When I Grow Up . . .

Remember when you were a kid, and people would ask you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  I’m guessing that right now you’re thinking about your answer.  So, what was it?  A teacher? Firefighter? Astronaut? Ballerina?  President of the United States?  I’m guessing that most adults remember what their childhood career dreams were.  Not me.  I have no idea what I wanted to, no memory of it at all.  But I know what I DIDN’T want to be.  I didn’t want to be a real estate agent.  Nothing against it.  In fact, I grew up in a real estate household; selling houses is how my mom paid the bills.   The older I got, the more I knew that real estate wasn’t the career path for me. 

By the time I got to high school I started to give some thought to the whole idea of life as an income producing adult.  I decided that cosmetology school was the way to go.  That was my dream job, and I spent three of my high school years (thank you, vocational education) preparing to get licensed.  But I didn’t (get licensed).  Because I woke up one day and realized that being a hairdresser is HARD WORK, a lot harder than I imagined when I was fifteen and knew it all!! Luckily, I graduated from high school with the credits I needed to get into college, where I majored in elementary education.  Then psychology.  And finally, business.  I graduated in 1987 with a B.S. in Marketing.  Then I decided that I wanted to be a teacher after all.  So back to school I went, and in 1989 I graduated again, this time with a B.S. in Business Education. 

Guess what else I did in the late 1980s?  I got a real estate license.  It wasn’t a career move; it was to help my parents from time to time when they needed a hand (computers were hitting the scene, the real estate world was changing, and who better to help with that than your business-teacher daughter).   

Fast forward to 2023 (you see where this is going).  My decades in real estate have been good to me.  I’ve worked as an admin, an agent, a manager, a broker, a recruiter, trainer, coach, mentor, state licensing instructor.  And now, as 2024 is about to roll in, I’ve published my first real estate book, Step Five: How to Launch a Kick-A$$ Real Estate Career Without Going Broke (if you wonder what step five is, you’ll need to read the book).

Step Five isn’t for everyone, but it’s for everyone who has just gotten their real estate license or is thinking about getting licensed.  It’s for everyone who thinks of a career in real estate and:

·       Sees big dollar signs and luxury German SUVs.

·       Believes that HGTV is real.

·       Sees a job with complete flexibility (insert laughing/crying emoji here).

·       Knows that they’d be great at it because they LOVE going to look at open houses on the weekends.

·       Is certain that it’s way easier and more fun than their current job (laughing/crying emoji again).

Don’t get me wrong, a career in real estate can be fantastic (and lucrative, and fun).  The real key to starting a career in real estate is to be prepared from the beginning.  Too many agents go in unprepared, and they’re doomed before they even get started.  Step Five: How to Launch a Kick-A$$ Real Estate Career Without Going Broke is my attempt to help with that preparation and avoid some of the mistakes that new agents so often make.

So, do me a favor, will you?  The next time your son/niece/neighbor/BFF tells you that they’re thinking of getting a real estate license, point them to Step Five:   https://a.co/d/c4a6LIt