You’re Not Behind, You’re Just in the Wrong Room

Have you ever looked around and thought, “Why am I not as far along as everyone else?” In this episode, I share why feeling behind might not mean you’re falling short — it might just mean you’re in the wrong room.

I open up about a powerful moment at a high-level mastermind where, despite being surrounded by massive success, I felt completely misaligned. I was being pushed to scale faster, do more, go bigger — while silently navigating one of the most difficult seasons of my personal life. That experience reminded me that alignment > pressure, and success should support your life — not consume it.

Inside this episode, I walk you through the 4-part framework I use with my clients when that “I’m behind” voice creeps in:

1. Pause the Comparison Loop
2. Audit the Voices Influencing You
3. Recenter Your Definition of Growth
4. Find or Create the Right Room

This isn’t just a pep talk — it’s a mindset and business reset. Whether you’re building a lean solo business or scaling a million-dollar team, growth must fit your season, your values, and your version of peace.

💬 If this episode hit home, DM me the word CIRCLE for details on our upcoming Play Bigger coaching cohort, or VIP for my exclusive July strategy days in Huntington Beach.
And as always, screenshot this episode, share it with someone who needs it, and tag me @itsRaquelQ so I can celebrate you.

You’re not behind — you’re just not where you’re meant to grow.
It’s time to exit the pressure and enter a room that fits your life.

Chapters

• 1:32 Feeling Behind vs. Being in the Wrong Room
• 3:23 Personal Moment: Grief, Clarity, and Redirection
• 4:21 The Shift: Choosing Alignment and Sustainability
• 4:51 Framework Step 1: Pause the Comparison Loop
• 5:20 Framework Step 2: Audit the Voices Around You
• 5:50 Framework Step 3: Recenter Your Definition of Growth
• 7:18 Framework Step 4: Find or Create the Right Room
• 9:09 Introducing Play Bigger Coaching
• 10:31 Final Reminder: You’re Not Behind, Just in the Wrong Room

Transcript

I want you to stop grading yourself on somebody else's test. Who are you learning from? Who are you surrounded by? If everyone is pushing you to scale with speed and you're craving stability, you may be in the wrong room. If you are the only one with different values or goals, that's not inspiration. That might be pressure. So I want you to audit the voices influencing your decision. Do they understand where I'm heading. 

Welcome back to the Raquel show. This is a place where real estate entrepreneurs  come to play bigger in business and in life. And I'm your host Raquel Quinet and I want to start out by saying to you, thank you. Our community continues to grow every single week with thousands of downloads and listeners from all over the world. So if this is your first episode or your hundredth, know that I am grateful you were here.

You know, today's conversation is for every single real estate agent or entrepreneur who's ever felt like they were falling behind. Like I should be further along by now. Like everyone else is scaling faster than me. And why does it look so easy for them and not for me? If you've ever had any of those thoughts, let's pause on that loop because today I want you to reframe that narrative. You may not be behind. You may be in the wrong room. 

You know, I remember attending a high level mastermind a few years ago and everyone in the room was talking about scaling massive teams, massive businesses, doing multiple eight or nine figure businesses, not in volume, but in revenue as real estate wholesalers or investors and building influencer brands. Now don't get me wrong. You know, I love big and I love growth. mean, come on.  play bigger. I'm all about big visions, but something in my gut felt off. And as I looked around, I realized I was trying to fit in a room that wasn't built for me. The goals were impressive and yet they didn't reflect my values or I should better say the season that I was in. 

At the time I was running a thriving coaching business, managing multiple companies and my kids needed me more than ever because of all the things that they were involved in. And yet I was here being told to go bigger without anyone ever acknowledging what I was carrying. And one of the hosts came up to me and said, Raquel, I'd love to jump on a call with you. You're onto something with Play Bigger and I think I can help you scale.

A few days later we got on a call and what are the chances he had built something massive, the kind of success that I truly could see for Play Bigger and where our mastermind was going. But what hit me the hardest was this. I had just found out that my mom had dementia and he had shared with me that his mom had passed away just a year prior from the same disease. I wasn't expecting to cry on that call, especially in front of guy, but I did. 

He looked at me and said, you're serving a lot of people, but is now the time to build this. What truly needs your attention the most? Because when we look back, the worst thing we can ever carry is regret. We don't always get that time back. That moment shifted everything for me. It wasn't that I wasn't capable of doing more. It was that I needed to be in a room full of entrepreneurs where my kind of growth was celebrated, where it was about sustainability where it was about alignment and peace were part of the strategy. And honestly, I'm so grateful that I got to be invited to that room because you don't always get to be invited in those types of room. 

My network expanded in ways I could have never predicted. And that one conversation had taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. So I want to break down a framework that I use and coach others through when they are feeling behind or that stuff and that noise starts to creep in. Number one is I want you to pause on the comparison loop. Yep. You're in a loop. Most of the I'm behind feelings are rooted in comparison, not data. Ask what am I actually measuring myself against? Is it someone else's social media highlight reel? Is it a massive team? Is it a agent's business that really doesn't reflect my life? Your  building something unique, my friends. So I want you to stop grading yourself on somebody else's test. Who are you learning from? Who are you surrounded by? If everyone is pushing you to scale with speed and you're craving stability, you may be in the wrong room. If you are the only one with different values or goals, that's not inspiration. That might be pressure. So I want you to audit the voices influencing your decision. Do they understand where I'm heading? 

And number three is I want you to recenter your definition of growth. For some growth is a $5 million team, a $10 million team, a $20 million team. I often get calls on, you help me scale like so-and-so? And when I tell them the high level overview of what goes into that and the expenses of costs, the expenses of time freedom in the beginning, people often go, I may not want that. 

My biggest team as of right now, iCoach has 500 agents on their team. Why were they referred to me? Because most of our business comes all organic and through referrals because they know I can quickly look at the business model. I can look at structure and I can tell them what their challenges are and what to start putting in place in an order that works for them. Not some blanket theory that we've heard on stage, but that's not growth for everyone. For others, we have clients that have a lean solo business that's highly profitable at 500k taking two days off and having the evenings to themselves to raise their family. Neither is wrong, but if your path doesn't match with the season that you're in or your piece, you will always feel like you're behind. Write this down. Growth for me right now looks like dot dot dot.  That clarity is power. 

And number four is I want you to find or create the right room. If your room that you need right now doesn't exist, create it. This is why I believe I've created Playbigger. It's a space where agents build profitable, scalable businesses without feeling like they are never doing enough. You see, proximity doesn't equal alignment. Being surrounded by very successful people doesn't mean that you're going to get the success. And it doesn't mean that their blueprint fits your life. Trust me. I used to think if I hang out with so-and-so, I'm going to be successful like them. But then I realized I may not want to build like them. 

You know, most coaching fails because it assumes you want what they've built. So I see a lot of coaches out there coaching people their exact model, but I know their students and their clients, that's not really what they want. You see success without self trust is just noise. Your next breakthrough won't come from more hustle. It will come from more alignment. And here's some of the questions I want you to sit with and maybe ask yourself, where do I feel like I'm behind and who actually told me that? Or when did I decide that who's influencing your definition of success?

Believe it or not, I've had several coaching clients say they unfollowed people in our industry and most of them are my friends. Not because they don't like them, but because it was just noise and it wasn't serving them. What kind of business actually supports my life and am I in the right room or am I just afraid to leave it? And if you're afraid to leave it and they never talk to you again, that means you probably might have been in a room that wasn't serving you. If this episode is hitting home and you're craving high level of coaching strategy and community without the pressure, I want you to know that we've created Play Bigger exactly for this. We help agents scale to 500,000 to a million dollars plus using models that match their season, their lifestyle and values. So whether you are a solo agent, growing a lean team or re-imagining your entire business, we help you align your clarity, systems and mindset so that you can scale sustainably. 

I want you to DM me the word CIRCLE and my team will get you details when we open the doors for our new Play Bigger coaching program that I have been working on for several months because I knew that our industry needed this. Also, I'm hosting a few special VIP days in Huntington Beach in July. So if you want personalized strategy, deep work, or to walk away with a new business model mapped out with a small group of amazing people. Send me the word VIP and we'll send you all the details. 

Remember my friends that proximity doesn't always equal alignment. You're not behind. You might have just been building in the wrong room. You might be chasing somebody else's dream. And I want you to give yourself permission to exit the pressure and to enter into a space that supports who you are and where you're going. 

I want to thank you all for tuning in to another quick no fluff episode of the Raquel show. If this spoke to you, I want you to share it with a friend or tag me at it's Raquel Q so I can cheer you on. And until next time, stop playing small, get in the right room and always, always, always don't forget to Play Bigger.