Life After Death Reinventing Yourself – Pt 1

In this emotional and inspirational video, Real Estate professional Jarah Decker discusses her journey of becoming a top producer in the Permian Basin area, Texas, while dealing with her own personal grief. Diving into her struggle with depression following the passing of her husband, Jarah provides insights into her journey of redefining herself and building a successful career in the face of adversity. She talks about her approach to real-estate, her personal experience with grief counseling, and the importance of finding a balance in life. She candidly shares the lessons she learned on the way, giving advice to viewers who may find themselves in similar circumstances.

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Guest Contact Information:

Jarah D. Decker, REALTOR
Turnkey Realty
432-266-1916
jaridecker@gmail.com

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  0:00

Y’all, we are a tough topic today. And I’m feel very fortunate to have Jared Decker joining me today. Gera actually earned her real estate license back in April of 2017. And then she and her husband sold their house in San Antonio moved clear across Texas, which is no small feat. I think we met actually what back in 2019. So it was after I had already gotten in your, your real estate. I was trying to figure out the buyer shewbread.

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  0:31

I think it was like December 2019. So just right on the edge, I think I looked and said, When did I meet Jared. But I’ve had fun getting to know you and you’ve accomplished a lot in the last several years, let’s go five years, even six years, although you have been this amazing top producer in the Permian Basin area, which if you’re listening, and you don’t know where that is, I’ve never been but it’s Midland and Odessa, Texas.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  1:03

Oh, it’s not it’s, I’m sure it’s incredible. But that’s no small feat. And it’s actually an incredible accomplishment in itself, is having that top producer titled because it tells everybody that you don’t play. But you’ve got a special story that unfortunately too many people can relate to. And it’s not an easy topic to touch on. So you got your real estate license back in April 2017. Close your first transaction in December of that same year, and you relocated your family, you’ve had to restart your business basically, from scratch, right?

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  1:43

Yeah. And like he’s heard me out from West Texas. I grew up in the Midlands. So I did have friends and family here, which I am eternally grateful for.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  1:57

Right? kids and grandkids there too, though.

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  2:01

Yes, I have six grandchildren. Four of them live right here in town. So I’m especially close to them. Most of my clients have met my grandchildren. I have a grandson, maybe as my sidekick. And he knows my clients by name, and recognize them when we see him in public. And he can tell me, well, he he knows my clients better than I do.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  2:28

I know that’s hard to do. But I’ll go with that. Well,

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  2:32

I ran into a chlorian at an old show event here a couple of months or so ago. And I’ll be honest, I did not recognize him. And he started talking. And I went along with the conversation. And then he said no. So as they’ll be here shortly. So he walks away and I check my phone. Oh yeah.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  2:54

It happens when you meet so many people. And we I was Wow. For such as

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  3:00

my grandson. And he went Oh, Naomi, that was so and so no. 100 Do you know that? That’s amazing. He said because he always called you miss Gera? Oh, okay. Fair enough. But I didn’t catch it. Right. Well, you know, he he keeps me honest. That’s awesome. He’s always with me. He keeps me honest.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  3:21

So you moved back to Midland. So let’s fast forward just to you know, 2018 How was your first year back?

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  3:31

I was awful. Alright, let’s say let’s see if I can tell you real quick. On January the 15th. I landed a deal, a $6.7 million deal. And it literally walked through the door. The doc called me and said Are you open? And I said Yes, sir. With a holiday. I don’t know what holiday it is. But it’s a holiday. So the guy come then he starts talking to you about his property. And I’m wild odd because I don’t really have any idea. It’s 460 acres. And yes, I’m interested and right. Anyway, he at the end of our conversation, he looked at me and he said, Are you hungry? And I said, I am hungry. And he said then you need to be my realtor actually called me a realtor. And I said, Yeah, I said I’d be happy to do your realtor. So I called my husband and I was supposed to see two of my grandkids I was meeting him in Odessa and I called him and said, Hey, I had to call my broker, I just landed this million dollar deal. I can’t be there. And he said up above, do whatever you got to do. He hangs up and then he called me back and he said, Did you say Milligan with a neon and us an idea? And he said Oh, that’s awesome, baby. I can’t wait to hear all about it. That’s all so by the time I got home about seven that evening, and he’s exhausted he was a dialysis patient. But he was working full time and doing really well. He was on the list to do a kidney transplant. And when we had already identified a donor, we were just waiting on a surgery day. Anyway, he He’s exhausted. And he said, coming here, he talked to me, tell me all about your, tell me what happened. So I’m telling him all about this, this listing that I’m landed, and what I need to do, and I’m dizzy and I’m scared, but I’m excited. And he said, it’s a prophetic at this point, he said, When you sell it, and you will take that check over to Thurston Johnson at Edward Jones. Okay. That will start you a nice little retirement fund. Okay, thinking ahead. You know why he’s always that way. He was always. So fast forward next day I leave to go to work. I’ll tell you the whole story. I’m leaving to go to Word and honor. Do you have ever dealt with a chronic illness, there is a lot of frustration. And it’s exhausting. And it’s frustrating, and you just want them to eat, then you just want them to be normal. And you’re not normal anymore. And your whole life has already changed. So there was a lot of times that I’ve walked out that back door, I would be held. John Decker, you’re driving me crazy. And he with your back? Well, yeah, no paint yourself, darlin. I mean, there were some, there was some toxicity going on. This particular morning, it was very, very cold. And he came in the bedroom, I’m getting dressed to go to the office. And he came in the bedroom, and he had his jacket zipped all the way up to his chin. And he had this huge toboggan. And I’m just looking at ease in the shadows. And I said, You look absolutely ridiculous. And he said, I’m absolutely gonna freeze to death to that. But when I leaned in to kiss him, he had that. I don’t know, as a mom, and as why he had that smell like he was getting sick. And I said, you need to take some opposites or cold plus. And he said, Oh, we all forgot. And I said, Did you do a breathing treatment? And he said, No, forgot. I’ll do that. Let’s go do that. So I finished getting dressed. I walked through the house, got my coffee, you know, picked up all of my things. And I’m headed out of the back door and I stuck my head in his bedroom. He was doing the breathing treatment. And I said, I gotta go after you tonight. And you said, I’m gonna love you all day. I said, I’m gonna love you all day to baby. Be safe. I love you. I’ll see you tonight. And I will forever be grateful. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out that back door screaming Fuck you, Don Decker. You’re driving me crazy,

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  8:06

right? Anybody who’s married, I would imagine would do the same thing. We’ve

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  8:10

all done it. We’ve said things that we don’t mean to say. My advice to everyone who’s married, who’s not married who’s in a relationship is let your words be Tinder. I went to work. I had my meeting with my breaker. We had an office meeting. I’m excited about my new listing. I’m doing research. I had sent him a text about 1130 and said, Hey, have you heard from your doctor? He had an appointment San Antonio, but I need to make a hotel reservation for Friday. And I’m texting him. I’m texting his doctor. He’s not answering. I started calling about 12:05am. His phone kept going straight to voicemail. And I don’t know why. Okay, he said sealed salesman for all company. So a lot of times he’s out of range. But it was unusual that I hadn’t heard from him throughout the morning. He’s not answering my text messages. Normally he’ll get a text. But his phones go directly to voicemail. There’s no really. Anyway, about 430 That afternoon, I started freaking out. I don’t know where he’s at. He didn’t show up for dialysis. I’m pretty much losing my mind. And I had this heavy, heavy feeling that something was wrong. And I had called my best friend and I said I need you to come down here. I think something’s wrong. Yeah. So I called his employer. I can’t even identify his work truck. I mean, he drives a white truck. He sits in my driveway, but I only see one side of it.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  9:39

Do you know how many white trucks there are in Texas? Exactly. Yeah,

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  9:44

I know. I know what it says on the side and I know there’s a dan in the bed. That’s pretty much all I can tell him to call his employer. The boss is gone. They don’t want to connect to me. So I’ve got through all this crap and I finally pulled DPS. Know a passport We’re at about 630. That evening, the sheriff showed up. And they had found John on a location in Andrews and he was deceased. He had had a heart attack in his pickup during lunch, and I’m not trying to be glib. John used to tell me, baby, if you don’t stop spending money on going to have to work to lunch the day a month, you know, he could tell me this all the time. And he literally passed with his lunch in his lap. So he did work to lunch the day of his funeral. Well, not the day’s funeral. You weren’t close enough? Yeah. So he passed on January 6, Tink. My world stopped just talking to me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know who called. I called one of my friends from San Antonio. That was in our Bible study group. And I remember putting my head on the cabinet, and I’m crying on the phone. And I said, I don’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do. What do I do? What do I do? I don’t know what to do. She said, Jared, you have to call your kid. Oh, no, I can’t call them I kind of want to talk to them. So I finally my my best friends walking around, I carry a notepad. Everywhere I go. And they have some of the damos list in them. But I always have a notepad. So I had a notepad on the bar. And they handed it to my friend. And she started taking notes. And I found that a couple of years ago, where she wrote everything I was rattling off names, people that are needed to contact, I didn’t want his friends or his family to find out in social media. And John was well established in the oil industry. Get lots and lots of boats that he knew lots of friends, lots clients customers. So I was trying to I was handling my business. Right? I handled my business in probably wasn’t the healthiest way to handle it. But I handled my business. So John pass on was on a Tuesday. On Thursday, I got an offer on one of my listings. Well, I know how to work an offer. I’ve never done one. And I called my broker and said, I got this offer. And she said, If you’ll send it to me, I’ll handle it. I’ll just take it over here. Right? Well, no, I need to get parently I mean, we’re Realtors if we don’t work, we don’t eat. So I need to do it. So I it took me about four hours to do what should have taken me 45 minutes. But I’ll work the offer, got it accepted, executed the whole nine yards. And then on Saturday, I had here Celebration of Life service. And I was still handling my business. You know, there were no tears. It was all business. And wait, whoa,

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  13:13

how did you do that? I mean, not to pull out an emotion but your husband just passed. You had to tell your kids. You had everything to have to deal with. And you’re worried about a real estate transaction? Yeah, yeah. Are you gonna stand with it? I don’t

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  13:34

know the answer to that. I have Sarah read out a bandwidth. And I have a certain meeting with a trauma counselor. Okay. And she explained it to me that it was a trauma response. The way I responded to everything. Right? It was probably, I don’t know, three, four months, like John traveled a lot for work. He would leave on Sunday nights and came home on Thursday. So my answer to everything is Oh, John being up on Thursday. In my brain when he passed, John will be home on Thursday. It’s dark, and that was where I was at. He will be home on Thursday. Well, he didn’t come home on Thursday, and it’s fast forward, probably. I don’t know. Four months later, my nephew asked me if he could borrow Uncle John smoker. He said, What are you going to do with John smoker? And I said, Well, I’m gonna let him sit right there in the garage where it’s at. He’ll be home on Thursday. And he’s looked at me and shook his head. No. And I kept looking at it. And he said, Can his head no and I had my first major meltdown in his living room when in reality hit me. He’s not coming home on Thursday, you know, on so and back to that weekend. We had his service on Saturday, right? And Monday was our 20th wedding anniversary. Oh, so I told everybody 79 Do not come into my house. Don’t come to my house. I’m going to feel sorry for myself tomorrow and I wouldn’t do it alone. And I’m kind of I’m pretty forceful. So everybody’s gone. I’m here by myself. I got up made me a cup of coffee, which I never do. Okay, he was always the early riser game, but he always delivered my first cup of coffee to the nightstand. Well, now I gotta figure out how this shit myself, you know, get up. It’s cold. Don’t make coffee. I got a cup of coffee and a cold bath in bed and I’m trying to hide under the covers. And I heard his voice. I have audibly heard. It’s happened to me three times now, where I have audibly heard his voice. And then he said get out and then go to work. You can rattle around this house in art by yourself. He wrong? No, his bottle. Yeah. So I got up too much work. I walked in the office and her colleagues are like, What the hell are you doing? Then weren’t prepared to see me. And I went to work. So I add a new agent. I don’t know anything about selling a product. I don’t have any buyers. I don’t have I have one seller but it says $6.8 million listing. So I don’t even know how to market it. Right. So I did what I knew to do. I reached out to the contacts I had an oilfield. And I ended up having to present that listing to a water company at Cracker Barrel of all places. I had no idea that Cracker Barrels were all the guys name yet. So I go to Cracker Barrel. But I’m scared. I’m not a public spokesperson, by any means. And I’m not real refined. You know, I can call it like I see it. You’re bullshitting me? I’m gonna tell you. Right. I had called my client the night before. And I said, Please come with me. Please come with me. You know everything about your property, you know more than I do. You come and talk to them. And he said, Jerry, I’ve told you everything. I know, you can do this. So as I’m pulling the parking lot, he called me and he said, listen to me. You have something they want. You own that room. You take control. And you have in that room. I have all the faith in the world in New York. Okay, I can do this. So I did it. I went and I presented it. I answered all the questions. I fast forward. I didn’t sell the land. My flight ended up selling it himself for sale by owner about a year later. But I had he, I went and talked to my broker and I said, I have to make money. If I don’t work, I don’t eat. I don’t even know if I can make my house payment. I mean, I have a job. I’ve always worked. I’m 30 years in accounting. I’ve always worked but I can’t make the kind of money I need to make. To be able to meet my monthly bills. John took care of everything. When we got married, he told me, I will be the man of the house. I will take care of Genesis. And I said, Cool. Does that mean that you’re going to make sure my electricity doesn’t get turned off? Right? Yes, I will make sure no one turns off the electricity could be a single mom. Oh, I couldn’t. You know, I knew I had to pay the electric bill this month and I could wait it paid gas bill next month. And you know, I literally was a juggling act.

How did you do it? How did you maintain some focus in get somewhere because you’ve got all these bills to pay and everything you’ve got to do in this first year.

What do you do? I hustled rentals. I did corporate rentals for old companies moving their employees in just hustle is the word hustle. Right in anything with that. I worked seven days a week. I would be at the office by nine right and I worked until dark I won’t show after dark has been the chicken so as good riddles, Aaron I can Ivan I’m perpetually a smart and I had rented out to you and I love it. I had rented so many apartments that I could literally Walk behind the property manager and give her spill in. Here’s the horse shoes. And here’s the pole. Right? As my clients look at me like, you did oh, sorry, yeah Birdman for hidden, you know, because they won’t let me go show the apartments. I have to go with her. So I’m just behind her doing her gestures, how did anyway, I started with us, you know, hustle, rentals. And then I finally went on I did open houses for everybody, everybody. And I picked up my first client had an open house. And that was my first sale. I picked up that client and I sold them a house. And then I started picking up clients. I’m still doing rental that I started getting referrals. And you know, absolutely. I did up way back in the day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they’re horrible now, but back in the day, I’m still the top. I’ve closed 17 million with upcity. I’m the top in our region on upcity. Leads.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  21:07

That’s amazing in itself, right there. I mean, well, what gave you the motivation to you mean? So you started out in a brand new career? You have to have somebody help you? I mean, what? Where did you find the tenacity? Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and go to work. You had to do it.

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  21:27

I did it. I just jumped out of work. I have, it’s probably not a good grief response that for me, if I’m working. I can focus on work. Okay, it’s the Coming Home part that I don’t. I don’t like coming home. I don’t. I don’t want to be at home. My house reminds me of Jain and what we had and what’s going it it was hard. So on my in 2018 On my birthday, I was I took the day off. It was a Saturday, I took the day off. And I decided that I was going to change my house. So when we move back into our house right before he died, John, I told my niece, I want to do a gallery wall. Right. So her and her cousin came and they did this beautiful gallery wall. And they finished it and I went oh god, I hate that. Can you take that down? And Chun said Oh, I love it. It was so busy with my grandkids that I mean he was saying nobody lived her a great kid. There’s all these canvases that my grandkids right? I couldn’t I couldn’t even focus on the TV. I came home from work one day and I walked in the living room and I thought that’s bullshit. I’m tired of looking at it. I took every one of those pitchers down and throw them on John’s bed. You wanted it there you go, man. I get gone. There, I’m there. We’re all on his bed. We didn’t sleep together because he was so sick that we did not sleep. So he had his own room. Understandable. So I put them all on his bed. And then come my birthday, I decided to redecorate. So I changed all the artwork changed around the furniture, move things out with these in bed, I kind of made my living room my own in felt it helped. Because you don’t you walk in and every night you walked in the living room and you see his chair and you expect to see the back of his bald head. And I’m always looking to Sydney sitting in his chair. So I took it out. Just get it out of here.

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  23:43

So the way that you coped, I guess Yes,

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  23:46

yes. And it’s not healthy, by any means. An idea

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  23:52

or a right or wrong way? I mean, don’t you just have to try and find what works for you?

Jarah Decker, REALTOR  23:59

I think you do. But I think I was in denial for so long. I was angry. That was my first thing. I had a lot of anger. And then I was in denial because I’m still in my brain. He’s coming home on Thursday. Right? Why’d you know if I wasn’t at work? Well, I know I worked all the time. I had to remind myself I’d be working on contracts in the middle of the night. And I would have to remind myself that Cole, don’t text them they’re sleeping. You can’t take cylinder two o’clock in the morning. Yeah, I had learned to make notes. I still have sticky notes on my on my laptop. I had sticky notes everywhere. Because as the widow probably the hardest thing for me is can’t remember anything. It’s like your memory. What are your memories just going you can’t remember anything. I think you’re just so I don’t know you’re so wrapped up in the physical part. heard of it because I couldn’t. I changed the agent. Hey, I’m gonna fast forward to June of 2019 actually got fired. Thank

Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English)  25:09

you for tuning in. And we will see you in the next episode with the rest of the story with Jared Decker. We’d love your support for the real tea with Robbie English (Host, The REALTEA with Robbie English). Please do us a favor and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. It only takes a couple of seconds and it really does help us out. Also, be sure to share it with your colleagues and friends. Until next time, we hope you have a profitable and productive week.