebody else is that I do exactly what I say I'm going to do and I do not stop Right.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And I do the basics of that Calling people, following up with them via text message, right, and if I say I'm going to call you in 48 hours, I actually call you in 48 hours and if you don't answer, I'm going to text you right afterwards and say we had a call on our calendar, don't see you? Right? Text me if you want to reschedule and if not, feel free to call me back Right, like, so it's. It's just the basic principles of sales and I also believe that the best people who are successful in sales are the ones that one are the best at telling stories, but, more importantly, are the ones that find a story to connect with the person on, to keep their interest, to almost make them feel like they have to answer your call when you call them again in a couple of days. So we can certainly unpack that, but I think that's a big part of tracking and maintaining your sales pipeline.

Maria Quattrone:

So let's talk a little bit more about that and what you mean by stories a story of somebody else's success.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

No, a story about the person find a connector right. So a big thing that I teach in my world is finding connection with someone right. What makes you? You and you know I teach a specific pillar of content called value series. And what value series does is it allows you to combine your passions with your pain points into a video series, and the beautiful side about this series is that you record your videos in the element of the passion. So, if you love wine, if you love reading, if you love card games, if you love hummingbirds I don't care what it is you're recording your video content in the element of the passion, meaning wine, guess what. You're going to a winery or you're recording in a wine cellar or you're, you know, poker. You're in the element of poker. You got a poker table in front of you.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, I just had a lady submit a series to me. Um, she's a God person, a woman of faith who I love. Um, and she actually found a really cool church that has a big, beautiful wooden cross out front and she recorded all five of her videos in front of the big cross. Uh, just came out super, super cute, but it keeps us out of the elements of our offices right, or like the environment of our offices is a better word where we're just sort of sitting with our phone in our face or with our phone and a tripod, um, and recording the way that everyone else records. So there's a couple of things there.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Everyone wants more engagement, but they're not willing to create opportunities for people to engage. That's number one. Number two is if you're having a hard time with showing up on video, which I'm sorry, there are way too many people out there shoving video down everybody's throats. But I will tell you like, yes, you need to be on video. But here's the thing about video itself is it's being taught wrong, because the best thing about video, in my mind, and the best way to do video is to put the person that you're trying to get to do them in somewhere or in an element that makes them feel safe, so that they are confident and does and they desire doing it Right.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So, for example, if my client gets to go do her videos in front of a church and buy a cross and she's a big woman of faith, does several missions every mission, trips every year went just got back from Guatemala to do a really fun trip. They built a whole playground for an orphanage. I mean, it was so fun to watch and be a part of the journey with her, but she hates video, she hates doing them, she hates the sound of her voice, which is isn't that what we all say. And so, by putting her in the element of something that makes her feel safe and makes her feel good, you would never know in a million years watching her on video, that she was nervous about it at all zero. And you can tell she's having fun, because the next time I met with her she even said to me she was already planning her next series, and to me that means that I succeeded in moving this person's needle towards being on video more. And then, thirdly so that was number two.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

But thirdly, what happens is the people that consume your video are significantly more in sort of invited into your world. They feel more towards you because they can tell that you're more passionate and more excited about what you're talking about. Right, like if, if I love dogs which I do right and I'm on video and on camera and I, you can feel my love and energy towards these animals You're more likely to want to watch my video versus if I look really uncomfortable and awkward. You're kind of like what is Michelle doing, right, and it sort of gives off a weird energy. So if you create that, you sound more confident, people are more likely to believe you and more likely to stay engaged or tune into more of what you're doing. So it's better for you, it's better for them, it's better all around to create the third thing, or, in this case, the first thing I mentioned on the list, which is engagement.

Maria Quattrone:

Engagement. I guess I have to move to Italy.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Or you have to create an environment that makes it feel like that Do you have an Italian restaurant you can go to that has an ambience and a vibe that reminds you of going to Italy? Right, is there somewhere that you have in your home that you designed a space that makes it feel like that? Right, that's where your safe space would be. If that's something that makes, you know, kind of lights you on fire, so, yeah, you got to go put yourself in the element.

Maria Quattrone:

So let's talk about how you you built beyond the method.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Sure, what do you want to know?

Maria Quattrone:

I want to know all of it as much as you want to share.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yeah, so um, beyond the Method was born in 2019. It was originally called the Instagram Power Method when we first launched in that year, july of that year. The name changed in late 2021. Early 2022 was the official change, but we got slapped with a trademark lawsuit with the word Instagram being in our name. I guess somebody was mad at my success enough that they wanted to be that guy. So we got slapped with a little trademark lawsuit, ended up having to pay a lawyer to trademark the name beyond the method and that was the ultimate kind of transition away from the word Instagram in our name.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And at the time it was actually a really beautiful thing when it happened, because my company had evolved so much that it wasn't just Instagram. It really was a lot more than the Instagram power method. It really was this sort of beyond concept. So it was kind of a rebirth, phoenix rising kind of moment for me in my life when that happened. But I built it in 2019 after about a year of life trials and tribulations and some stuff that had happened to me in 2018, um, I was in a really, really toxic and unhealthy relationship that ended in January of 2018, got on a plane, um, in a couple, a couple months after that, and flew to Manchester in the United Kingdom, um, to meet with a coach that I had met online but had never met in person, um, so I spent it was the first time I had ever left the country, by the way, um in 2018, never even been to Mexico, even though I grew up in California, it was just like never did it, um, but flew all the way across the world to the United Kingdom, um met my coach in real life. We spent eight days in Manchester, um, going to coffee shops here and there, all over the place. He knew how much I loved coffee and his wife and I had become friends over the years of working with them, and so she knew all of the cute little coffee shops for us to go to. And we mind mapped out what is now known as Beyond the Method, and the best visual example I can give you is there was a big white poster board paper in front of us with a black Sharpie, and by the end of the week, I mean, we had gone through stacks and stacks of these papers, and I still have the picture saved in my phone. I really should get it framed. I don't know why I never have, but I just I still have the photo and then you can see the word Instagram power method circled at the bottom in the bottom corner. And when he sent me back home and I got back to the States, he told me I had to fire all my clients that were not in the real estate or mortgage space and I had to go to work on building the Instagram power method.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And you know, again, later became beyond the method, but that was how it was born and it was born out of the desire to serve people on a level that wasn't virality based. So most social media classes, most social media courses, if you will, that you're taking are all rooted in how to get more followers, how to combat the algorithm, how to make better content, which I just again, not saying that you don't need those things, but I think it's the wrong way to coach someone on something because, at the end of the day, virality does not pay my bills. Having a DM come in or me sending a DM that creates an appointment on my calendar is what pays my bills. So my course beyond the method is solely rooted in how do we utilize what we have to create appointments and how do we create leverage for ourselves to get more appointments? Content matters yes, I'm not going to discount the fact that we have to have great content, but I'm going to tell you that's not the end all be all. In the overall scheme of things. So that's really how it was all born, but I was in 2014, before I created.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Many years before this happened, I was buying and selling Instagram accounts. Like you would buy and sell real estate and flipping them for profit, very similar to how a flipper buys and sells and holds and renovates and then sells. It was the same exact concept, but it was on Instagram. So I bought my first two Instagram accounts in 2014 for $20,000. I sold both of them for a little over 100,000 in 2018. Pretty good ROI on an investment, and in the process, I was buying and selling ads for companies, while also growing the accounts throughout those um almost five years, and so I got really really good at sniffing out fake things, right. Fake video views, fake content, um, fake followers, all of the fake stuff, the bots, all of that that everybody knows is out there. Um.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I also got really good at understanding what kind of things actually make an audience, make an action or drives decision making. So like, for example, if a company would reach out to me and ask for something or asked me to promote this you know product, they would tell me hey, here's a chunk of money. You take this chunk of money and you can use it. However. You want to get our ad positioned on other accounts, you've got to write the copy, you've got to make the ads OK. So now it was my job to go find other Instagram accounts that would make sense for that ad to go on. So I had to understand audience demographics and understand how to actually drive a mom or a wife, or a man, for that matter, or a young teenager to drive it to purchase something. So you've got to really tap into the brains of people.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

All of that then became the foundation of how I built Beyond the Method and what ultimately happened, and I'll stamp or you know, kind of mic drop moment here and say what I discovered truly was that if we can create emotion in someone enough where they feel inclined to stick around, it is up to us to send the message, to create the opportunity, because they will not do it on their own Right. Maybe some will one in a hundred but the other 99 are literally waiting for you to be the one to send a message. So in 2018, I got really good at sending the messages and I was like, oh my gosh, this is working. Hence the build of beyond the Method, with the foundation of it being content matters. Yes, we need to understand that, but the true secret sauce is converting the opportunities that we have, or the eyeballs that we have, into ROI.

Maria Quattrone:

That's interesting, people won't reach out.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

They're sitting there waiting for you to, but they're giving you all the signs.

Maria Quattrone:

It's like dating yeah.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Yeah, I mean it's, it's truly, it's like dating, right, you think about it. It's like, oh, there's a cute guy at the, at the gym, and he's, he's clearly like paying attention to you, but he's probably too fricking nervous to do anything himself. Um, and in my case I speak from experience because I married him Right. So it's, you know, it's kind of a funny thing.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

He, my husband, was the guy that showed up at the gym on time every time, no matter what. He was always there right on time, sat in front of the same blue door in the gym that we were in, with his headphones in. He was so structured and I remember texting my best friend at the time and said I think I just met my husband Now. We had never spoken before, never said hello, nothing, right, it was just I freaking knew it. But the reality of it was he was never going to be the one to shoot the shot the first. The first time it was going to have to be me. So I did, and we've been married for six and a half years and have a beautiful almost four year old that we're planning his birthday.

Maria Quattrone:

Oh, have a beautiful almost four-year-old that were planning his birthday. Oh my gosh, what a story. That's beautiful. Shoot your shot, shoot your shot. You have to have the confidence to shoot the shot I mean yes, but also like no, in one sense.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Right, like you have to have the desire to shoot your shot and then the confidence follows. Right Now did I have the confidence to shoot my shot only because he was giving me all the signs that I probably could shoot the shot? But no, I really, at the time when I met my husband, I was in a very dark time of my life. I document a lot of this in the book but or in my book coming out, but I was in a very, very dark place personally. So, no, there wasn't a whole lot of confidence involved in who Michelle was, but there was a lot of um seeing the signs on on the wall of like this guy's clearly into me and I think he's super cute and there's something about him that I can't really understand. But God is telling me to that. That's my human Uh, understand, but God is telling me to that that's my human, Uh, so I think it's desire Such a beautiful story.

Maria Quattrone:

My gosh, you knew and you didn't even go out with him yet.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Nope, we got married two months after we went on our first date. Wow, wow, yep, two months to the day, almost we got. Our first date was January 9th and we got married March 7th. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, I'm, I'm I'm not recommending it necessarily Um, in the sense of the first year was pretty tough for both of us, but, um, we were very much so all in and you could tell, and he asked me to marry him while we were driving to the gym one morning.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, we were stopped at a red light and he was just like hey, by the way, I know we want to, you know, get rid of the house that you lived in and get our own house, but that means we should probably get married, right. And I'm like, what Did you just ask me to marry you? And I get out of the car and I call my best friend and I was like I'm pretty sure. Well, nope, he did. And, yeah, I, you know, the first year was was turbulent. Of course, when you're brand new with someone, there's always those moments of, well, what the heck did we just do? But wait, we're already married. So we got to figure our way through this. But, yeah, I mean, honestly, it's been a beautiful six and a half years that I wouldn't trade for the world. I'm sure he would trade some moments, is my guess, but wouldn't we all?

Maria Quattrone:

That's great. I love your energy. It's so amazing. Oh my God, what a story. It's a great story.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So the book you're 30 days out. I'm 30 days out. It's that is crazy to say out loud, but yes, we're about 35 to 40 max, but yeah, really 30. Our goal is August 25th. We're at the day we're recording. This is July 17th. So yeah, we're. We're right around that 30 to 40 day mark.

Maria Quattrone:

And you know, a lot of people want to write a book.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

They sure do, but a lot of people don't write a book.

Maria Quattrone:

A lot of people don't write a book. What do you think the defining line is of making the decision to actually do it, and do it Because it's not a real easy thing?

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

No, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm not even done with it, and I'll tell you it's the hardest thing I've ever done. Only thing harder, honestly, was losing a baby at the end of last year. There's nothing that's harder or has been harder in my life. But I will tell you, writing a book came from a lot of life experiences and I'll tell you, I graduated college in 2012. And there was a moment at graduation where I remember telling my father hey, dad, I'm going to write a book someday. I have no idea what it's going to be about. I have no clue what the title is going to be. I don't know what the story about it or what's involved in it. Don't have any idea, but what I can tell you is I feel like I have a voice and I feel like somebody needs to hear this or to hear my story, but I don't know what it is yet, but when I do, I'll let you know. And that was in 2012, when I graduated, and it's now 2025. And I didn't start writing the book until the latter half of 2024.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And I'll tell you what ultimately happened for me. I got there's so many defining moments and I have one of my best friends in our world, the speaking world. Her company's name is Defining Difference Cindy Yertman, if you're familiar with Cindy listening to this. But her and I talk about my defining moments a lot, and there was a couple, but one in particular was actually when I went to Amplify with Renee for the first time in February of 2024. Last year I walked into the room and he said you know everybody, not just me, all of the 10 of us that were there. He's like everybody. You know who are you and what do you do. We all failed this assignment. Let me just go ahead and say that out loud. Like, we all royally failed this assignment and we all were like what do you mean? That is what I do Like, and it was very interesting because what he helped us understand was we're not somebody that just has a product, right, we create a solution for someone or for something to a problem that someone has.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And what I discovered in that conversation and ultimately in those two and a half days, was that I was trying to put myself into a world, or trying to fit into a world that I didn't belong in, right? So I was trying to be a social media person because I thought that's what I was compared to all these other people. But what I really was was a prospecting expert, right Cause, when you really look at the baseline of who Michelle is and how Michelle has been successful, I was really really good at prospecting every opportunity I had ever gotten. When you look back on it and you're's been successful, I was really really good at prospecting every opportunity I had ever gotten. When you look back on it and you're like, wow, how did I get that one? How did I get that one? None of it had to do with my content going viral, because my content doesn't. And still to this day, I have never gone viral on any social platform, right? So? But you look at my content and you're like, wow, it looks really good and, yeah, it's really valuable and informative and I can really feel who Michelle is. So I was doing that part of it really really well, but I was trying to teach that instead of teaching what I was really good at.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

So when I was at the Amplify event, by the end of it we determined Michelle's job title, meaning, like, what Michelle's company does is I teach mortgage and real estate professionals how to understand the power of leverage to create opportunity for themselves. And how do you do that? Through the art of active outbound prospecting. So when that happened, I got home and I had literally written that exact sentence down. I kid you not, it was one of like those insane light bulb moments when you write a sentence down and you're like, hold on, whoa, right, like that is what it is and it was. It sounds really like dramatic, but it honestly really was that dramatic, like it was that crazy um sitting at a dining room table and a man I just met house Right, um. But when I got home I did some research on this concept of prospecting to understand truly like the root word and really just kind of dug into it.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Um, and about three months later so that was in May, about three months later, I called one of my dear friends who runs a company called building champions, daniel Harkavy, and I said, daniel, I think I'm ready to do this. He's like are you sure you're ready? And I'm like I think I'm ready to. You know, I think I, I think I got it. And so he introduced me to my copywriter, who I will release publicly his name here very, very soon. He's actually coming to our official book signing in October, which I'm very, very excited about.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

But I met with him and on the very first call I knew instantly that this guy was the right person for me because of how he understood what I was articulating. But, more importantly, he understood the way I wanted the message to be presented and he did a phenomenal job at getting it out of me. But, um, that was my like defining moment was when I realized that I had a story of all of these things that had happened to me in my life and how I had gotten successful and become successful had nothing to do with what I was trying to fit myself into. And I woke up and I was like I have my voice. I now know what it is.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And throughout the journey of writing my book, I lost my husband and I second baby and it was another defining moment in writing the book for me and I actually called my copywriter when it was as it was happening and we had talked almost almost every day throughout my miscarriage and we ended up rewriting the table of contents right in the middle of my miscarriage. And I believe the book that is coming to market here now, in about 3040 days, is a direct reflection of all of those things and having such a clear and defined voice in a very, very crowded marketplace of a lot of other people who want to say that they're social media experts or say that they're social media coaches, and in my mind, let them be that, because that's not who I am and I don't need to be that because I am who I am.

Maria Quattrone:

Wow, that is so exciting, so powerful, and you can see and hear the passion in your voice about what it is that you do and really figuring out who you are, and I got goosebumps. I'm so excited to read this book and you and I have so many things in common that you don't even know. Yeah, that's a story for another day, but, my gosh, this is like amazing. You certainly are, michelle, the solution and your process and your systems. I can't imagine that anybody that knows you cannot wait to read this book. And I don't know. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I'm like, I'm like I don't know, oh giddy.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

Well, I appreciate that so much and I just appreciate the support it's been. You know, whenever you decide to do something big, you're kind of like is anybody going to care? Is this going to matter? And I think that's my number one insecurity around writing a book and I'm sure every author has that which is, you know, when you put a book to market, you want it to matter, right, you want it to create an impact.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And I, one of my absolute favorite humans on this planet and one of my biggest, biggest mentors she said to me she's like you better be prepared, because what if you become the next Mel Robbins? And I'm like, well, that's not going to happen. But and she was like, wait a minute, whoa, whoa. Like hold on, like you're assuming that that won't happen. But Mel Robbins didn't think that was going to happen when Mel Robbins wrote her first book, or when she was, you know, starting off in the beginning.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

And I was like, well, you know, that's not what I feel like I was necessarily put on this planet to do, but I do believe that, um, god has given me a talent and I hope he's smiling down on me, knowing that I truly believe I'm doing what he put me here to do, which is serving people, creating disciples in our world. Of other people I've had, I've gotten messages of people who have said like that I've been the reason that they've gotten back in touch with their faith. Right, and to me that's a huge win. What, what better reason to do what you're doing than to bring other people back to faith, or to faith in the first place? Um, you know. So for me it's just about. I have a story, I have something that I think other people can resonate with, and if I can serve and save one person, or if I can serve and help someone save their own business right, meaning like someone who's in business who might be struggling if I can help save your business, then I'm going to do it. Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

That's great. It's beautiful message. I want to thank you so much for taking time today to get together and learn a little bit more about you and what you do, and it's exciting. The sky's the limit, right, michelle.

Michelle Berman - Mikel:

I agree. You never know until you know.

Maria Quattrone:

You never know until you know, and we'll look for that book coming out in mid-August, august 25th is our goal.