Staci Garcia

I attribute my success to my mom. She is my best friend and has been there for me through everything. Even from the moment we lived out of our car and were eating peanut butter sandwiches because we didn't have anywhere to go, she made every holiday and every adventure memorable and important. She taught me to respect, to grow, and to always put my best foot forward, and that has helped me in life. No matter what I've gone through, she is always there for me. She worked 3 jobs to put me through private school so I could get a volleyball scholarship in college. She's just an amazing human and she's the person who pushes me out of my comfort zone. That's something I want my daughter to have too.

The best career advice I've ever received is: don't chase the finish line, enjoy the journey. It's easy in this career and in life to just want the outcome. We want to lose weight super fast, achieve that goal in life super fast, make money super fast. But people don't look back and see what it took the billionaires and people in great shape to get there. It didn't happen instantly. In this society with Ozempic and instant billionaires and cryptocurrency, people don't realize it took a long time for someone to get there, for that item to be made, for the work and sweat and tears to be put into it. You learn a lot about yourself along the journey, more than just getting to the finish line.

Don't be scared that you're going to not have time for your family. A lot of moms get into this because they want the flexibility. There's no flexibility in real estate, but there's boundaries, and boundaries give you the opportunity to be able to not miss any soccer games, basketball games, or any teacher events. You can still be present, and you can still make a million dollars a year. You can set boundaries that allow you to be there for what matters while still being successful in this industry.

The biggest challenge in real estate is the market and overcoming people's mindset when it comes to what they hear on the news, on social media, or about politics. That can play a huge impact on people and how they feel. That's the biggest hurdle, but if you look at it as needing to get into their shoes and their understanding, and see their perspective, because everyone's perspective is their own reality, then you can have a good one-on-one conversation of understanding but also rationalizing. In business coaching, the hardest thing is not taking it home. You have to bounce from one emotion to the next, to different personality traits, and at the end of the day sometimes you just feel exhausted and your brain doesn't want to work anymore because it's been working for the last 9 hours.

Integrity is incredibly important to me. Honesty is important to me. Culture is important. I really, truly feel like if you can be a person of integrity and be an honest person, then that's all that matters. Being kind and being caring is very, very important, but being a person of integrity, the world needs a lot more of that.