How to be a Happy Real Estate Agent (You’ve Got It Backwards)

by Steve Shull

Let’s bust a myth.

If you ask most agents what they’re trying to achieve every day, it’s either sell more homes, make more money, or both.

Why? Because they think that’s the road to more happiness.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let me be perfectly clear: selling more homes and making more money, does NOT lead to happiness. 

How do I know? Because I see the same levels of stress, worry, and misery in my clients who sell less than $1M a year and my clients who sell $100M or more.

This is why you hear me say repeatedly that chasing after a deal, chasing after a dollar, is no different than being on a treadmill that’s going nowhere. It will not get you to the happy life you want.

However, cultivating happiness and living in happiness every day CAN absolutely lead to selling more homes and making more money.

Most people have it completely BACKWARDS.

The thing they need to focus on cultivating every day isn’t more financial success—it’s more happiness, more joy, and more love.

And to do that, you don’t need ANYTHING you don’t already have. You can cultivate happiness every day without needing anything in your life to be different from how it is now.

You don’t need to be different.

Other people don’t need to be different.

The universe doesn’t need to be different.

If this doesn’t blow your mind, you can stop reading right now.

There are two competing energies in your life at all times: HAPPINESS and FEAR.

If you’re being completely honest with yourself, your life is run much more by fear than by happiness…but it doesn’t have to be that way, and the 6 Building Blocks are the key to changing this status quo.

Each Building Block represents a choice between happiness and fear, and by focusing on these Building Blocks every day, you can make INTENTIONAL decisions about which energy you want to cultivate.

🪷 Building Block 1: MINDSET

Your mindset is the foundation of absolutely EVERYTHING you do in life. 

When you practice the mindset of embracing what is and living in harmony with what the universe puts in front of you, you’re cultivating happiness. 

When you’re resisting or denying what is, wasting your energy trying to change things that are outside your control, you’re cultivating fear.

⏳ Building Block 2: TIME BLOCKING

When you deliberately spend your time doing what’s most important—what matters most, what’s truly essential, you’re aligned with happiness.

When you allow yourself to be distracted by shiny objects, instant gratification, and hope—which waste your precious time and prevent you from doing what’s important—you’re aligned with fear.

📞 Building Block 3: CRM 

When you use CRM to connect with people at a human level and cultivate genuine relationships, you’re cultivating happiness.

When you use it as a dumping ground and approach your contacts from a transactional point of view (which most agents do), you’re cultivating fear.

⚙️ Building Block 4: PROCESS MANAGEMENT

When you’re proactively defining and implementing best practices in every aspect of your work and life, you’re aligned with happiness.

When you’re reacting to what shows up, running a daily fire drill, and neglecting to learn from your mistakes, you’re aligned with fear.

🗨️ Building Block 5: TACTICAL EMPATHY

When you approach human interactions by putting the other person first, making them feel understood, and helping them think clearly, you’re cultivating happiness.

When you’re trying to convince people to do what you want them to do because you “need” a specific result, you’re cultivating fear.

📊 Building Block 6: KNOWING YOUR NUMBERS

When you use data to make strategic decisions based on where your business actually comes from, you’re aligned with happiness.

When you’re operating off impulse and instinct alone, with no real evidence of what works and what doesn’t in your business, you’re aligned with fear.

We all have a CHOICE.

We can do the things that will cultivate more happiness, joy, and love…

Or the things that cultivate fear, worry, and doubt.

YOU have that choice every day.

This is why we continue to stress: it’s not how much business you do, it’s HOW you do your business.

So, I have a question for you right here, right now.

What’s truly more important to you: getting one specific result now…or mastering a skill that will lead to MANY of those results in the future?

In other words…are you chasing a deal or building a business?

If it’s the latter, we have new programs designed to give you a MASSIVE leg up.

In the Tactical Empathy Bootcamp you’ll dive deep into the core concepts and tools of Tactical Empathy, building the foundational skills you need to create a strong repeat and referral business.

(And I know that’s what you want!)

This 10-week program starts on September 12th, and we won’t do it again for at least 6 months, so get in before the doors close!

If you’re already familiar with the basics of Tactical Empathy and want to truly master it, join one of our Role Play Groups. You’ll get consistent practice of real-world conversations in a small group, with guidance and feedback from an expert coach.

Our initial groups are already full, but if you want in, sign up for the waitlist—the more people we see on the waitlist, the faster we’ll open up a new group!

And one more thing…

If you have a burning question you wish a coach would answer for you, ask it here! 

This is our new Ask the Coaches page, where we’ll be collecting and answering your questions every month. These questions will also be the inspiration for our monthly webinars, where our expert coaches will address the most pressing topics on agents’ minds.

It’s all in the service of one thing: helping YOU build a sustainable, scalable, stress-free real estate business.