The Voice Memo That Got Me Through My First Hard Month

For most of my first two years in real estate, I thought asking for help was something you did quietly, so nobody clocked that you weren't sure what you were doing.

That's not unique to me. Real estate can be a strangely lonely business for something that looks so social. You're around people all day, clients and lenders and other agents at the same open houses, and you can still go weeks without anyone really knowing what your week was actually like. The deal that fell apart. The seller who turned on you. The month where nothing closed and you started doing that quiet panic math about whether you'd picked the wrong career.

I carried a lot of that alone for a long time.

The thing that changed wasn't a course or a script or a new lead source. It was a group of women.

When I came to eXp, I found Powerhouse. I'll be honest, I expected it to be another networking thing. Another group chat that goes quiet after the first week, another set of calls I'd feel guilty for skipping. That's not how it went.

I remember a specific week early on. A deal I'd worked for months was coming apart over a repair issue, the kind of thing that's nobody's fault and everybody's problem. I was spiraling. I'd convinced myself a more experienced agent would have seen it coming, that I'd somehow caused it. Late that night I sent a long, messy message to one of the women in Powerhouse. Not a polished question. More of an "I think I'm bad at this and I don't know what to do" kind of message.

She sent back a voice memo the next morning. Eight minutes long. She didn't just tell me it would be fine. She walked me through exactly how she'd handled the same situation, who to call first, what to say to my clients, how to keep it from blowing up. Then at the end she said something I still think about. She said the fact that I cared this much was the reason I'd be good at this, not the reason I wasn't.

That eight minute voice memo did more for my business than any training I'd ever paid for.

This is the piece of the eXp and Powerhouse model that's hard to put on a flyer. Everyone talks about splits and revenue share and the financial mechanics, and those matter (I've written about them, they're real). But the thing that actually keeps me here is that I'm not doing this alone anymore. When I have a weird title issue or a client situation I've never seen, I have real people who've been there and want to help. Not because they're getting paid to. Because that's how this group works.

There's a reason it's mostly women. A lot of us came from environments where support had strings attached, where the person helping you was also quietly competing with you. Powerhouse doesn't run that way. The women in my group actually want each other to win, and I've stopped being surprised by it, though it took me a while.

It shows up in small ways more than grand ones. Someone shares the exact wording she used on a tricky counteroffer. Someone else posts a win at 9pm and a dozen people cheer for her like it's their own. When I had a listing appointment I was anxious about, two women who'd done that exact kind of property walked me through what to expect before I ever got in the car. None of that is on a brochure, and it's the thing I'd have paid the most for if anyone had thought to sell it.

I think a lot of agents are starving for this and don't know it's available. They assume the loneliness is just part of the job. They think the only options are grind alone or join a team and give up a third of everything. There's a middle path where you keep your independence and still have your people. I didn't know that until I was in it.

If you're reading this on a hard week, the kind where you're quietly wondering if you're cut out for this, I want you to know the answer is probably yes, and you probably just need better people around you. I'd love to tell you more about what that's looked like for me. No pressure and no pitch, just a real conversation whenever you want one.