There’s a lot of angst around change right now.
That’s true across industries, but it feels particularly pronounced in real estate.
And I understand some of it.
Consumer behavior is changing. Expectations are changing. Technology is changing. New tools, business models, ideologies, and ideas are arriving faster than most organizations can update their PowerPoint decks.
That can be exhausting.
But I think we still get to choose how we respond to it.
We can consume the clickbait headlines, endure the grotesque overuse of the word “disruption,” and convince ourselves that everything happening around us is a threat.
Or we can look at this moment as an invitation to reinvent ourselves.
I’ve reinvented myself many times over the course of my life and career. Sometimes involuntarily. More often, I saw the need for change and chose it before change chose me.
Not every reinvention was comfortable. Some required abandoning things I was good at because they were no longer getting me where I wanted to go.
But I can’t think of one that wasn’t worth the time and energy.
Each iteration taught me something. Each forced me to develop new skills, reconsider old assumptions, and become more useful to the people who trusted me.
And yes, I’ve profited from the results. Not just financially, but through opportunities, relationships, experiences, and work I probably never would have encountered had I insisted on remaining who I was.
That’s why I have a difficult time seeing change as the enemy.
Change is information.
It’s the market telling us something. It’s consumers telling us something. Sometimes it’s technology revealing that the thing we thought made us valuable wasn’t actually the valuable part.
We should probably listen.
We don’t have to embrace every new idea. Skepticism is healthy. Discernment matters. Some “disruptions” will turn out to be little more than a press release wearing a leather jacket.
But resisting change simply because it threatens the familiar is different from thoughtfully evaluating it.
The question I keep asking myself isn’t, “How do I protect the way I’ve always done this?”
It’s:
Who do I need to become next?
For me, that’s one of the most interesting questions a career can offer.
Change isn’t automatically progress.
But change is always an opportunity to excel.
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