Stretch Like Gumby

Our industry allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of focus, growth and personal development. Naturally we gravitate toward the elements in which we have the most interest. Over time, in a career which can span many decades, the place in which we find ourselves can often look much different at the end when compared with the beginning. Unlike some careers where change requires years of additional education and certification, the Realtor®  is able to practice amazingly different pursuits within the same industry at will. Let’s say a young man starts out at a good residential real estate firm just after college in a support role and is sent to get his real estate license by his boss. He takes his classes, gets licensed and begins supporting and eventually selling residential real estate. But he just doesn’t love it. One day someone at an industry networking event offers him a job supporting a commercial agent and the offer also holds the appeal of apprenticing into the commercial practice. After a few years of commercial work there comes an offer to work for a development company working on in-fill city projects. Later he joins management at a Real Estate Investment Trust and stays for many years adaptively repurposing obsolete facilities during which he does years of leasing, restructuring, property management and adaptive re-use construction. Toward the end of his career, he goes back to commercial brokerage for the enjoyment of industrial, land sales, office and maybe to pick up a new skill set like retail. All of those very different and multifaceted parts of a diverse career are possible while still falling under the basic category of a Realtor®.  

In these times of uncertainly and change, adaptation and recovery, and as we wait to see what the interest rates are going to do…if more people will decide to sell their homes… if employers are going to mandate a return to the office… if people will ever again flock to the mall… if drones will just begin dropping our internet purchases down some new-fangled reverse chimney situation to defeat the porch pirates… we may as well stretch ourselves like Gumby and learn some new skills.  You cannot make the required changes and improvements to yourself and your situation without learning.

I am the first to admit that when I don’t know how to do something. A lot of people don’t like to do that, but I find it is much better to do it right up front. I have no huge phobia about seeming dumb or being judged as I am old and wise enough to know that I just need the info/skills and I will practice and study and eventually add them to the arsenal. Does that mean I don’t ever worry that I can’t do new things or that I won’t be good at them? Absolutely not! It means that I have an active conversation with myself (mostly silent) wherein we discuss and review that I can do anything I set my mind to. I envision stretching myself further and being willing to grow and then I begin to seek out the ways to let the learning commence from the various and assorted means possible. It became obvious to me a time long ago that there is so much to learn, and the only way to fail is to quit being willing to learn.



Sometimes during the course of a career, we are asked to do things that we don’t readily have interest in or even know anything about. Sometimes those things are disguised as skills. At the very least they are experience. Aside from books, courses, seminars and trainings people will help you. All you have to do is show genuine and sincere interest and a willingness to learn. Being a new anything at any age is scary and challenging but where you find yourself is where you need to apply yourself, no matter the economy or the climate or the industry. If you find yourself professionally related to real estate, you have found a home that can grow and adapt with you for the rest of your working life.

-Copyright © 20 Years Without A Window, Althea Ramsay Carrigan, High Associates. 2024. All Rights Reserved.

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