It doesn’t make sense to wait until you’re in shape to join a gym. In the same way, you can’t expect a six-figure business with zero-dollar decisions.

We’ve all been there, scared to make big investments in our future, but every successful realtorpreneurs understands that money is a tool, not something to hoard until the “perfect” moment arrives.

In this episode, Chelsea and Kayla are breaking down the difference between treating real estate like a hobby versus running it like the business it actually is. From investing in your health and relationships to finally putting money behind your marketing, they’re covering all the ways successful realtorpreneurs think differently about time, energy, and, yes, money.

Your Future Self Doesn’t Want You to Wait

Imagine your future self (the one with the dream real estate business, the amazing clients, the balanced life) hired you as her intern. Do you really think she wants you spinning your wheels for another year, piecing things together, taking forever to figure out something you could learn in three months if you just made the investment?

Of course not. She wants you to act like her TODAY.

It’s like Kayla and her glasses. She spent years dealing with cloudy vision, always finding an excuse not to go to the eye doctor. “I can technically see,” she’d tell herself. “There’s always something else to spend money on.”

But when she finally went and got glasses (the cute purple ones, of course!) everything changed. Words weren’t cloudy anymore, and she could see clearly for the first time.

The metaphor is perfect: you can’t see what you can’t see until you actually put on the glasses.

You don’t know how much clearer things could be until you make the investment in yourself.

The Four Non-Negotiable Investments Every Realtorpreneur Should Make

Look, we get it. When you hear “invest in yourself,” your brain probably goes straight to the expensive stuff. But we’ve learned that the most powerful investments often start with the basics.

If you want to operate at the level of your future self, these four areas are non-negotiable.

1. Your Health and Well-Being

Let’s start with the foundation. You expect your brain and body to perform at CEO level, but then you’re not fueling them properly. You wonder why you’re exhausted at 3 PM or why you can’t think clearly during client meetings.

This doesn’t mean you need to join the fanciest gym or take 50,000 supplements. For Kayla, it’s a morning walk, drinking water, and having two healthy meals a day. That’s her bare minimum standard, and it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing.

The point is having a standard at all, something you do every single day, whether you’re on vacation, at home, or drowning in closings. Your future self needs you to have energy to operate at her level.

2. Your Relationships

Real estate IS relationships. If you want to market in a way that’s not just paying for leads, you have to invest in relationships. And yes, this includes your spouse, your kids, your parents, your siblings, your neighbors, your friends.

These relationships don’t just maintain themselves because “we’ve been friends forever.” They need intentional investment. A simple text check-in, a group chat, inviting friends to lunch or coffee, etc.

Apart from all the human benefits that come with investing in your relationships, you also become a more interesting and relatable agent. You have things to talk about with clients and content to share. You’re building that “I feel like I know her” connection that makes people think of you when they need an agent.

3. Your Joy and Fun

We’re convinced some agents think they’re not allowed to have fun. Like somehow enjoying life makes them less professional or serious about their business.

Wrong. So wrong!

You should be doing something fun regularly. Call your sister and go for a walk. Take your kids on a picnic at the library. Set up that cute little table in your living room and watch a movie while you eat dinner. Light a candle and binge Love Island while you update your website.

Fun fills your cup so you have more to give. It also gives you things to talk about with clients. It makes you a more interesting human. And guess what? Interesting humans get more referrals!

4. Your Business

Time for the money conversation that makes everyone squirm a little: as a realtorpreneur, you HAVE to invest in your business. Money has to move in order for it to grow.

Think about it like air. Kayla tells this story about being at a baseball game in D.C.. It was one of those sweltering 90-something degree days where everyone’s already hot and uncomfortable. Then suddenly, to make matters worse, all the wind just stopped, and the air became completely stagnant. She said it literally became hard to inhale, and the entire stadium went quiet because everyone felt it at the same time. They ended up leaving not long after because it was unbearable.

Money works the same way. When it stops moving, when you’re not investing it back into your business, everything becomes stagnant and your business suffocates.

How to Know What’s Worth Investing In

Here’s what successful agents understand that struggling agents don’t: you’re not spending money, you’re building momentum.

When Chelsea invested in something she’d been looking at for four years (FOUR YEARS!), she didn’t see it as money leaving her bank account. She saw it as momentum coming in. She knew she would 10X that investment because she knew how she was going to implement it.

That’s the difference between a hobby and a business. Hobby agents see investments as expenses. Business owners see them as momentum.

But with Instagram showing you something to invest in every other post, how do you know what’s worth it?

First, get clear on who you want to become. What kind of agent do you want to be? What kind of business owner, mom, wife, friend? Journal about it, and then ask yourself: does this investment align with the person I want to become?

If you want to be the kind of agent who builds relationships and creates genuine connections, but the program you’re looking at teaches you how to spam people with cold messages, that’s not aligned.

If you want to show up authentically on social media, but the course teaches you to copy exactly what everyone else is doing, that’s not aligned.

But if the investment feels like an addition to your life, an elevation of who you’re becoming, that’s probably a good sign.

Before you invest in anything new though, audit where your time and money are currently going.

Sit down and actually write out what you did this week. How much time did you spend recreating the wheel for every buyer consultation? How much mental energy went to figuring out what to post on Instagram? How many hours did you spend scrolling, screenshotting, and saving things you’ll never use?

Then look at your money. What are you spending on? Are you paying for things that don’t actually move your business forward?

Maybe instead of hiring a VA to run your social media, you invest in someone to clean your house or a meal delivery service. Free up your time so YOU can be in your marketing, because that’s what’s going to make it work.

Stop Piecing Things Together

When you try to figure everything out yourself you get overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. This person says post every day. That agent posts three times a day. This one says join her bootcamp. That one says join her coaching.

Everyone has THE way. Everyone has THE answer.

But if you would just pick one and stick with it, it would probably work.

The problem is we hop around like shiny object squirrels, trying to piece it all together ourselves. We’re so stressed about making the “right” choice that we never make any choice at all.

Meanwhile, there’s so much free information available that it doesn’t feel like we need to pay for guidance anymore. “I could just ask ChatGPT. I could watch this person’s reels all day long.”

But free information without a plan is just noise, and noise keeps you stuck!

Document, Don’t Create (But Actually Use What You Document)

One of the easiest ways to start investing in your marketing is to start documenting what you’re already doing instead of creating content from thin air.

That iced coffee on the way to your showing? Snap a pic. The sweet back patio view from your new listing? Grab a 10-second video. Your kid’s dance recital, your favorite local boutique, your go-to lunch spot… These everyday moments ARE your marketing.

But enjoy the hot coffee while it’s still hot. Document it, take the picture, and post it later. We don’t need to always be ON on our phones.

Quick snap, then put the phone away. And yes, Chelsea’s guilty of taking the same picture ten different ways, but once she’s done, she puts it away!

Your Next Step

At the end of the day, this all comes back to one simple truth: money needs to circulate to grow. Just like air needs to move to keep you breathing, money needs to flow to keep your business alive.

You can’t hoard your money and expect your business to grow.

Every day in your community, someone is listing their house. There are probably lots of agents to choose from, but why not you? Why didn’t they choose you?

Maybe they’ve never heard of you. Maybe they’ve seen you but don’t feel connected to you. Maybe you’re not the agent that first comes to mind because you haven’t invested in powerful marketing that makes your name a household name.

So here’s your next step: put the line in the sand today. Decide that from here on out, you’re going to take investing in yourself seriously. You’re going to think more like a realtorpreneur and not just another agent.

Don’t try to do everything at once. Think about your health, your relationships, your joy, and your business. Pour a little water on each of those areas every day.

The compounded results are going to blow your mind.

Remember you’re not just building this business for you. You’re building it for your kids, for your family’s future, for the legacy you want to leave. Your success is going to be a reflection of what they think is possible for themselves.

What do you want them to learn from watching you? That you wait for perfect conditions that never come? Or that you act like the person you want to become and then become her?

Stop waiting for someday. Someday is today.

This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.