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Design It on the Front End: Michele Roderick on Sustainable Business, MS, and Why the Deals Are Already in Your Phone
- Wendy Forsythe
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Michele Roderick co-founded Now Nation while managing a 30-year MS diagnosis. Learn her framework for designing your ideal week, setting boundaries without explanation, and finding deals already in your contacts.
Who is Michele Roderick and what is Now Nation?
Michele Roderick is the co-founder of Now Nation, a collaborative network inside eXp Realty built around real production, real leadership, and long-term wealth without the ego or pressure that tends to follow success in this industry.
She has been living with multiple sclerosis for 30 years. Her first symptoms came at 19. She did not let that stop her from reaching the top one percent in pharmaceutical sales worldwide, building a brokerage alongside Courtney Twiss for a decade, and co-founding Now Nation two and a half years ago.
What Michele teaches is not about overcoming. It is about designing a business that works for your life instead of the other way around.
What is the ideal week framework and how do you build one?
Start with 168 hours. That is what a week contains.
Then start subtracting.
Sleep first. Michele says this is non-negotiable. If you need seven hours a night, that comes off the top. Then your time as a spouse, a parent, a friend. Your exercise. The things that fuel your soul, whether that is praying, hiking, running, or sitting quietly with a cup of coffee.
What is left is your working hours.
And that number might surprise you. It might be four hours a day. It might be six. But once you know it, you can stop feeling like you are failing to do more and start building a business inside what is actually available to you.
"You have to design that on the front end," Michele says, "so that you can ensure when you create your ideal week, you are carving out time for yourself and your family first. Not after."
How do you say no without over-explaining?
This was one of my favorite parts of the conversation.
Michele used to apologize and justify every time she could not show up for something. She would explain that she did not feel well, that she had infusions at Stanford, that she needed rest. She was apologizing for her own health.
She does not do that anymore.
Now her answer is simply: I looked at my calendar and unfortunately that does not fit for me this week.
That is it. No comma. No because. No sorry.
"No is a complete sentence," she said. And she is right.
This works with clients too. When someone asks if you can talk at 8pm, the answer can be: I am not available then but I can do 6:30 tomorrow morning. What works for you?
You set the terms. You do not apologize for having them.
Where are the deals right now in this market?
Michele picked up her phone and made this point beautifully simple.
How many contacts do you have in there?
Not the ones in your CRM. Open your actual phone contacts and scroll.
Those are deals. Real people who know you, who might be thinking about buying or selling, who have not heard from you in months or years. They are not in your CRM yet. You have not called them. But they are there.
"Go get the deals," Michele said. In a market where everyone is looking for the secret strategy, Michele's answer is the most honest one I have heard in a long time.
What is Michele Roderick's X factor?
The ability to connect with people.
An agent outside her organization told her recently: Michelle, you have a beautiful spirit.
She said that is it. That is the X factor.
And after spending time in this conversation, I completely agree.
Find Michele on Instagram, TikTok, and all platforms as Ask the General.
Her website is ournownation.com
Let's grow,
Wendy