So at 40 years old, I find myself working for.. well.. myself, and my wife at the same time.
As a realtor for almost five years now, I’ve come to two key conclusions. The first is that I love every aspect of real estate. I love working with both buyers and sellers, the negotiation with other realtors, exceeding client expectations, helping people find their dream homes, and continually trying to change what it means to be a realtor. The second thing that I have come to realize is that my wife is a badass, a force of nature, and the only person I would go to war with, she amazes me daily!
Much like most of you, I’ve had a wide range of bosses, from the pushover who wanted to be best friends, to the narcissistic prick that cared only about their success. Having held a wide range of jobs at varying management levels has given me a ton of perspective about what it means to be a leader, manager, or boss. Was I the best boss when I managed others? Was I the best version of myself when engaged with former bosses? I worked my ass off to be great in both roles, but I’m sure if I had slowed down and reflected in life, I could have been better! And just like that , twenty years of working for others and managing hundreds at a time has left me jaded about working for other and only capable of working for myself.
Four plus years as a realtor has helped me grow more than any other time in my life. It is beyond rewarding, exciting, challenging, humbling, infuriating, and fun, all at the same time. But with all of that said, managing myself has made it clear that I might be the most difficult employee ever.. My time management is average at best ( I get distracted by other tasks that are more interesting, and I can procrastinate with the best of them). My work ethic is second to none. I would say I’m as capable as anyone around. I have an opinion about everything and anything , which I see is a trait my 7 year old is starting to embrace. I have a mouth which just doesn’t stop , and I could be a much better listener. Ok, that might be sugarcoating it, I’m just a lot to handle and a challenging personality.. This is where my wife comes in, and for as much as she can piss me off, she might be the best boss I’ve ever had. We are a real estate team , husband and wife, best friends, and simply meant to be the others half. We are realtors together, at the same broker, and a couple years ago, we structured our S corp so that Kelly was in charge and I worked under her with the corporation writing my paycheck. There was a lot of other things that went into this , but that’s for another time. Probably the hardest transition in my professional career has been fully embracing working for my wife, while working for myself, and knowing my success depends on my efforts now more than ever.
I would consider my wife and I both very much type A with a little bit of an edgy attitude. That doesn’t always make for a great relationship between manager and employee, and at first it was a complete train wreck. Every time we talked about business , family, or kids, or money would get dragged into the conversation. Anytime one of us was annoyed with the other about something in our personal life, the conversation would always spiral away from work. For an entire year, we were terrible about communicating, we couldn’t resolve conflicts, we got annoyed at each others slightest movement… it was tough to say the least. For two people both in our second marriages, with a his, hers, and 2 of ours blended family, and decades of management experience, owning and managing a business together has been the toughest thing we have done. Countless times, it almost fell apart, one of us was constantly on the verge of going to get a different job, to at the very least create some space, man there were some epic battles! Then IT CLICKED.
One day in the wake of a tough couple fights we sat down and figured it out, and the key was time for ourselves by ourselves. Between 5am and 6:30 turned out to be the time that saved our business, strengthened our marriage, and made us better partners, parents, and friends. I know, you just said to yourself, 5am is way too early, the point is to find your time. We worked less, every morning started with coffee, conversation, no agenda , and zero electronics. It helped to better focus on our kids, family, friends, finances, vacations, our home, and ultimately clarified what we needed to do for work. There are a lot of obligations in life , a ton of time commitments, and countless emotional / mentally draining moments each day. Carve out some time to just be and reflect about the good in your life. I really started to appreciate my wife/boss when we committed to this time each morning. I have never seen a woman so passionate and driven in my life, and if it needs to get done, she will be relentless until it is. I lovingly call her the Pit bull, as there is zero quit in her, she’s a scrappy one.. and honestly if anyone pisses me off, I just unleash her, 😂.
Kelly has made me take more pride in the work I do, because I want to make her proud of me more thank anything. She is the most impressive woman I know, and nothing feels better as an associate than impressing your bad ass boss. Now she may be a bit chaotic at times, or loud, or she can be emotional and impatient. But all those things coupled with her tremendous ability and heart make her the only boss for me.. I’m a lucky employee.
