Another year in the trenches is almost done. The deals, the deadlines, the clients who made you want to tear your hair out, the ones who reminded you why you do this. It’s a chaotic fucking business. And as December rolls in, the world is telling you to sip eggnog and be merry, while your brain is probably a tangled mess of commission reports, Q1 planning, and a low-grade hum of exhaustion. This is usually the time for bullshit resolutions. For promising yourself you’ll final

Another year is almost in the books. The champagne is on ice, the resolutions are being drafted, and most agents are either sprinting to hit a final number or have already checked out, coasting on fumes until January first. They’re thinking about the hustle, the next deal, the fresh start. But they’re missing the most important part of the cycle. They’re skipping the one thing that actually guarantees a better new year. It’s not a new lead gen system. It’s not a bigger market

Another year is closing. If you’re like most agents, you’re either sprinting through a frantic end-of-year push or you’ve already collapsed, exhausted, into a pile of receipts and regret. You’re probably looking at your GCI, your transaction count, and a spreadsheet of goals you either hit or missed. You’re told this is the measure of your success. But I’m calling bullshit. For more than 13 years, I’ve been in the real estate trenches. I’ve done the year-end review that’s all

It’s December. The year is winding down. For most real estate agents, this is the time for the annual ritual of the year-end review. You’re probably sitting down with a spreadsheet, tallying up your gross commission income, counting the number of closed deals, and setting some bigger, hairier, more audacious goals for next year. More deals. More money. More hustle. And for most agents, that’s a direct path to burnout. We’re chasing the wrong fucking metrics. We’re so obsessed

It’s 8 PM. You’re at the dinner table, but you’re not really there. Your phone is buzzing, a constant phantom limb. A client has a “quick question.” A deal might be falling apart. Your mind is a junk drawer of anxieties, what-ifs, and the relentless, gnawing feeling that you should be doing more. This isn’t just a bad day. This is the water we swim in as real estate agents, and it’s a fast track to a fucked up place. We talk a lot about setting boundaries, but the truth is, m

Welp, another year in the real estate trenches is coming to a close. The deals that closed, the ones that fell apart, the clients who became friends, the ones who tested every last nerve. It’s a messy, beautiful, brutal business. And as we stand at the threshold of a new year, the temptation is to do what we always do: set bigger goals, hustle harder, and promise ourselves this will be the year we finally break through. But what if the answer isn’t about adding more, but abou

Let’s talk about the revolving door. The one in your brokerage. You spend thousands to recruit a promising agent, pour your time into their training, and just when they start to look like they might make it, they’re gone. Poof. Another empty desk, another sunk cost. The National Association of REALTORS® says 87% of new agents fail within five years. [1] That’s a bullshit statistic. It’s not a law of nature. It’s a failure of leadership.   We’re obsessed with the wrong things.

I need to tell you something that might sound like spiritual bullshit at first. But stick with me, because this is backed by hard science and harder results. Gratitude is the most underutilized tool for real estate agent retention. Not commission splits. Not fancy tech stacks. Not even better leads. Gratitude. When I implemented structured gratitude practices with my team, we saw an 84% improvement in agent retention. That's not a typo. Eighty-four percent. And it didn't cost

The Real Secret to Unlocking Your Team’s Potential and Slashing Agent Turnover You and I both know the real estate industry is full of bullshit. It’s a churn-and-burn machine that chews up good agents and spits them out. The National Association of REALTORS® says 75% of new agents fail within their first year [1]. That’s a fucked up statistic. And it’s not because they aren’t hungry enough or don’t have the right scripts. It’s because they’re burned out, unsupported, and run

The Neuroscience of Energy Management I've watched too many talented agents flame out. They start with fire in their belly, ready to conquer the market. Six months later, they're dragging themselves through open houses like zombies. A year in, they're gone.   The statistics are brutal. Research indicates that 80% of real estate agents experience burnout within their first two years [1]. Seventy-five percent fail in their first year alone, and 87% leave within five years [2].

I’m going to tell you something that might piss you off. It’s not what the gurus at the big seminars are shouting from the stage. It’s not a new CRM, a better lead gen script, or some AI-powered secret sauce. The single greatest lever you can pull to radically improve your real estate agent productivity is a simple, quiet, and profoundly unsexy habit: gratitude.   I can feel you rolling your eyes from here. Gratitude. Seriously? In a market that feels like a knife fight in a

Why Thankfulness Isn't Soft, It's Your Unfair Advantage in a Brutal Market We need to talk about gratitude. Not the bullshit, feel-good platitudes you see on coffee mugs. I’m talking about the kind of gratitude that rewires your brain for performance, makes you a clear-eyed closer, and keeps you from burning out in an industry that eats its own. Most agents think this stuff is soft. They’re wrong. And that’s why they’re struggling. True mindfulness for real estate agents isn’

You sit down at the kitchen table. The seller has three tabs open with alarming headlines, a Zestimate they believe is the minimum, and an emotional attachment to last spring’s comparable sale. They want a cash buyer in three days who thinks their avocado backsplash is a spiritual experience. If you meet that with your own tension, you’ve already lost the frame. Mindfulness for real estate agents is not a playlist. It is state control under pressure. It is how you keep your p

Rates wobble. Sellers cling to fantasy. Buyers panic-text at midnight. The market isn’t bad. It’s noisy. Noise taxes your attention. When your attention is taxed, your performance drops. Not because you’re weak. Because your brain routes power to threat detection and steals it from smart decision-making. That’s why mindfulness for real estate agents is not spa music. It’s state control under pressure. It puts your prefrontal cortex back in the driver’s seat while everyone els

Let’s not pretend. The phone feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. Your CRM is open, the list of names is right there, but you’ll do anything else. You’ll organize your desktop. You’ll check email for the tenth time. You’ll go get more coffee. Anything to avoid the profound, gut-level discomfort of prospecting. That discomfort, that anxiety, is the silent killer of careers in this business. It’s not the market. It’s not your brokerage. It’s the calls you don’t make, the door

Let’s be honest. This business can be a real gut punch sometimes. You get into real estate to help people, to build something for yourself. Then you get a client who questions your every move, ghosts you for a week, or tries to grind you down on your commission after you’ve poured your soul into finding them the perfect place. It’s enough to make you want to throw your phone into the nearest body of water. We’ve all been there. That feeling of your stomach tightening up when

Discover the 7 habits successful real estate agents use to crush it in 2025. Get sharp insights and practical tips to future proof your real estate game now.

Most sales managers run out of ideas long before they run out of opinions. When I took over at Christine Company, we weren’t green. Seattle’s a hard market; our people were talented. I had one of the top-producing teams in the region, and yet: Up one month, down the next, People drifting, New agent enthusiasm fizzling out, Morale in the dumps. We tried every play in the real estate manual: more dialing, more lead sources, group accountability, Friday “wins” meetings, outside

Why the best leaders don’t manage people—they architect environments. And the science of creating a team that operates in a state of peak performance. As a real estate leader, you are in the business of performance. You are constantly searching for the levers you can pull to drive your agents to the next level of success. You’ve tried it all: better commission splits, new lead generation platforms, and the latest sales training programs. And yet, you still see a massive gap b

Why the best agents don’t sell—they connect. And the science of creating unshakable client relationships.   In the world of real estate,...