God's Divine Open Doors (& why I decided to get my real estate license).

“Why?” It’s a question we ask often in life.

As kids, we ask: Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why did God make it that way?

As adults, we ask: Why is this happening? Why did I have to go through this?

The disciples asked God “why” many times.

Even Jesus asked God “why?”

The answer in John 11 says this:

“It is for God’s glory - so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

This answer has me looking back on my life before kids and career really began at all the ways God was preparing me for something that would come much later. I didn’t understand why he was saying “no” to some things and opening doors to others. Looking back…he was orchestrating each life circumstance in a string of events that would prepare me for what would come next.

Which leads me to today. Here I sit, a newly licensed realtor with a thriving marketing agency & 2 kids. As I look back, there are so many moments of foreshadowing & open doors that I had no idea would prepare me for a career in real estate or scaling a business.

Let’s take a look back at how the most seemingly unimportant events have created a pathway for big moments of opportunity years later!

As we do, I encourage you to take a look back at your own seemingly unimportant moments and how, strung together, they have led you to the place you’re in today.

At 16, I landed a job at Buckle - not knowing it was a commission based job.

I wasn’t looking for a job when I got the opportunity. I was visiting a friend who worked there. And I stuck around because of a cute boy who, little did I know, would ultimately become the father of my children. But what I loved about Buckle once I was integrated into the team was the people. We laughed together, prayed together, hung out outside of work together, went to church together. They were my people. I didn’t know I was signing up for a “sales” job when I applied but I quickly learned that if I wanted to make any commission, I had to have bright energy when the customer walked in, I had to ask the right questions and listen to the customer about what they liked/didn’t like & meet those needs for them and in the end, hopefully make a sale. After a while, some customers became regulars that always wanted to work with me. I had no idea this after school job could be preparing me for a career where relationship building was everything & your paycheck was dependent on your performance.

In high school, I made a friend that would become my business partner.

I had no idea that my friendship with Lauren in high school would lead to us getting together for coffee to catch up in our 20’s, which would open the door to us becoming business partners 6 months later. God planted that seed of friendship for the purpose of our business that would not manifest until 15 years later.

I chose a real estate focus in college.

My major at UGA was journalism. All I knew when I picked it was that I liked to write and wanted to be like Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City. When it came time to choose a “focus” under my major, I chose the one that I already had the most credits for and would allow me to graduate the fastest. (Mainly because I had a 2 year old and was ready to check the degree box and get a big girl job.) I already had the most credits for a: Housing Focus. This was not that big of a deal to me at the time. I would have chosen a focus in zoology if it meant I could graduate quicker. Those remaining semesters, I had several classes on real estate license law and property management. Little did I know, I would end up working for one of the most elite real estate closing attorney firms in the southeast right out of college & build a career selling to top performing real estate agents for the next DECADE.

My first day at my big girl job, the closing attorney office, my boss handed me a real estate contract & said “Read this.” Not having bought a house at that point, I had a lot to learn, not just about buying and selling a house, but the mortgage & closing process. And the inspection process. And appraisal process. And home warranty process. I was excited about marketing but was expected to know the ins and outs of all sides of a transaction. It was overwhelming putting all the pieces together at first but after 10 years of experience, I’ve got a leg up as a new agent because I have already built the connections for all the pieces that need to come together for a transaction to go smoothly. And if I don’t have the answers, I have access to a wealth of leaders that do! (It’s not what you know, it’s who you know – am I right?!)

The Real Estate industry launched my 1st business: The Edge Agency.

I said “yes” to my first client as a business owner out of a spirit of “Let’s see how this goes!” when a real estate broker asked me to manage her monthly marketing. I had no idea saying “yes” to an opportunity would open the door to me creating my first LLC, designing my first logo, strategizing company names, hiring my first vendor, hiring my first employee, building my first website and managing multiple clients as an outsourced marketing agency. Much less, could I have predicted that the real estate industry would be a huge niche pushing Edge to reach 7 figures within the first 5 years. But God knew that this opportunity to say “yes” would lead me into the next right thing.

So, after 10 years in the real estate industry meeting with hundreds, if not thousands, of realtors…In 2022, I decided to join the industry as an active real estate agent, myself.

It was a 9 month road to getting licensed & I almost quit mid process. Here’s a story about the power of your influences.

I took the class online and after finishing the class at my own pace, it was time to really kick things into high gear. I had to cram so I could pass the exam. I had come so far– yet, felt like I had so far to go. By now, I was out of energy & out of enthusiasm…And I wanted to quit. I told my coach that I was thinking about putting it on hold & would pick it back up when work wasn’t so busy and the kids weren’t so needy. (Yeah, right!)

And my coach simply said: “Since the class is done, why don’t you test anyways, don’t even worry about studying and just see if you pass – you’ve come this far.”

Her advice to not quit right here at the end stuck with me. I took a few days to rejuvenate before returning once again to my note cards and online practice quizzes. I studied day and night for weeks and passed both tests on the first try.

Sometimes when you’re going full speed ahead and run out of gas, you don’t have to declare the car a total loss just because you’re low on fuel. It may just mean it’s time to stop for gas, refuel and then begin again.

I heard a pastor say once, “If you’ve never thought about quitting, your dreams aren’t big enough.” If dreams and goals were easy, no one would quit anything & we’d all be millionaires. But getting there is not easy. It’s hard, almost to the point we think it’s beyond what we can manage. But that just means we’re dreaming BIG and stretching ourselves.

So, why did I choose to do this now?

A better question would be: Why not now?!

Isn’t it funny how there’s this foreshadowing or precursor in our lives of things to come that you can’t see until you’re further down the road?! The road opens up and starts to make sense as our purpose unfolds. Nothing is random or coincidence. God is working all things together for our good, according to his purpose so that HE can be glorified in every win and in every battle.

What if everything leading up to this moment has been preparing you for such a time as this?