Play Bigger in Real Estate with Raquel Q.

Breaking the Hustle Addiction - How to Work Less and Earn More

• Raquel Quinet • Episode 370

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I used to think hustle was the secret to success. In real estate, wearing exhaustion like a badge of honor felt normal—four hours of sleep, 24/7 client calls, endless to-do lists. Hustle made me look successful, but behind the scenes, I was burnt out, reactive, and the bottleneck of my own business.

In this episode of The Raquel Show, I’m breaking down Trap #2 of the Agent CEO System: Hustle Addiction—the belief that the only way to grow is to work harder, longer, and do everything yourself. Spoiler alert: it’s costing you time, money, and freedom.

By the end of this episode, you’ll know exactly how to break free from hustle mode and step into true CEO leadership—working smarter, not harder.

✨ Here’s what I cover in this episode:

  • How to spot if you’re stuck in hustle addiction
  • The hidden ways hustle is capping your income (and burning you out)
  • Shift #1: How to identify your true CEO work vs. maintenance mode
  • Shift #2: The boundaries that actually make clients respect your time
  • Shift #3: Building your 3-point leverage plan (people, systems, tech)
  • A client case study: how she cut 40 hours a week while growing income by 40%

Imagine ending your day with only three priorities instead of 37—and knowing your systems, VA, and tech are working for you while you’re at your kid’s game. That’s the difference between running your business and being run by it.

If you’re ready to step out of hustle mode and into CEO leadership, DM me “agentceo” on Instagram @itsraquelq and I’ll send you the waitlist link for my Agent CEO Accelerator.

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Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Raquel Show, and remember, keep pushing your limits to achieve your goals.

For updates and collaborations or opportunities, go to www.LetsPlayBigger.com

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https://raquelq.com/podcast/

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Let's be honest, hustle can feel good, especially when you're making a ton of money. You're busy, you're high in demand, you're checking off all the things on your list. And in real estate, we wear it like a badge of honor.

Breaking hustle addiction isn't about just working less, it's about working smarter. Your three-point leverage plan is people. I want you to hire or outsource any low-value tasks. Stop doing the five to $10 an hour work. There are people that would be more than happy to do it, and now you can hire people just on your projects.

Welcome back to The Raquel Show. This show is for entrepreneurs who want to play bigger in business and in life. And you are listening to episode number three of our six part series, the agent CEO system of building your empire and live your legacy. In episode two, we broke down how to get off the commission roller coaster for good. And if you haven't listened to it yet, go back, because that's the foundation for everything that we're doing here. 

Today, we're gonna tackle trap number two, which is hustle addiction. It's the belief that the only way to grow your business is to keep working harder, to keep working longer, and to do everything yourself. Believe it or not, it's costing your business a lot of money. And while your hustle has its place, especially in the early days, staying addicted to it will keep you stuck. It'll also keep you burnt out and unable to scale your business. 

So, by the end of this episode, you're going to know how to identify if you are caught in hustle addiction, the three shifts to break free and how to actually make more money while working less. 

So let's be honest, hustle can feel good, especially when you're making a ton of money. You're busy, you're high in demand, you're checking off all the things on your list. And in real estate, we wear it like a badge of honor. I mean, I remember when I used to tell people I would work a four hours of sleep. And here's the problem: hustle addiction gives you the illusion of progress, but often you're just spinning faster and faster on that hamster wheel. 

You see, earlier in my business, I thought being everywhere made me successful.  Every meeting, every open house, every client dinner, flying on planes made me successful. What it really did was actually burn me out, made me reactive instead of strategic and left zero time to actually work on the business. You see hustle addiction creates another hidden problem. I know I'm going to say it, but it needs to be said is you are the bottleneck of your business. 

When everything runs through you, nothing can grow beyond you. Every decision waits for you and every task depends on you. I see this with agents who say, just need a better assistant. I just need one more good buyer's agent or team member. Well, guess what? If you peek under the hood, it isn't a team issue. It's actually the CEO has not learned to step out of every single role in their business. 

📌 So I want you to have shift number one, which identifies your CEO work. You see, not all work is equal. Your CEO work is high value. It is revenue driving. It is vision setting work that moves the business forward. Everything else, that is maintenance. Everything else probably could be delegated. So for the next seven days, I want you to write down every single task and at the end of the week, mark each one as either CEO work or maintenance mode in your business. 

You see, CEO work is setting growth strategy, it's building relationships, it's creating opportunities, creating leads in your business and maintenance mode or all these other tasks like getting feedback on your listing or scheduling showings, mapping out your route for your buyers, or entering listings or processing paperwork. That is maintenance mode. But if you actually spend 80% of your time on CEO work, you will see a difference in your business and that should be your goal. Try to fire yourself out of all the unnecessary stuff every single day. 

📌 Shift number two is the power of boundaries. One of the reasons hustle addiction is so rampant in real estate is because the industry trains clients to expect 24 seven access to you. I used to answer calls at 10 PM. I thought it was having great service and what it really did was teach my clients that they can get a hold of me anytime and expect me to drop everything in a drop of a dime. 

So here's my action steps for you. I want you to set office hours and you put it also on your voicemail. Use auto responder for after hour messages or set your greeting that way. Communicate your boundaries clearly before someone becomes a client because when you respect your own time, believe it or not, your clients will too. 

📌 So shift number three is I want you to build a three-point leverage plan. That means breaking hustle addiction isn't about just working less, it's about working smarter. 

Your three-point leverage plan is people. 

  • I want you to hire or outsource any low-value tasks. Stop doing the five to $10 an hour work. There are people that would be more than happy to do it, and now you can hire people, just on your projects. You have sites like Fyre, like Upwork, where you can just hire people, not even part time, but for a specific project or a specific task. 
  • Number two is systems. I'm a big believer in systems and you guys know how much I love systems. So I want you to create repeatable processes for recurring tasks. You no longer have to do things manually. 
  • Number three is technology. Use and leverage tools that automate, that track, and that streamline your business forward. 

You see, a private client of mine was working 70 hours a week when we started, and in months, she hired a part-time VA. She also realigned her executive assistant. We started building a dashboard. We built a follow-up system, and we used tech to automate a lot of her processes in the business. She dropped 40 hours a week while increasing her income for almost 40%. That's all because of people, systems and technology. 

So imagine starting your day with just three priority tasks, not a crazy to-do list, not 37, 40, 50. Imagine knowing that while you're at your kids games, your follow-up system is nurturing leads, your VA is sending contracts, and your listings are being marketed automatically. Now, this is the difference between running a business and being run by your business. 

And it's exactly what we have built inside of Agent CEO Accelerator so that you can step out of hustle mode and into true CEO leadership. 

If you've been stuck in hustle modes, here's your next step. I want you to audit your time this week, get super, super, super clear on what CEO work is versus maintenance mode. Then commit to spending more time on the CEO side, even if it's just extra, even if it's just an extra two hours a week this week because over time that compounds. 

And in our next episode, we'll be tackling trap number three, which is no leverage. 

We'll talk about how to build a business that runs without you, the exact order to hire in and how to stop feeling guilty for taking time off. And until next time, protect your CEO time like your business depends on it because it does and I want you all to keep Playing Bigger, my friends.