We recently connected with Portia Schwefel and have shared our conversation below.
Portia, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Over the years I have often been called “resilient” from the people closest to me. I did not pay it much mind until I was older and I really understood the gravity behind resilience and why its such an important quality to possess.
Like so many people in the world, growing up in a less than ideal home environment paired with (sometimes) life seemingly working against you – its very easy to just want to “give up” – to succumb to your struggles and be a bum, be miserable, live a life less than you desire or deserve.
Without going into a ton of detail – I think ultimately my resilience is an active choice to stand up, brush yourself off, and try again. It is less about possessing resilience as an inherent trait and more so an acknowledgement of the choices you have in front of you; actively choosing to go on and pursue life on your own terms, regardless of your past or the things you feel are working against you.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am Director of Operations for a real estate company here in San Diego – the Emerson Group. We specialize in 1031 Exchanges, Investments, Sales and Purchases across San Diego County and the Country, really.
A big part of my job is system creation and management, listing and project management (such as flips/ repair projects) and client relationships and development. Our business model is unique in that we mostly work with out of area owners who are looking to sell and conduct a 1031 Exchange to another state or city.
I absolutely love what I do and a big part of that is the relationships with our clients. Throughout each home sale I not only get to know their background and history of the house, but I also get to understand their goals for the future and work with them on the best option to support those goals. There are so many things you can do with real estate to build wealth and generational wealth and its such an honor to set our clients up for success in ways they might not have known or thought to do with their income properties.
Outside of that there are a few passion projects I am working on this year such as a Women in Business night that meets once a month that helps support local businesses and professionals and a free template system for newer real estate agents. I can’t wait to share those once they are finished!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
For a bit of background I have worked in customer service, financing, higher education, software development and now real estate.
I think the three qualities that were most impactful on my journey – both professionally and personally were (and continue to be) resilience, curiosity, and being ok with being uncomfortable.
Throughout the course of my life I have often met a career change or a move with “why can’t I do this? Why don’t I just try and see what happens.” instead of “Oh I shouldn’t do this because I’m not qualified” or “I don’t have what it takes to learn this/ do this.”
That mindset mindset of “why not” has led me to the most amazing places and relationships and I encourage anyone to challenge themselves with thinking that way and pursuing a new chapter if that is what you are called to do. Stay curious and pursue things that make you excited, don’t be afraid to do something new or different, don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s really important to recognize that not all “No’s” are a bad thing and that doesn’t mean you should stop trying or stop pursuing what you are called to.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think its important to acknowledge your strengths and utilize them but its much more important try and be well rounded and invest effort into improving areas you aren’t the strongest in.
I am all about growth and development – and when you only play to your strengths without at least trying to learn additional skills you are in some ways stagnant.
There are many things in my career that I was not great at or did not enjoy as much – such as working with numbers or being more assertive than I would like to be, lead generation, content creation, etc. Though I was not the greatest at these things I knew that learning them and putting effort into these skills would not only benefit my resume/job position at the time, these skills would help support the things I was already great at and loved doing.
One of the better examples in my career is relationship building (big strength) vs. numbers (an area I invested work in). Honing in on numbers and being able to understand and articulate complicated tax benefits, exchanges, and real estate values/sale benefits has allowed me to develop deeper and more trusting relationships with our clients and other real estate professionals – which is something I truly love and is a big strength of mine.
When you look at the work invested into areas of weakness as a benefit to your strengths I think it helps motivate you and drives you to learn or develop those things.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emersongroupsd.com
- Instagram: schwefdp & protia_realestate
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/portia-dayne-schwefel-8b618b92/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoz5DrOEDxYakj2ZIS0QMYg
Image Credits
Photogenics SD
