Introduction
The Spaghetti Incident
Two hundred and fifty.
That's how many leads I had to call that day. Good problem to have, right?
Wrong.
Before I tell you why, let me set the stage.
My husband Yves and I had started a real estate business together, and business was good. I was hunkered down in my dungeon of an office (the window was blocked by a huge billboard), the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing away. I had three computer monitors running at the same time, tracking leads from my CRM and going through my calendar and emails like a day trader. My phone headset felt fused to my head as my day had been nothing but cold-calling cold lead after lead.
You can imagine how often I was hung up on. People yelled at me. They even swore. Sure, sometimes, I was lucky enough to book an actual appointment, but they were few and far between. My poor success rate didn't stop me, though. In fact, it made me even more focused and determined to call every lead on that list. Before I knew it, I had forgotten to eat lunch. There was nothing but coffee in my veins.
One of the leads who didn't hang up said they were at work and asked if I could call them back at seven that evening. I checked my calendar, and that's when my heart dropped into my stomach.
Yves and I had a date night scheduled for seven. I had totally forgotten.
Instead of saying no right away, I told myself, Maybe I can swing the call. We'd just get to dinner a little later than planned. Then that other voice in my head-the angel-told me, No! You need boundaries. That voice was louder-but only a bit.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not available at seven," I said. "Can I call you back tomorrow?"
I heard the response I expected: "I don't know. I'll get back to you." There was no doubt that I'd lost them. But I'd drawn a line in the sand for myself, and it felt good.
Sort of.
After we hung up, I sent a text to Yves, whose office was just down the hall from mine. I asked him if he'd made a reservation for our date night (as if I'd never forgotten about it). He said yes, and that he was so excited to get to spend some "real" time with me.
At this point, I should probably tell you that Yves and I are not your average couple. We are literally obsessed with each other. We tell each other all the time that we are the best thing that's ever happened to each other, and we do everything together.
But our date was not the most important thing on my calendar. Not only that, but even when I remembered the date, I wasn't excited like Yves was.
Instead, I felt stressed about the lost time. I knew how I was going to feel when I couldn't answer my phone or respond to messages. After all, what happens when you call 250 people during the day and leave at least a hundred voice messages? The interested leads call you back when their workday is done-when I was supposed to be sitting down to dinner with my husband.
That night, Yves dropped me at the front door of the restaurant and drove off to park. As soon as he pulled away from the curb, I checked my messages and responded to what I could, getting as much done as possible before he came back. When I saw him, I guiltily dropped the phone by my side, hiding it from him. Even if he hadn't seen it (which I'm sure he had), he knew what I was up to. Unfortunately, this was the norm. I was always on my phone, always half there. I'd lost count of the times he'd ask me a question when I was head down, scrolling the screen, with no clue what he'd just said. Yves was always sweet and laughed it off, but I knew there was nothing funny about any of it.
The hostess seated us, and I put my phone face down next to me on the table. We ordered sparkling water and spaghetti bolognese. My smartwatch buzzed with notifications. I counted the missed messages to myself. All I wanted to do was look at my watch and pick up my phone. With each buzz, my stress level went up. I remembered advice from a friend in the industry that every missed call could mean $10,000 out of my pocket. That scarcity mindset made my blood pressure rise by the minute.
Yves, bless him, seemed not to notice. He talked about the vision of our company, about what we were working so hard to build, and about how we needed and deserved a vacation. I wanted to join in his excitement, but I couldn't. I was too distracted.
Our main course came, and we dove in. Of course, because we were eating, we didn't talk as much. Then it happened-a different kind of buzz on my watch. Not a message. A phone call.
Without thinking, I spit my mouthful of spaghetti into my cloth napkin. Then I picked up my phone and, with no explanation, walked out of the restaurant without even a look back at Yves.
Outside, I answered the call-a completely useless lead. They'd seen that I had called earlier in the day but didn't bother listening to the voicemail and called me back directly. They weren't interested in an appointment at all.
I stepped back into the restaurant, and before Yves could see me, I watched him. I looked at his face. He looked miserable, as though someone had punched him in the gut. The man who had stood beside me, who had tolerated my lack of focus and presence in our relationship with kindness and a smile, sat there alone. On our date night.
Oh my God. What have I done?
When I came back to the table, Yves had completely pulled back. Who could blame him? In the middle of a heart-to-heart about our future, I had walked out. Ashamed, I sat back down, facing his disappointment and a napkin full of disgusting chewed-up spaghetti.
And just like that, a switch flipped.
The point of this business was for Yves and me to work together to create the life we wanted. I knew then and there that if I continued on this path, I was putting all of that at risk. We'd been married for almost three years, and we were still supposed to be in the honeymoon phase of our life together. I became super aware of how screwed up my priorities had been. The whole point of our business was to work hard and enjoy the benefits of that work. If we ended up divorced, what was it all for?
I'm as stubborn as they come. I don't like being wrong and will defend myself until I'm blue in the face-but there was no denying that I was absolutely wrong in this situation. I looked Yves in the eye.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
He smiled weakly and said, "Yeah, well, I'm used to it now."
You Can't Pour from an Empty Cup
Yves and I have a storybook love affair, and I wake up each morning grateful that I married such an incredible man who is my partner in both business and life.
Yet that love didn't stop me from leaving him at the table with a napkin full of chewed-up food.
How did I get to that place?
An even more important question-how did you get there?
Every time I tell this story to other real estate agents, they nod their heads before I even get to the part where I spit out my food. I'm willing to bet you did the same thing when you read about my distracted date night. The story feels familiar no matter where you were when you realized you'd built yourself a nightmare-and you never forget it.
How many times have you been in a situation where you wished you'd made a different choice? Maybe it was your kid's birthday, your anniversary, a date night, or just a conversation you weren't truly present for.
How many times have you looked back and told yourself that you could-and should-have done better?
Most of us got into the real estate business believing it has unlimited potential-that there's no ceiling. You can set your own schedule. You're in charge of your life. But you end up in this place where you have no control over either life or your schedule, with your head constantly bumping that ceiling.
Whether you've been an agent for your entire professional life, or you got into the business as a first, second, or third career, you made that decision based on three ideas.
1. You want unlimited income.
2. You want freedom.
3. You want to have some sort of an impact on other people's lives.
Somewhere along the way, though, you got lost. You got lost working in the business rather than working on your business. You got lost in the idea that you have to be on call twenty-four hours a day. You also got lost in the ego lift that comes along with doing everything yourself (because no one can do it as well as you can), always being available for your clients, and always putting them first.
But if your clients always come before your personal life, you end up constantly trying to pour from an empty cup. If you don't take care of yourself first, your clients, your family, and anything or anyone else that is important to you will never get the best of you.
This all comes from the scarcity mindset-the idea that missing a call means losing that potential client and so on and so on, until you're out of business. So, your solution is to answer every call and to do everything yourself.
That's not a real business-that's a hustle.
And it's time to make a change.
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