Dear Class of 2026: You Cannot DoorDash a Decade of Experience
A Decade Isn’t a “Vibe Check”
By Wyatt Poindexter, Who Apparently Peaked Too Slowly
Let me begin with a disclaimer before someone’s feelings are injured, a parent calls my broker and I receive a one-star review from a person I have never met.
This article is not about every teenager or young adult.
There are plenty of hardworking, respectful and determined young people who understand that success takes time. Some of them work harder than people twice their age, and they are going to build extraordinary careers.
This article is about the growing number of people who want a 31-year career by next Thursday.
They do not want to climb the ladder. They want the ladder removed, the penthouse unlocked and someone waiting upstairs with a ring light.
Let me tell you about my week, because I could not make this up if I tried.
Straight to the Penthouse
I received a message from an 18-year-old who had just passed his real estate exam.
The ink was still wet on the license.
He had not held a single open house, cold-called an expired listing, written a contract, negotiated an inspection or experienced the specific joy of being ghosted by a buyer after four showings and a Sunday afternoon he will never get back.
His message read, roughly:
“Hey Wyatt, I just got my real estate license and want to start selling multimillion-dollar listings in Oklahoma.”
Not, “How do I get started?”
Not, “What should a new agent learn?”
Not, “Would you have any advice for a rookie?”
Straight to the penthouse.
He wants to skip every floor, take the express elevator to the top and have the doors open on his first day.
I appreciate confidence, so I thought we could begin with a simple question:
Do you know how to complete a real estate contract?
“No, but I’m really good at social media.”
Wonderful. The seller’s attorney will be thrilled to hear that your transition videos are incredible.
This is the part that concerns me. Some new agents are not asking how to learn the business. They are asking how to skip the business.
They do not want to learn how to conduct a buyer consultation, calculate closing costs, interpret an inspection report, research title issues, prepare a comparative market analysis or keep a transaction alive when everyone is panicking at 10:47 on a Friday night.
They want to know when they receive the multimillion-dollar listing.
Preferably before lunch.
The “Million Dollar Listing” Career Plan
Then, as if the universe wanted to assure me this was a trend and not an isolated incident, a mother contacted me.
Not about herself.
About her 17-year-old daughter.
Her daughter loved watching “Million Dollar Listing,” and her mother wanted me to hire her to sell luxury homes.
That was apparently the entire résumé.
No real estate license. No experience. No sales history. No contract knowledge. No client base. She was not yet old enough to begin the career, but she liked the show, loved beautiful houses and had what I assume was an extremely strong personal brand.
I would like to point out that I also enjoy watching people cook on television. I do not, as a result, believe I should be handed the keys to a Michelin-starred kitchen.
I have watched several medical dramas, too. I will not be accepting surgical appointments.
I know television makes luxury real estate look glamorous. You see the tailored suits, expensive cars, dramatic negotiations, spectacular mansions and commission figures large enough to require commas.
What television does not show is the agent spending three weeks trying to get a seller to replace a broken smoke detector.
It does not show the 37 unanswered phone calls, expensive marketing campaigns that produce nothing, the buyer who suddenly disappears, the appraisal that comes in low or the inspection report suggesting the house was built over an active volcano.
You see the mansion.
You do not see the decade it took to get into the room.
Still, I have to admire the audacity of a 17-year-old’s mother cold-emailing a luxury broker because her daughter has main-character energy and a television subscription.
That is a level of confidence I did not possess at 17.
At that age, I was busy being terrified of the DMV.
It Took Me One Decade
Here is what I want this generation to understand, and I say it with love—and with the weary voice of a man who has earned the right to say “back in my day” without irony:
It took me one full decade to become established in luxury real estate.
Ten years.
Not ten weeks.
Not ten closings.
Not ten Instagram reels, motivational podcasts or coffee meetings with successful people.
A decade.
I sold starter homes. I sat in empty open houses. I worked weekends. I got stood up by buyers. I made calls that were never returned. I lost transactions for reasons completely beyond my control and showed up the next morning anyway.
I slowly earned the trust of people who eventually trusted me with some of the largest financial decisions of their lives.
Nobody handed me a mansion listing because I seemed confident and had a nice smile in my headshot.
I earned it one transaction at a time.
Trust is built through experience, consistency, knowledge, relationships and results. It cannot be downloaded, purchased in an online course or added to an Instagram biography.
Writing “Luxury Real Estate Specialist” in your bio does not make you one.
I can write “Olympic Gymnast” in mine, but nobody should expect me to attempt a backflip.
“I Don’t Want to Waste My Time Selling $100,000 Homes”
Another comment I hear is:
“I want to sell luxury real estate. I don’t want to waste my time selling $100,000 homes.”
Waste your time?
That $100,000 home may belong to a family who spent years saving for it. It may be someone’s first home, retirement home or largest investment.
That client deserves the same professionalism, respect and attention as the owner of a $10 million estate.
More importantly, those transactions are not a distraction from your education.
They are the education.
The $100,000 listings teach you how to communicate, negotiate, solve problems and manage expectations. They teach you what happens when financing changes, an appraisal comes in low, the roof leaks or the buyer discovers that homeownership includes taxes, insurance and repairing things without calling the apartment manager.
It is not a waste of time.
It is the entire syllabus.
You do not get to skip directly to the final exam because you watched the trailer for the class.
If you cannot successfully manage a $100,000 transaction, why would anyone trust you with a $10 million transaction?
Luxury real estate is not simply regular real estate with a better kitchen. The expectations are higher, the marketing is more expensive, the clients may be more experienced and the financial consequences of mistakes can be enormous.
Everybody wants to drive the luxury car.
Nobody wants to spend years learning how the engine works.
Success Is Not Available for Same-Day Delivery
This is the generation of immediate delivery.
Food arrives in minutes. Groceries appear at the front door. Entertainment streams instantly. Artificial intelligence writes captions in seconds. A video can receive a million views overnight.
Naturally, some people assume a career should work the same way.
They want success delivered with tracking information:
“Your luxury real estate career is out for delivery. Estimated arrival: 2:15–4:15 p.m.”
Unfortunately, the real world does not offer same-day shipping on credibility.
You may work with a buyer for months who never purchases anything. You may spend thousands of dollars marketing a listing that does not sell. You may hold an open house where the only visitors are a curious neighbor and a man who thought it was an estate sale.
You may answer a call during dinner only to hear, “We drove past the house and aren’t sure about the mailbox.”
That is the business.
Success is not always exciting. Most of the time, success looks like doing ordinary things correctly for an unusually long period.
“But What About My Work-Life Balance?”
Work-life balance is important. Burnout is real, mental health matters and no career should consume someone’s entire identity.
However, it is difficult to create balance between work and life when the work portion has not started.
Some new agents want a flexible schedule, no evenings, no weekends, no prospecting, no cold calls, no open houses, no uncomfortable conversations and no clients under $1 million.
They would also like to earn $500,000 during their first year.
I would like to eat chicken-fried steak every day and develop visible abdominal muscles.
We all have dreams.
Real estate does offer flexibility. You are generally free to select which 12 hours of the day you would like to work.
Clients are available when they are not working, which often means evenings and weekends. That beautiful Saturday when everyone else is at the lake? You may be sitting in a vacant open house explaining for the ninth time that the decorative barn door does not actually lock.
You do not begin a career with perfect work-life balance.
First, you need some work to balance.
Lord, the Feelings
Then there are the feelings.
Lord, the feelings.
I have watched a young agent nearly require a wellness day because a seller used a stern tone during a counteroffer.
I have heard someone ask, with complete sincerity, whether we could “circle back after this negotiation because it’s giving a lot right now.”
Buddy, it is a real estate negotiation over a fence line.
Nobody is asking you to defuse a bomb.
Take a breath, write the counteroffer and meet me at the office.
A broker says, “You need to improve your follow-up.”
The response is, “I don’t feel supported.”
A client says, “You arrived late.”
The response is, “They didn’t respect my boundaries.”
A mentor says, “Your market analysis is incorrect.”
The response is, “That damaged my confidence.”
Sometimes your confidence needs to be damaged a little.
That is how it gets rebuilt on something stronger than enthusiasm.
Constructive feedback is not bullying. Accountability is not toxicity. Being told that you made a mistake does not mean someone is attacking your identity.
Contracts have deadlines. Numbers matter. Details matter. Showing up matters. Mistakes can cost clients real money.
You cannot tell a closing date that you are protecting your energy.
Your feelings matter, but they are not the only feelings in the transaction.
The seller whose home is not selling has feelings. The buyer whose financing fell apart has feelings. The family moving across the country has feelings. The agent on the other side has feelings.
Professionalism means managing your emotions without requiring every person, deadline and circumstance to adjust around them.
Some days you will feel unmotivated.
Make the call.
Some days you will feel underappreciated.
Serve the client.
Some days the negotiation will be “giving a lot.”
Negotiate anyway.
Participation Commissions Are Not a Thing
I have had someone ask whether commission could be restructured so showing a house that did not sell would still result in “some kind of participation payout for the effort.”
I wish I were exaggerating.
Real estate does not award participation commissions.
You can show 30 properties, write five offers, spend every weekend with a buyer and earn exactly nothing if a transaction does not close.
Is that always fair?
No.
Is that the business model?
Yes.
Realtors do not get paid for being busy. We get paid when we produce a successful result.
There is no trophy ceremony after an unsuccessful open house.
Nobody plays inspirational music while the broker presents you with a ribbon reading, “Best Effort Near a Lockbox.”
The electric company does not accept exposure, effort or positive intentions. Neither does the mortgage company.
Results matter.
The Parent-Assisted Job Interview
When I was young, if I wanted a job, I contacted the employer.
Today, I occasionally hear from parents who want to explain why their child should be hired, promoted, given better leads or protected from challenging clients.
Nothing says “future luxury sales powerhouse” quite like having your mother negotiate your employment.
Imagine the listing presentation:
“My daughter would be here herself, but your questions felt a little overwhelming. I brought her vision board.”
Parents naturally want to help their children. I understand that.
But at some point, young adults must make their own calls, write their own emails, hear the word “no” and survive the experience.
Rejection is part of sales.
If one unanswered text causes an emotional shutdown, wait until you spend $5,000 marketing a home and the seller lists with their cousin.
Tell your mother I appreciate her believing in you. Truly. That kind of confidence is rare.
But eventually, you must become the person she already believes you are.
Branding Before Business
Some new agents follow a very specific career plan:
Day one: Receive real estate license.
Day two: Schedule luxury branding photos.
Day three: Add “Global Luxury Property Advisor” to Instagram biography.
Day four: Lease a vehicle they cannot afford.
Day five: Ask an experienced agent to provide free leads.
Day six: Post a video explaining how to dominate the luxury market.
Day seven: Take a well-deserved break because entrepreneurship is exhausting.
They have branding before they have a business.
Their social media announces, “Sold,” but closer inspection reveals that they attended the closing with another agent.
They pose in front of a $6 million home with the caption, “Another day at the office.”
It is not their listing.
They were attending a broker open house and left with a cookie.
I have had an intern want an office Instagram shoutout for making an excellent pour-over coffee. I have heard a young agent say he did not need to learn the MLS because “the algorithm will basically find the buyer.”
The algorithm may find someone who likes the video.
It will not explain an easement, negotiate repairs or make the appraisal come in at value.
There is nothing wrong with marketing yourself. Every modern agent needs a professional online presence.
But branding should communicate actual value, not substitute for it.
A beautiful logo cannot negotiate an inspection.
Mentorship or Career Donation?
I regularly hear from people who want mentorship.
I support mentorship. Experienced professionals should help the next generation whenever possible.
But some people do not want a mentor.
They want a career donor.
They want your scripts, systems, contacts, listings, clients, vendors and 31 years of knowledge condensed into a complimentary 30-minute coffee meeting.
Then they cancel because 9:00 a.m. is “kind of early.”
A mentor can guide you, challenge you and help you avoid unnecessary mistakes.
A mentor cannot give you patience, discipline or work ethic.
Those items are not transferable.
New agent: “Do you provide leads?”
Broker: “We teach you how to generate leads.”
New agent: “Right, but do you provide them?”
Broker: “You will learn prospecting, networking, follow-up and relationship building.”
New agent: “That sounds like sales.”
Yes.
That is why the position is called salesperson.
Some people enter real estate and are genuinely surprised to learn they must find people who want to buy or sell real estate.
They believed receiving a license would activate a secret database of wealthy homeowners waiting to hand their estates to the newest agent in town.
There is no secret database.
If there were, none of us would tell you about it.
The Generation That Cannot Commit
Then there is commitment—or, more accurately, the complete inability to commit to literally anything.
Some members of this generation cannot commit to a career, brokerage, appointment, restaurant or Netflix series without wondering whether a better option might appear in the next eight minutes.
They want to become a Realtor, content creator, luxury travel influencer, investor, podcast host and possibly a wellness coach.
That is just the plan for Tuesday.
They get a real estate license and announce that they have finally discovered their passion. Three weeks later, they are considering mortgage lending. The following month, they launch a clothing brand. Then comes the podcast about their journey through entrepreneurship.
What journey?
You left the driveway four times.
They join a brokerage on Monday, ask for leads on Tuesday and interview with another company on Friday because they “haven’t seen enough growth.”
You have been here for four business days.
The office plant has shown more growth because someone remembered to water it.
Real estate requires commitment. Relationships take time. Referrals take time. Reputation takes time. Becoming the person people trust with multimillion-dollar assets takes a great deal of time.
But patience is difficult when your phone constantly displays edited versions of other people’s success.
Social media makes it appear that everyone else is winning immediately. Someone announces a major closing, but you do not see the seven years of work that came before it. Someone posts a luxury listing, but you do not see the hundreds of ordinary transactions that established their reputation.
Someone celebrates becoming an “overnight success,” but the night apparently lasted 15 years.
Constant exposure to everyone else’s highlight reel creates the fear that committing to one path means missing a better one.
Instead of becoming excellent at something, people remain beginners at everything.
They do not remain with one brokerage long enough to develop relationships. They do not follow one business plan long enough to learn whether it works. They do not prospect consistently because a new strategy appears online every 48 hours.
Monday is cold calling.
Tuesday is video marketing.
Wednesday is artificial intelligence.
Thursday is “manifesting abundance.”
Friday is spent designing a logo for a business that still has no clients.
Young people should explore opportunities and discover where their talents belong. The problem is not exploration.
The problem is expecting certainty before commitment and immediate validation after it.
Commitment does not mean knowing something will work.
Commitment means continuing to work while you are still uncertain.
Buyers Cannot Commit Either
I see this with some young buyers, too.
They find a home they claim to love, but they are afraid to make an offer because another house might be listed tomorrow.
When another house appears, they hesitate again because something even better might arrive next week.
Eventually, the first home sells. The second home sells. They remain in their apartment refreshing listing apps while waiting for a magical property with the perfect location, every desired feature and a price from 2014.
They do not want to select a home.
They want to compare every home currently in existence—and several that have not been built yet.
Some new agents treat clients the same way. They love an opportunity until it becomes inconvenient. They are excited about a buyer until the buyer wants to see 12 houses. They are thrilled to take a listing until the seller expects weekly communication.
They want the reward of commitment without the obligations commitment creates.
But nearly everything meaningful is found on the other side of staying with something after the excitement wears off.
Anyone can feel motivated during the first week.
Anyone can become enthusiastic when the branding photographs arrive.
Anyone can post “Big things coming” from a newly decorated office.
The real question is what happens six months later when the big things have not arrived.
Do you keep making calls?
Do you keep learning?
Do you keep serving clients whose homes will never appear in a luxury magazine?
Do you continue after the novelty disappears and nobody is applauding?
Success is often less about making the perfect choice and more about making a reasonable choice, committing to it and working until that choice becomes valuable.
You do not build a reputation by restarting every time you feel bored, uncomfortable or uncertain.
You build it by becoming known as the person who stays, follows through and finishes.
Talent gets attention.
Enthusiasm makes a strong first impression.
Commitment creates a career.
I Know How This Sounds
I know how all of this sounds.
I sound like every generation that has ever rolled its eyes at the generation behind it.
My original broker probably said some version of these same things about me when I believed a fax machine and firm handshake represented cutting-edge sales technology.
Every generation gets accused of wanting things too easily by the generation that earned them the hard way. Every generation eventually develops its own calluses.
The next generation also possesses tremendous strengths.
They understand technology. They communicate quickly. They are creative, confident and willing to challenge outdated systems. They have access to information and tools I could not have imagined when I started.
Their confidence can be extraordinary.
But confidence without competence is just an enthusiastic liability.
Technology cannot replace judgment. Branding cannot replace service. Ambition cannot replace apprenticeship. Feelings cannot replace responsibility.
And potential cannot become expertise without commitment.
Here Is My Actual Advice
My real advice is buried underneath all these jokes because I genuinely want young people to succeed.
Come work the $100,000 listings.
Sit in empty open houses.
Make the uncomfortable calls.
Get told no by 17 buyers in a row.
Learn the MLS even if you believe the algorithm has your back.
Lose a transaction you worked on for four months over something beyond your control, then show up the next morning anyway.
Learn the contracts. Study the market. Ask questions. Accept correction. Return calls. Arrive early. Keep promises. Follow up when it feels awkward. Do the work nobody photographs.
Sell the $100,000 home as though it were a $10 million estate.
That is not punishment.
That is the apprenticeship.
Every agent selling eight-figure homes today spent time in a starter house with bad carpet, an aging air conditioner and a faucet that would not stop leaking.
If you can survive that apprenticeship with your integrity, work ethic and sense of humor intact, you may become better at this job than many of us who came before you.
And please stop announcing that you are going to “disrupt the industry” when you have not yet installed a lockbox.
You are not too talented to begin at the bottom.
The bottom is where you develop the strength required to remain at the top.
The Good News
The young people who understand this have an extraordinary opportunity.
When everyone wants immediate results, patience becomes a competitive advantage.
When others refuse entry-level work, willingness becomes a competitive advantage.
When others stop after one rejection, persistence becomes a competitive advantage.
When others change direction every month, commitment becomes a competitive advantage.
I want young agents to succeed. I want them to build careers larger than mine. I want them to bring their creativity, energy and new ideas into an industry that often needs all three.
I simply want them to understand that there is no express elevator to the top of this business.
There are stairs.
You will occasionally trip. Your feelings may get hurt. Your shoes will wear out. Someone with less talent may pass you because they are more consistent.
Keep climbing anyway.
One day, after years of work, someone may trust you to sell their multimillion-dollar home.
When that happens, you will understand something no television show, social media post or motivational video could teach you:
The opportunity did not arrive overnight.
You finally became ready for it.
And to the mother of that ambitious 17-year-old: Thank you for believing in your daughter. Truly. That kind of confidence is rare.
Someday, after about a decade of starter homes, empty open houses, difficult negotiations, missed weekends, hard lessons and promises kept, she might actually earn the career you already imagine for her.
Wyatt Poindexter is a premier luxury real estate agent in Oklahoma specializing in high-end homes, gated communities, lakefront properties, and estate homes across Oklahoma City, Edmond, Arcadia, and all surrounding areas.
Wyatt Poindexter - Oklahoma Luxury Real Estate - The Agency - 405-417-5466 - [email protected] - www.OKLuxuryHomes.com
