I’m rounding out the first quarter of my third year in the real estate biz, and the ride has certainly been an eventful one. More than any other career I have undertaken (and I’ve done multiple), this one has been a serious rollercoaster.

You see, in the other roles, sure I often had that initial crisis of confidence. Honestly, I think it’s a woman thing. We tend to expect a higher level of knowledge, competency, and preparedness before we’ll feel confident about our expertise. So whenever I started something new, there was that initiation phase of building familiarity, skills, relationships and understanding the people and processes. After about a year in, I started getting the hang of it and it was smoother sailing from there. With real estate, it’s really a constantly-evolving process and the additional responsibility of building my own business entails added challenges.

As I tell many people, from a very young age, my mother always said I was bossy. After I became an adult, graduated from school, and entered the work force, I think she and my father were always rather incredulous that I could work for anyone. I mean, what can I say, growing up, they saw a lot of independence, resistance, and defiance. You know, immigrant parents, yada, yada. I didn’t like being told what to do, especially from my parents. In that sense, the autonomy of my current business is a great fit, bc I like weighing options and selecting the path forward. I like making the decisions.

That said, I’m not gonna lie: The lead generation part of building a business has been a struggle. I’ve grown a ton and definitely conditioned myself to enduring many more uncomfortable situations… but the task of persuading or convincing people to work with me has been difficult. First, I don’t think I come across immediately as a particularly extroverted or immediately likable individual. I’m kinda one of those people with RBF. I’ve had good friends from college admit this to me about our first encounter…

I’m working on the first impression piece, bc I know how important it is to the business. My biggest approach for summoning the energy needed for this continued self-development is to turn things into a game or challenge. That Stanford class on sports performance and mental fortitude still stays with me today so many years later. I want to be mentally strong, and I believe in continual learning and improvement. Ultimately, I want to become that person who has a presence, who exudes confidence, and who is compelling.

Of course, the downside of all this is that there is fatigue. I derive a lot of energy from pursuing this path toward mastery, but it’s also a never ending 24/7 kind of thing. You never know where and when the deal might come. This has caused some tension in my relationships. Interestingly, Bubbey and I find ourselves with roles reversed from several years ago when he was in the startup biz and I was working in government. Startup work is a 24/7 kind of business and at the time, I was frustrated by his complete obsession and utter lack of free time. His schedule was constantly changing and it was hard to make plans. Well, here we are again. There’s a line in the real estate business that says, “Anytime you need a deal, just go on vacation.” We had this happen several times already– when we were in Italy for our anniversary, when we were in Leavenworth for a group vacation, when we were home for Christmas… It’s hard for people outside the business to understand and I’m often frustrated having to explain it to people. It’s not like I get a stable, constant paycheck. In real estate, it’s feast or famine. I only get paid when I get a deal, and since I’m just getting my business started, it’s not like I have a consistent pipeline of business. The work comes in fits and starts and when the deal comes my way, I HAVE to take it. And I don’t want to apologize for having to take it, just like people don’t apologize for their life choices– be it going to school overseas (and being far away from family) or having kids (and seeing less of their friends) or working at their demanding jobs.

Ultimately, when Bubbey and I faced this scenario years back, he tried to spend more time with me. But he was so consumed with work that there just wasn’t a way to really balance it. I didn’t understand it at the time, bc I wasn’t working in such a demanding environment. I myself had also previously worked at a start up, and it was also crazy intense but I was in a lower role. I didn’t have the pressure or responsibility of running a team and of meeting the engineering deadlines for investors and customers.

In the end, J was never really able to attain work-life balance until he left the job.

I don’t know what lies ahead for my real estate business. My hope is that after the first several years of building the business, I will get enough consistent business to a point where I can hire help and delegate the duties… But we’ll have to see. I am trying to get there as fast as I can bc for some reason, I always feel a time pressure. Like it has to happen sooner than later. I dunno. For now, I’m continuing to plug away and I’m enjoying the journey.