Is Real Estate Your Next Chapter?

Thinking about starting over or building a career with more control, purpose, and income potential?

In this episode, Robyn Cavallaro shares why real estate can be a powerful next chapter, especially for people who are ready to stop waiting for permission and start building something of their own. Drawing from her book, Real Estate As Your Next Chapter, Robyn talks about starting over at 56, rebuilding after setbacks, and why your age, past career, and life experience may actually be your greatest advantage.

This episode is not the glossy version of real estate. It is the honest one: ownership, consistency, visibility, problem-solving, and learning how to treat real estate like a business, not a backup plan.

If you have ever wondered whether it is too late to start again, this episode is your reminder that your next chapter does not start when everything is perfect. It starts when you decide. 

Here is a link to your copy on Amazon Real Estate As Your Next Chapter

Thanks for watching. Be sure to catch the video version on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@StopChasingStartAttracting

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

In today's episode, I want to speak with you specifically about a book I have on Amazon. Real estate as your next chapter: How to Start Over, Stand Out, and Succeed in Real Estate at Any Age. And if you're listening to this, you may have just got into real estate or you are thinking about it. You definitely want to check out this book. Again, it's on Amazon in print, your Kindle device, and on Audible. Because real estate can be one of the best next chapters in your life, but not because it's easy. Let's get that out of the way right now. Because I firmly believe and say this all of the time. Real estate's not a hard job, but you must work hard at it. It's not easy money or passive income by any stretch of the imagination. And it's not just getting in the car, showing pretty homes, opening up the door, showing all the features and benefits, taking clients out to lunch and collecting a big old fat check. That version is not realistic. Real estate can be a powerful next chapter because it gives you something a lot of people are missing in their current career. They're missing that control, the control over their income, their schedule, how to build your business, whether you stay stuck or you finally create something that truly belongs to you. And that's why I wrote this real estate as your next chapter. It is for you to know there is something else out there. And this is not just about getting into real estate. This book is about starting over, standing out, and succeeding. And I wrote it because I know what it feels like to look at your life and think, what do I do now? I can't believe I'm actually here. And does this even fit anymore? Because I know you're going through that. I've gone through that a couple of times in my life. And you know, I wish I would have found real estate earlier on in my career. Because before I started selling homes, I was an entrepreneur. I sold desserts. I had a restaurant and I worked hard at. And I opened, I expanded and opened a coffee shop. And it was gorgeous. That was my downfall because it totally crashed. And that failure triggered a whole series of financial setbacks. And that's when I moved to Florida in 2019. Now I moved here because my adult children were living here. And my business is failing. And that's a whole other story. I won't get into it here, but that gave that opened the door because that was the only door left for me to open, moved to Florida, which I wanted to do anyway, to be near my children. But I got back into the food business and COVID hit, and it wasn't going to be the opportunity that I thought it would be. And I had to come up with a plan B. And that's how I got into real estate. Again, when I moved here, I had less than $10,000 in the bank. I had this little tiny car that I had a loan on because I could afford it. And I was renting a home. So it's not really a catapult into a new reinvention. It was the only choice that I had. And I had to work with whatever it was that was thrown at me. Because it wasn't a glamorous fresh start. It was, holy cow, you better make it. But I knew real estate wasn't going to be easy because I had sold before. I actually sold commercial insurance, which is probably harder than real estate. And well, quite frankly, it's boring. Real estate, I don't find boring. But I chose it because I needed a path forward that didn't require someone else. I did not want anyone else. I didn't want a partner. I didn't want a boss. I needed to do it on my own because I had been on my own for so long. It was really hard for me to go back into corporate America. But I needed something where my age, my backstory, my previous failures didn't disqualify me. And that's the biggest reason why real estate became my next chapter. Because it doesn't disqualify you. Your past life actually prepares you. And if you worked in sales, any type, hospitality sales, education, maybe you've been in healthcare, customer service management, you've owned businesses, or you even spent years taking care of your family. You already have the skills for this business because you know how to communicate, read people, solve problems, stave calm when others are emotional. Well, a little caveat there. And in real estate, all of those things matter and they matter a lot. Because people think real estate is about being flashy, but it's not. It's about being clear and trustworthy. Because clients are not hiring you because you have the biggest social media page that says nothing, or you have the prettiest business card. They're probably not even looking at that. They're hiring you because they believe you can guide them through the next major decision without making it worse. Because buying or selling a home is truly an emotional sale. There's money involved, there's fear involved, there are deadlines, contracts, inspections, lenders, appraisals, repairs, negotiations, and plenty of opportunities for everyone to lose their minds. And I've dealt with plenty of people who have lost their mind. But your job is to not lose yours. Well, maybe you don't lose your mind in front of your customers because I've lost it plenty of times in the privacy of my own home. But that's the best place to vent. So in this book, I talk about how people can often tell themselves they're too old, too late, too far behind. But I don't believe that. I think a lot of people are better prepared for real estate later in life than they would have been at 25. The 25, I had energy. At 56, I have judgment. And there's a difference. And I have to tell you, I my children are adults. I have grandchildren, but obviously they live with their parents. I have the time to invest vigorously in this career. My day starts at 5:30 a.m. And I'm typically working. If it's not on my computer, it's out in the field making content. I have a huge YouTube channel. It's researching and making content for that. All of this to prove my authority and get my customers to reach out to me to know I'm the one that they need to use before they ever pick up the phone. Because, and if I had done this when I have little children, it would have been very difficult. I could see that now. I probably wouldn't have seen that while I was younger. And I'm not saying do not start real estate at a young age. There are always ways to find a way to make it work. But real estate, I think, rewards maturity, consistency, emotional intelligence. It rewards the ability to keep going when life falls apart, client ghosts you, the market shifts, or when things don't happen fast enough. And trust me, things will not always happen fast enough or at your schedule. It's not a business for people who need instant applause, constant pat on the back. This is a business for people who are willing to build. And that brings me to one of the biggest points in this book. Real estate is not a job. Real estate is a business and it's your own business. And if you treat it like a job, you're going to struggle. Because a job usually gives you a schedule, a paycheck, a manager, a task list, and someone else's system. But real estate doesn't work that way. When you get licensed, no one's handing you a paycheck. No one is forcing you to follow up, to check your calendar, to make sure you learn the market, know the things that you're supposed to, understand the contracts. Nobody is making you post content and following up with that. Calling leads, building relationships, or creating systems. That is all going to be on you. And believe it or not, there are many brokers out there who do a big chunk of your money and don't provide any of this to you either. So keep that in mind. And real estate was an easy bridge for me because I always thought like an owner, but that's what you have to do. If you're used to being an employee, you have to start treating it like you are the owner. Let's go over some of the chapters in the book. So you kind of get an idea of where I was coming from with this. I get into why people start over in real estate and what happens when life knocks you flat. I talk with you about real estate as a business and how to operate it as a business. Because this book, I'll tell you, uh, I have 15 chapters and it's a lot of great information. I think you definitely will find it informative. It's a I designed it to be an easy read uh from my perspective and my voice. And um I want to inspire. I start to dig into what is going to stand, help you stand apart by becoming a local expert and why buyers are the path to money and listings are not the only game in town. We talk about your brand, how to build a sustainable, scalable career, and how to build confidence, courage, and the power of choosing yourself. And it is meant to be inspirational. Again, it's about 80 pages. You can get it on Amazon, in print, Kindle, uh, or on Audible. And if you are an agent out there, I have a new program coming out. It's called the Agent Authority Lab. This is my group coaching program for realtors. Uh, if you're interested, my email address is, or for that is agentauthority at robincavallero.com. Send me a message. I will have this all ready to go in a couple of weeks. We're still working out some of the final details. It will be a Zoom live session, six weeks of an hour training and the authority build program. And then there is an upgrade to the inner circle, which gives you more access to me and extra time in the room for QA, as well as a bonus bonus seventh session. There's a workbook, and you will start to transform your career because I give you the playbook of how I did it. This isn't one of those trainings where you find YouTubers or coaches out there who are everything to everybody, or they talk about theory. I am talking about reality. It's the reality that I had, the reality that I created for myself and how I built it to start making over half a million dollars a year. And you can do it too. You just have to have the fortitude and you have to persevere. You can't post and say, oh, I posted for three weeks, nothing happened. That's going to happen all of the time. Actually, teach you in that lab what to post, where to post, and how to do it to get some traction. So if this is interesting to you, if you wouldn't mind, give the podcast, download it, make sure you give it a review, uh, send me that email because I really do want to be able to guide new realtors or seasoned realtors who are having challenges into that next chapter. Check out that book. I also have a couple of other books on Amazon. Skip the nine to five, which is really for an under 30 mindset. And I have a book, Your First 12 Deals for Realtors. It's a playbook for traction, authority, and to get closings, because let's face it, closings are where it's at. That's where you make money. I'm going to end it here. My name's Robin Cavallero. This is Stop Chasing, Start Attracting. If you have any questions, you want to shoot me an email. If you're having a challenge, maybe I can give you a little bit of inspiration. Thanks for listening to the podcast today, and I will catch you next time.