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Dear Dr. Fil,
I think I’m losing my mind. Every agent in my office is suddenly “my competition,” even the ones who can’t write a clean contract if their life depended on it. I know real estate is a blood sport, but lately I feel like I’m in the Hunger Games with name badges.

One minute we’re sharing Canva templates, the next someone’s stealing my buyer like it’s Black Friday. I had agents sliding into my buyer’s DMs like it’s cuffing season. I swear, half this office would steal a client straight out of my passenger seat and still have the nerve to say “we’re all in this together.”

I want to be supportive, collaborative, community-over-competition blah blah blah… but deep down, every time another agent posts a closing, my eye twitches and I start questioning my entire existence.

Am I a bad person? Or is everyone else secretly as unhinged, competitive, and spiritually dehydrated as I am?

— Sincerely, Restless in Real Estate

Hello Restless… Yes, everyone is unhinged in this business.
This industry runs on caffeine, cortisol, and the quiet hope that every other agent in your office mysteriously forgets how to prospect.

House.Roc Magazine Available Soon! Real Estate for Millennials

Let me tell you a secret no one prints in the Keller Williams manual: every agent is competitive. Even the spiritual ones with crystal grids and vision boards. Even the ones who pretend they’re above the drama. Especially those — they’ll steal your buyer while blessing your “journey.”

You’re not a bad person for twitching when another agent posts a closing. That twitch is your body recognizing a predator in the wild. This is the Serengeti with better blazers.

But here’s the real gag: you’re not jealous of them. You’re jealous of the version of you who isn’t stuck refreshing the MLS at 2 a.m. wondering if God forgot your pipeline.

You’re not mad at their success — you’re mad that you haven’t gotten to yours yet.

Competition isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s the secret ingredient.

Every agent wants to look supportive while secretly hoping the top producer gets audited. That duality is part of the uniform :)

The trick isn’t to stop being competitive. The trick is to stop being embarrassed by it.
To let it sharpen you, not sour you.

Because at the end of the day, you and your office mates are not a family. Not a functional one, at least. Competent agents don’t need to steal leads or buy them. But you have chosen a brutal sport as a career where only the persistent, delusional, and divinely favored survive.

So don’t suppress the fire. Just don’t set yourself ablaze with it. Use the anger, use the emotion, use the feeling of being an underdog, use the jealousy: it makes you human. It makes you lethal.

To hope or wait until “fair” market conditions is not a move I would ever suggest. Learn to play the long game. Learn to play small. Invest in education, relationships and skill set. Understand people, understand the business. And GO SLOW. The slower you go, the more you’ll distract the competition and the longer in can stay in the game. Longevity will hit numbers that speed or pettiness could never.

Go be competitive. Just be good at it.

Real to the Real,

Dr. Fil, America’s least licensed Realtor

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