I saw an old friend recently, someone I hadn't seen in more than 20 years.
It was interesting to reconnect after so much time, meeting each other again as completely different versions of ourselves.
We talked about life, business, goals, and what we're both building.
At one point he said to me,
“You picked an interesting time to grow and build a team.”
I laughed, but the comment stayed with me.
Because he's right.
Listen to enough experts talk about the real estate market and you'll hear all of it: volatility, uncertainty, affordability, interest rates, one of the worst years in the industry, blah, blah, blah.
But his comment made me think about a question people ask me all the time:
When is the best time to buy or sell?
My answer is almost always the same.
When you're ready.
And maybe that applies to more than real estate.
When is the best time to start the business?
When you're ready.
Not when the economy is ready.
Not when the market is ready.
Sometimes, not even when everything on paper looks ready.
When you are ready.
Because the reality is that so much starts and stops within us.
I see it in my own business.
When I stop doing the activities that make my phone ring and put my business on autopilot, I get autopilot results.
When things start shaking and moving, it's usually because I am moving.
Not the market.
Not the economy.
Not some perfect set of circumstances.
Not the economy.
Not some perfect set of circumstances.
Real estate is unpredictable and volatile. I can't control that.
But I can control whether I make the call. Whether I follow up. Whether I show up. Whether I take the next step.
I thought about my friend's comment for a while after dinner.
The truth is, it's almost impossible to time life perfectly.
If I look back at my own history, some of my decisions probably didn't make much sense from the outside.
But they made sense to me.
There's an analogy I think about often.
When bison face a winter storm, they turn toward it.
They don't spend all of their energy trying to escape what is coming. They face it.
I've realized I've approached much of my life the same way.
Sometimes I've sprinted.
Sometimes I've walked.
Sometimes I've crawled.
Sometimes I've taken one tiny step and called that enough.
But one thing I have learned is:
Don't stop moving.
Over time, moving despite difficult circumstances has taught me something I didn't expect.
You can cultivate peace even when life isn't peaceful.
And resilience compounds too.
They say hard times make strong people.
Maybe.
Or maybe I'm just stubborn.
Maybe I'm highly idealistic.
Because some of the decisions I've made during some of the hardest seasons of my life probably didn't make sense from the outside.
But if we spend our lives waiting for the stars to align or the storm to pass, we can lose years living somewhere between the decisions we want to make and the decisions we're afraid to make.
So this is for the trailblazers.
For the one who's misunderstood in the family.
For the black sheep.
For the person who never quite fit in.
For the big dreamers.
For the person starting something new while everyone around them is wondering why now.
Keep going.
I don't know that it ever gets easier.
I think your resilience muscle simply gets stronger.
Your capacity expands.
And sometimes you don't even realize how much you've grown until you look back and see what you can carry now that you couldn't carry before.
So when is the best time to start the business you've been thinking about?
Take the course?
Write the book?
Make the move?
Maybe the answer isn't waiting for someone else to pick you.
Maybe it's picking yourself.
And saying:
Yes. The time is now.
Because if you wait until you feel completely ready, you may spend your entire life waiting.
Pull your future into your present.
Take one step.
Then another.
Walk when you can walk.
Crawl when you have to crawl.
Run when it's time to run.
Just keep moving.
Simple. Keep going.
Maria Mendoza
About the Writer
Maria Mendoza is a Myrtle Beach real estate agent and team leader serving buyers and sellers throughout the Grand Strand. With more than a decade in real estate, she writes from the perspective of someone actively working inside the market, not simply observing it from the outside.
Her writing explores real estate, business, money, AI, personal growth, faith, leadership, and human behavior, drawing from the experiences that shape how she thinks, leads, and serves others.
