Joy Is Not a Bonus — It’s a Strategy for Your Real Estate Business

Real estate loves goals, growth, and discipline — but rarely talks about joy.

In this episode, Lindsay Dreyer makes the case that joy isn’t a bonus or a reward you earn after hustling hard enough. It’s a strategy. A real one. One that actually makes your business sustainable.

We’re talking about why real estate quietly normalizes stress, why so many agents delay enjoyment until “later,” and how building a joyless business leads straight to burnout — even when things look successful on paper. If your business feels heavy, draining, or like it’s eating your life, this episode will help you rethink what success really looks like.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why joy is a business strategy — not a distraction
• How real estate trains agents to postpone enjoyment
• The connection between income stress, nervous system burnout, and joy
• Signs you’ve accidentally built a joyless real estate business
• Why boundaries and structure create more enjoyment, not less
• How to define what joy actually means to you
• Why designing your business around energy matters as much as income
• How non-negotiable joy anchors protect your time and sanity
• Why joyful agents attract better clients and more referrals

You don’t need to wait until your business is perfect to enjoy your life. Joy isn’t something you earn — it’s something you build into how you work.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Joy As A KPI
• 2:52 Why Real Estate Normalizes Stress
• 4:19 Safety, Money Anxiety And The Roller Coaster
• 5:52 Joy As Input Not Reward
• 7:19 Signs Your Business Is Joyless
• 9:44 Values, Boundaries And Energy Design
• 12:39 Joy Defined: Connection, Autonomy, Ease
• 14:39 Tangible Steps To Prioritize Joy
• 18:44 Non‑Negotiable Joy Anchors And The Jar
• 19:27 Share, Review And Closing Joy Challenge

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Hello, friends. Happy Tuesday. I am Lindsay Dreyer, your host, Mama Three, brokerage owner and real estate coach. And I am just really pumped to get into this episode because we are talking about my passion in life, which is joy. Oh my gosh, joy is one of my core values. If I am not enjoying something, I really don't want to do it. So every year around this time, people start talking about their goals. They're already like a couple weeks into their New Year's resolutions. And whether that's personal or professional, we're talking about more, right? More growth, more discipline, more income. And I want to start by saying something that might sound a little radical in real estate, but joy is not a bonus. It is actually a strategy. It is a key performance indicator, a KPI. And I don't mean joy as in everything's easy and nothing is hard, but I mean joy as in enjoyment. I don't dread my days. I am not constantly bracing myself for the next blow up. My nervous system is calm and relaxed. And my business supports my life instead of eating it whole. So if that sounds almost uncomfortable to say out loud, you are not alone. Our industry does not encourage people to chase joy, but I am a joy chaser. So we are going to chase some joy in this episode. A lot of agents have been trained to treat enjoyment or joy like a nice to have or a distraction or something that you earn. And this is a big one, that you have to earn it after you have hustled hard enough. Like it's a reward for doing a great job. But today we are going to flip that completely on its head. Joy feels hard for real estate agents because real estate is quietly normalizing stress and being stressed out. It's like a joke, right? We're like eating in our cars. We're doing five million showings on the weekend. We have no life. Ha ha ha. Agents also are so adaptable. Like you are adapting to pressure and the fires you have to put out right and left. And we are just normalizing that. Like that we are in this massively high pressure, high stakes environment. And we are not normalizing, talking about how like our bodies are not meant to be in that state of high alert all the time. We also don't talk about how the income inconsistency, the ebbs and flows create constant low-grade anxiety, straight up. I know when I was living like commission to commission, I was a stressed out freaking mess, like absolute disaster. And when I could finally have six months of savings, like six months run rate of in the bank, like my emergency fund, I just remember my anxiety taking a backseat because I was like, oh, okay, like I'm safe. And that is honestly what we're dealing with the whole time is like, I can't feel joyful. I can't enjoy this because I don't feel safe. So your joy gets postponed until the next closing, until the next milestone, until the next season of life. We're just like consistently putting it off. We say things to ourselves like, I'll relax after this deal closes. And it's like, no, you won't, because you're gonna be chasing that next deal. Like this roller coaster never ends. This also can show up as being successful, like on paper, but being strangely unhappy. And I know that this happened for me. Like I was making bank as a new home sales rep. And I had an I bought a home, I had a BMW, and I was absolutely freaking miserable because I wasn't living an enjoy enjoyment life. Like I was not joyful. I did not enjoy what I was doing. It also can show up as when busy becomes your identity. You're just like always talking about how you're like, hair is on fire, how you're so busy, and blah, blah, blah. And honestly, I think that that backfires when you're public about that too much because people will not send referrals your way if they think you are too busy to handle more business. So watch out for that. And burnout will always sneak up on agents, even if you are enjoying your work, because you might be just like love in life, you might be working with a bunch of clients, you have some really great listings, and you get in that momentum mind space of like, okay, I'm just gonna keep riding this train. Like, cause I don't know when the train's gonna like be going like this next. If joy or enjoyment is always scheduled for later, later is never going to come. So here's really what kind of changed for me in terms of my mindset was that joy is not the reward for building a successful business. Joy is the input that makes your success sustainable. I'm gonna say that again. Joy is not the reward for building a successful business. Joy is not a reward. Joy is an ingredient, it is an input that makes your success sustainable. Because when joy disappears, everything goes with it and everything gets harder. So I want you to think of joy as information. Joy is a stabilizer. It is like the fuel for your business because joy improves your decision making, it improves your boundaries, and it improves your consistency because you actually are enjoying what you're doing. This is not a like fake it till you make it. It's more like a don't build a life in a business you need to escape from. And so many people think that this isn't possible, but this is 100% possible in everything that you are doing in your business. You have a choice. You can choose joy in your business. So, how do agents accidentally design joyless businesses? Because, well, first of all, you listen to other people. And you don't listen to yourself. You say yes by default. Like you just say yes to everything. You are designing a business around availability instead of your values. So I really value fun and freedom and creativity. And those are the things that I am designing my business around. If I am not able to be creative, if I am not enjoying my time and energy, and if I don't have freedom in my business, I am a miserable human being. So that means that I am designing my business and the structure and the support systems around those values. The other way that agents accidentally design a joyful, joyless business is you that you let fear decide. You make your decisions out of fear. And I know that it is scary and I know that this business is hard. It really is. And it is a roller coaster, but we can't let fear be in the driver's seat. And the other way is that we just let exhaustion and burnout and overwhelm be the proof that you care, that we're like taking good care of our clients because like we're so burned out and so tired. And that is not the case. This looks like calendars with no white space. Again, I talked about margin in a previous episode. You need to have margin built into your business. It is clients dictating how you do your job and every boundary. Maybe it's even clients violating those boundaries. It's marketing that feels performative or forced instead of aligned with who you are and how you like to run your business. It like it's commission breath, honestly. Like, don't have commission breath. It is so gross. People smell it a mile away. And then it's that quiet resentment that starts building because your business starts taking over your life. And that is like the whisper, honestly. I think that's where it really starts first showing up is that quiet resentment that starts whispering behind the scenes, where you have to cancel that workout, you answer a call during dinner with your husband. Like those are the little moments where you're like, this isn't fun. I'm not enjoying this right now. So if your business is only working when you violate your boundaries or you're feeling depleted, it is not a well-designed business. And that's what this is all about. This is about designing a business for joy and enjoyment. Joy isn't something that you either have or you don't have, but it really is something that you are intentionally choosing and you are intentionally designing for. Joy is not constant happiness. Happiness is a fleeting state. Joy can exist in hard seasons. You can still enjoy things even when shit is feeling hard. Joy is coming from alignment with your values and how you want to operate your business. Joy comes from autonomy, being able to do things the way that you want to do them. Joy comes from spaciousness and ease. And it also comes from meaningful connection because we are human beings and we love connecting with people. Like I know when I have a client that I absolutely love, that is meaningful connection to me because I want to see them. I want to show property with them. I want to go like zhuzh their house if it's a listing and like have coffee with them. Like that meaningful connection is such an important part of our business. And when we are so busy with our hair on fire, we don't have the spaciousness to sit and enjoy those moments. So you do not need to become a more positive person. You don't need more affirmations. You just need fewer things that are draining your enjoyment. So here's some tangible action items that you can do. Number one is I want you to define what joy actually means to you. So before you add joy or enjoyment to your calendar, you need to define it in real terms. So, what does this mean? Is it freedom in your schedule? Hello, that is a huge one for me. Is it novelty? Do you need to have new stuff, new challenges to work on? Is it creativity? Do you need to have a creative outlet? Is it movement? Is it play? Do you want those deeper connections with people? Does it mean fewer rush days? So think about what joy actually means to you? And if joy is vague, it is never going to be a priority. It is always going to lose its urgency. So I encourage you to take like five to 10 minutes and really think about what enjoyment looks like to you. Once you have that, you're going to design your business around your energy, not just your income, because not all money costs the same in terms of your time and energy. So identify what drains you. Is it a type of client? Is it a type of marketing? Is it social media? I'm telling you, you do not need to be on social media if it drains you. I know lots of agents who have successful businesses. Honestly, most of my coaching clients like have successful businesses without social media. Notice what work gives you your energy back. What is life filling? What is enjoyment filling? Like what gives you life? And then you can restructure your business around your better fit clients, clearer boundaries, and then those repeatable systems because your energy is expensive. I want you to start thinking of it like that. Like it is expensive to have access to your energy. And you showing up, if you are going to be showing up, you need to be enjoying it most of the time. I'm going to say there are probably 15% of the time where we are not going to enjoy what we are doing. That is just part of the job. But if you can enjoy 70 to 80% of your job, I am telling you, you are going to show up in your business in a way that is magnetic, that people are going to just be so attracted to and they are going to want to work with you because the vibration and the frequency of joy is it's contagious. It literally is contagious. And I am telling you, like, I have seen so many agents in my 20 years of doing this. And the ones that are the most successful are the most joyful. They're the ones that are just contagiously joyful. People want to be with them, they want to be around them, they want to work with them. And the benefit of that is that they also get referrals because no one is going to send a referral to someone who's a Debbie Downer or has their hair on fire or isn't having fun or complains a lot. So not only is joy just like an incredible business strategy for yourself to help fill your energy tank, but it also creates this ripple effect where it really, really helps your business in terms of lead generation and marketing because people want to send people your way when you are joyful. Another tip on creating a joyful business or making joy a priority in 2026 is that you need to have your non-negotiable joy anchors. I like to call these your rocks in your schedule. These are not intentions, these are things that you are committing to. So for me, I have to go to the gym and work out with my trainer twice a week. I have to. Pickleball once a week, unless I am like super sick. Like I am going to play. Could be your protected family time or personal time. I know for me, I have a lot of that. Like I get a massage every single month. I do a date night every single month. It could also be your creative rituals or just rituals. I try to do at least five minutes of meditation every single day to just like shut my brain down. Could also be seasonal breaks or traditions. So this is a big one for us because we do our summer of fun, where we essentially go RVing for a really large portion of the summer with our kids, which is so incredibly fun. And I'm obsessed with it. We also do a February break cruise. So like these are things that are seasonal or traditions that we do every single year. So my advice is take out the calendar for 2026. Start planting those joy anchors, whether it is vacations, whether it is weekly, whether it is daily, start planting those and make those seriously a priority this year. Because when you fill your tank with the things that you enjoy, the business just falls in between the cracks of that. I'm serious. Like there's you may have seen this online, but there's this like time management um like video or metaphor where somebody has a mason jar and they have rocks, pebbles, and sand. And joy is your rocks, those are your non-negotiables. And then your pebbles are the things that you need to be need to get done, but they don't necessarily, they're not necessarily your joy. And then the sand is everything else. And so when you put in the sand first and then the pebbles and then the rocks, there's not room for everything. Like you're not fitting everything into your jar, into your life. But if you reverse the order, if you put in your rocks, your joy first, then you put in the pebbles, those kind of fall in between the cracks of the rocks, and then the sand falls in between the cracks of the pebbles and the rocks. That is how you build a joyful life. Because then ultimately it's all going, the sand's all gonna filter down. Like those pebbles are gonna filter down into in between your joy rocks. So creating that non-negotiable joy anchors list. And I like doing it at the beginning of the year with a calendar. Like I love taking the 2026 calendar and just mapping out like where we're going on vacation, what I'm gonna be doing, like all that stuff. So those are my recommended tips and tangible ways for you to prioritize joy in 2026. Define what joy actually means to you because it's different for everybody. Design your business around your energy, not just your income, and create those non-negotiable joy anchors because what gets protected gets repeated. You do not need to wait until your business is perfect to enjoy your life. You do not. And you do not need to earn rest by overworking. And you don't need to apologize for wanting a business that feels good to be in. And like honestly, that's the goal, right? We all want a business that feels good. If joy feels unfamiliar right now, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It just means that you've been productive for a really long time or you've been in survival mode for a really long time. I know for me, that's how I was. Like I just was in survival mode for a super, super long time. And it's hard to get out of. But it's about just taking little baby steps towards enjoyment. And once you get used to it and once you can calm your nervous system down enough to let yourself know that you're safe, you can't go back. Like there is no way I can go back now that I've built a joyful business. Um, I like it's just never gonna happen because I love my life and I love my business so much that there just I couldn't. I like joy now is like my North Star. And I just have to be chasing it because like, why else am I here? Like I want to enjoy my life. So I want to ask you if joy was a priority in 2026, what would need to change, even slightly? And I think that's a good place to start because it is seeing everything you're doing in your life and your business through enjoyment. And we can always make room for more joy. Joy isn't something that you squeeze in after your success. It really is something that you build into the way that you live and work, hopefully starting now. So if you loved this episode, I hope you did, because joy is like the best. Um, share it with a friend who maybe needs to hear it. And also, if you can leave a review or rate the show, that would mean the world to me. And until next time, I hope you stay happy and joyful.