12 Lessons for Building A Business While Carrying Everything Else

Jun 1

Ruth Reffkin and Neda Navab

What Ruth Reffkin and Neda Navab’s Motherhood conversation revealed about ambition, guilt, resilience, and the reality of leading a full life.

Real estate is not a career that stays neatly inside business hours.

It does not always respect dinner plans, school pickups, aging parents, vacations, bedtime routines, or the one hour you thought you had to yourself. The work is personal, urgent, emotional, and often unpredictable.

For parents, caregivers, and anyone carrying a full life outside of work, the question is not simply how to grow a business. It is how to keep growing without burning out, shrinking yourself, or losing sight of what the work is actually for.

At Compass’ second annual Mother’s Day conversation, Ruth Reffkin, President & Co-Founder of Compass Plus and mother to CEO Robert Reffkin, and Neda Navab, President of Compass, spoke candidly about motherhood, leadership, guilt, resilience, and ambition. The conversation was personal, but the lessons were deeply relevant to real estate - especially for agents who know what it takes to serve clients at a high level while trying to be present for the people they love.

1. Know what your ambition is really for.

Ruth said becoming a mother made her more ambitious. As a single mother, she worked because she had to - but also because she wanted to give Robert everything she possibly could.

Neda shared that financial independence mattered to her from a young age. She remembered being ten years old, seeing the brick buildings at Harvard, and deciding she wanted to go there one day. Later, a trip to Iran made her even more aware of freedom, choice, and the kind of life she wanted to build.

For agents, that kind of ambition matters. The best careers are rarely built from production goals alone. They are built from something deeper: independence, security, pride, family, legacy, choice.

When you know what your ambition is for, it becomes easier to protect.

2. Act like you have a right to be in the room.

Ruth’s advice was simple: nothing is handed to you. You have to work for it, take your place, and act as if you have a right to be there.

Because you do.

That is not motivational fluff. In real estate, confidence is part of the job. Agents walk into high-stakes conversations every day. They ask for the listing. They defend pricing. They guide clients through fear. They negotiate when emotions are high and the stakes are real.

The agents who last are not always the loudest people in the room. But they believe they belong there.

3. Your family feels the energy your work gives you.

One of Neda’s most powerful reflections was about her mother’s energy. She remembered admiring the version of her mother who was working - purposeful, confident, alive.

Now, as a mother herself, Neda thinks about what her own children feel from her. She has been on dozens of flights, traveled tens of thousands of miles, and met with thousands of agents - often taking red-eyes so she can be home when her kids wake up.

That kind of schedule is hard. But she spoke about the moment her daughter smiles at her in the morning, and how quickly the exhaustion melts.

For agents, the lesson is real: the place where you build your business affects the energy you carry home. Your brokerage, leadership, tools, systems, and community are not just business infrastructure. They shape how heavy the work feels.

4. Not every ball is made of glass.

Neda described feeling like she was juggling so many balls, and every one of them was made of glass. The advice she received stayed with her: some balls are glass, but some are rubber. If the rubber ones fall, they bounce.

Every real estate professional needs this reminder.

Not every text, task, follow-up, showing, email, or small operational detail deserves the same level of urgency. Some things truly need your judgment. Some need a system. Some need a teammate. Some can be imperfect for a short period of time.

The skill is knowing the difference.

That is how agents move from constantly managing everything to actually building something sustainable.

5. You do not have to be the only one juggling.

Neda said she eventually realized she did not have to hold every ball herself. She could hand some of them to the people around her.

That is one of the hardest shifts for successful agents.

So much of real estate rewards personal effort: your relationships, your judgment, your responsiveness, your reputation. But at a certain level, doing more yourself stops being the answer.

The next stage requires leverage. Better systems. Stronger support. Trusted people. A platform that gives you time back for the work only you can do.

Growth should not require carrying everything alone.

6. “I get to do this” can change the tone of a hard day.

Neda spoke about being up with young children at night and still having to walk into a boardroom the next morning. Her reset is simple: “I don’t have to do this. I get to do this.”

It is not pretending the hard part is not hard. It is remembering that the hard part is attached to something meaningful.

Real estate asks a lot. It interrupts plans. It creates pressure. It can stretch into every corner of life.

But it can also create freedom, income, impact, relationships, pride, and a life with more choices.

Some days, that reminder is enough to keep going.

7. Be careful who gets access to your confidence.

Ruth was direct about the importance of removing people who criticize, diminish, or make you feel bad about yourself.

Real estate already comes with enough rejection. Clients say no. Deals fall apart. Markets shift. Agents do not need an inner circle that makes them feel smaller.

They need people who steady them. People who tell the truth without draining them. People who remind them who they are when the business gets hard.

Neda put it practically: sometimes you need to text a friend and say, “I need you to hype me up.”

That is not weakness. That is knowing how to recover.

8. Guilt is easier to carry when you stop carrying it alone.

Ruth spoke honestly about the guilt she felt leaving Robert with babysitters. Looking back, she said that if she had known how he would turn out, she would not have spent so many years feeling guilty.

That line lands because guilt is one of the quietest weights high-achieving people carry.

Agents feel it when they miss dinner. Parents feel it when they miss bedtime. Leaders feel it when they are pulled in every direction. The work matters. The people at home matter. The pressure is real.

Neda’s advice was not to solve guilt alone. Let the right people remind you of the bigger picture.

Sometimes you need someone else to say: you are doing better than you think.

9. Great agents keep asking why.

When asked what parenthood taught her about leadership, Neda said: keep asking why.

That may be one of the best pieces of real estate advice from the entire conversation.

Why is the seller hesitating?

Why is the buyer pulling back?

Why does the client say one thing but react emotionally to something else?

Why does a successful business still feel unsustainable?

The first answer is rarely the full answer.

Great agents listen beneath the surface. They understand motivation, fear, ego, timing, family dynamics, and the quiet emotional factors that drive major decisions.

That is what separates information from true guidance.

10. Make the minutes count.

Ruth said you cannot be there every minute, but the minutes you are there should count.

That is a powerful line for parents, but it also applies to the way agents build relationships, lead teams, and serve clients.

You will not be perfect. No one is. There will be missed moments, stretched seasons, and days that feel like too much.

But presence is not only measured in hours. It is measured in attention. Care. Consistency. The ability to show up fully when it matters most.

Ruth also shared that when Robert was 13, he talked her into letting him become a DJ. She said yes. That yes became part of how he learned entrepreneurship.

Sometimes the moments that shape people are not the polished ones. They are the moments when someone believes in them.

11. Resilience is the career advantage.

Ruth named perseverance and resilience as two of the most important traits.

Every agent knows why.

This business will test you. You will be rejected. You will lose listings. Deals will collapse. Clients will choose someone else. Markets will shift. People will underestimate you.

The agents who build lasting careers are not the ones who avoid hard moments. They are the ones who recover without letting the business harden them.

Ruth also spoke about how careful we are with what we say to children, and how rarely we apply that same care to the child within ourselves.

That is a real business lesson.

The voice in your head matters. It can either help you get back up or keep you stuck.

12. A good life still comes back to people.

Near the end of the conversation, Ruth reflected on what makes a good life. She is nearly 81, and when people ask why she is still working, her answer is simple: she loves her clients and she loves what she does.

For an industry often measured by volume, rankings, and production, that is a grounding reminder.

Those numbers matter. They represent discipline, skill, and consistency.

But a lasting career in real estate is still built on people. The clients who trust you. The family that grounds you. The colleagues who lift you. The community that makes the hard days feel less lonely.

That was the real power of Ruth and Neda’s conversation. It did not pretend that building a big life is easy. It simply gave more respect to the people doing it every day.

Building businesses. Raising families. Serving clients. Making tradeoffs. Recovering from guilt. Choosing ambition anyway.

For agents carrying a full life alongside a serious career, the lesson is clear: you do not need to build alone.

You need the right conversations. The right leaders. The right community. The right support behind your business. And sometimes, you need to be in rooms that remind you why the work is worth it.

At Compass, these are the kinds of conversations we continue to create for agents - thoughtful, practical sessions on leadership, business growth, resilience, client service, and building a career that can support the life you actually want.

Interested in learning more about Compass events, agent education, and what it could look like to grow your business here?