Rest. Relaxation. Real Estate. Can they ALL go hand in hand or are we kidding ourselves?
Entering my soft life era as a real estate professional
I was chatting to a colleague last week about how I've recently entered my soft life era.
"What is that?!" she exclaimed, looking at me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.
To which I boldly replied:
"I'm done with this whole hustle culture thing. I've lived it for years, and quite frankly, I'm tired. It's time to step back and enjoy the fruits of what I've spent the past few decades building.
"I'm not disappearing from real estate altogether. I'm simply choosing to work differently. I'm cutting back on the number of deals I do each year, making more room for my passion projects and embracing a lifestyle that doesn't require me to be constantly on the go."
And that, my friends, is what I call the soft life.
It's about prioritising your comfort and well-being. Slowing down. Making space for yourself. Removing the unnecessary stress that comes with constantly striving for more and replacing it with a little more intention, enjoyment and self-care.
Oh, and did I mention it's all sprinkled with a little luxury? Which, as we know, I am particularly fond of.
Because here's the thing: you can still have a purposeful, successful career without operating at full throttle every single day. You just have to be willing to do things differently and, more importantly, own that decision.
Sounds like heaven to an over-functioning real estate professional who's been hustling her entire life.
And perhaps, someone who's let her ego run the show for a little too long.
The goal was always to have the freedom to slow down
The truth is, I've been working towards this season of my life for a very long time.
I purposefully threw myself into building my real estate business because I knew that one day I wanted the freedom to step back and enjoy what I'd created.
And that's actually what I want for more women in our industry.
I understand that in the early years of your career, there's a certain amount of groundwork to put in. You say yes to opportunities, take on clients, learn your craft, build your reputation and close as many deals as you can.
But what happens when you've reached a point where the exhaustion starts to outweigh the enjoyment?
Do you just keep going?
Forever?
Real estate burnout is real. But it doesn't have to be your reality.
I know plenty of women in real estate who are feeling burnt out right now. They're exhausted, craving a break and longing for a little breathing room.
Yet they're terrified to take their foot off the accelerator because they've convinced themselves that if they slow down, they'll lose momentum.
Some dream of taking an extended holiday. Others fantasise about having someone else step in and take the financial reins for a while.
And I get it. The idea of switching off completely sounds wonderful.
But there's often something standing in the way.
Your ego.
And sometimes, your boss.
We've built an identity around being busy, being successful, being the top performer and being the person everyone can rely on. Somewhere along the way, we've started confusing how much we do with how successful we are.
So even when we have permission to slow down, we struggle to give ourselves permission to actually do it.
If you're not yet at a point where you feel you can step back from the hustle of real estate, I'd encourage you to question whether that's genuinely the case.
Perhaps you are in a position to slow down, but everyone around you is operating from a completely different set of expectations. And because you've become accustomed to following that pace, you assume you have to do the same.
Or perhaps it's fear.
Fear of losing momentum.
Fear of disappointing someone.
Fear of not keeping up with the top performer in your office.
Fear that if you stop chasing the next deal, the money will stop coming in.
These are all very real concerns. But they shouldn't dictate how you spend the rest of your working life.
The secret is learning to earn more by doing less
One of the advantages of being an independent agent and business owner is that I get to decide how I operate my business.
I can choose how many clients I work with, which opportunities I pursue and, importantly, when I've done enough.
But there's another advantage to our industry that I think we sometimes overlook.
You can earn very good money from a relatively small number of transactions.
I've always thought about my income in terms of deals rather than hours worked.
For example, if I want a new Christian Dior handbag, I know that's roughly one-fifth of a deal for me.
My entire annual living expenses? Less than five deals.
When you start thinking about your income this way, it changes how you approach your business.
Instead of asking yourself how many more clients you can squeeze into your calendar, you start asking better questions.
How much do I actually need to earn?
How many transactions will generate that income?
How can I increase my average earnings per transaction?
And what needs to change in my business to give me more time back?
This is a very different way of approaching a real estate career, and it's something I teach in my Masterclass.
Because the objective isn't necessarily to do more. It's to become more commercially intelligent about how you earn.
A soft life requires a financial strategy
Now, before you start booking that extended European holiday, there's something important to understand.
Can you enjoy a soft life and have a successful real estate career at the same time?
My answer is yes, eventually.
But you need to build towards it.
In the earlier years, that means putting in the work, building your reputation, developing your earning capacity and, perhaps most importantly, being intentional about what you do with the money you make.
It's very easy to have a fantastic quarter in real estate, enjoy the income and then find yourself back at square one when the market slows down.
We all know the feast-or-famine cycle of this industry.
The difference between someone who can comfortably step back and someone who feels they have to keep hustling indefinitely often comes down to what they've done with their earnings along the way.
Strategically investing your money, building assets and creating financial buffers gives you options that commission income alone cannot.
It's something I share in The Polished Professional, including how I manage the financial unpredictability of a real estate career and how you can start positioning yourself to build wealth beyond your commissions.
Because ultimately, the point of earning good money isn't to spend your entire life chasing more of it.
It's to create choices.
Don't build a Frankenstein business
There's one more thing I want to touch on.
If you're a woman running your own real estate business, it's incredibly easy to build something that eventually becomes impossible to manage.
I call this a Frankenstein business.
It starts innocently enough. You add another service, take on another responsibility, hire another person, introduce another revenue stream and say yes to another opportunity.
Before you know it, you've created a business with so many moving parts that you're spending your entire working week managing the very thing that was supposed to give you freedom.
I've been incredibly conscious of not falling into this trap myself.
It's easy to become so focused on growing your business that you forget to stop and ask whether you're actually building the business you want to own.
More revenue doesn't automatically mean more freedom.
More clients don't necessarily mean more success.
And a bigger business isn't always a better business.
Sometimes the smartest business decision you can make is to simplify, remove what's no longer serving you and get very clear about what you actually want your working life to look like.
I've unpacked this in the podcast below, including the warning signs that you might be building a Frankenstein business and why it could be costing you the very lifestyle you're working so hard to achieve.
Because despite what the real estate industry might have you believe, work-life balance DOES exist.
You just have to be intentional about building a career that allows it.
And perhaps that's the real definition of success.
Not having a business that demands more and more of you, but having one that gives you the freedom to enjoy the life you've worked so hard to create.
In the podcast below, we unpack the concept of a Frankenstein business, the warning signs to look out for and why building a bigger business doesn't necessarily mean building a better one.
If you're ready to create a real estate career that rewards you financially without consuming your entire life, this one's for you.
