Play Bigger with Raquel Quinet

7 Life Lessons I Learned This Summer That Changed Everything

• Raquel Quinet • Episode 374

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This episode takes you behind the scenes of my life—beyond the strategies and business talk I usually share. From the emotional rollercoaster of dropping Bryce off at college, to slowing down at the beach, to caring for my mom, and even navigating the unexpected chaos of family sports, this summer stretched me in ways I didn’t see coming. Out of it all came seven powerful lessons that shifted how I see life, business, and what truly matters.

💡 Things I cover in this episode:

  • Why time is the most precious currency we have
  • The power of testing your bucket list dreams instead of waiting for “someday”
  • The importance of aligning your business with your season of life
  • How adversity sharpens you and becomes your training ground
  • Why failing is necessary if you want to level up
  • The real cost of playing small and staying stuck
  • How to choose the right people to do business and life with

This isn’t just about strategy—it’s about designing a life and business that actually matter. My hope is that these lessons spark reflection in your own journey and inspire you to play bigger.

If this episode resonates with you, share it with a friend who needs the reminder. And if you’re ready to stop playing small and step into the business and lifestyle you deserve, DM me “AgentCEO” on Instagram @itsraquelq

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🔗 Links & Resources

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 For coaching, events, and collaborations: www.LetsPlayBigger.com

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Sometimes you don't know what you truly love until you step away. The takeaway here is don't wait for the someday to try things on your bucket list. Go test them, create experiences that give you so much clarity. Sometimes we have things on our vision board and we think, you know what, I'll just wait and I'll work so hard and I'll accomplish it. And then when I retire, I'll go buy this beach home. I'm so glad that I got more more clear of what I would want my beach home to look like.

For me, I now could see myself doing summers away in the future and even probably traveling to different places, but Scottsdale will always be home for me. So here's my question for you. What's one bucket list experience you can test this year?

Hey, this is Raquel Quinet and welcome back to The Raquel Show. Today's episode is going to be a little different. And instead of just talking strategy, I want to bring you into my world and share some of the biggest lessons I've learned this summer. Cause as many of you know, I don't share all the things that I talk about on this podcast on social media. So this is a conversation that probably might surprise you. 

Think of it as you're a fly on the wall in my life these past few months from dropping off Bryce in college to living at the beach for the summer, to caring for my mom, to navigating through basketball drama with our family. It has been full on full of transitions, challenges and growth. And my hope is that these lessons not only give you perspective, but they also show you how to design a life and a business that actually matters because at the end of the day, it's not about how many homes you've sold, how many awards you've gotten or the income you've made. It's about building a life worth living. 

So let's dive in with lesson number one: Time is precious. You got to use it wisely. This one hit me more than ever. When Bryce went away for school and came back, I realized just how fast. Time flies people used to always tell me enjoy it Raquel. It goes by so fast. I thought I really understood that but I didn't not until the day I dropped him off in college I'm so glad I had all those mom and son dates with him I'm so glad I was there for all of his basketball games or a majority of them Especially these last couple of years in high school supporting him because here's the truth my friends, our kids don't care how many homes we sell or how much money we make. If you ask Bryce, matter of fact, or even Brexton, how many homes I've sold in my career, I promise you he couldn't even tell you. 

What he does care about is when he looks up in the stands and he sees me cheering him on, or when he gets out of that locker room and he sees his family ready to give him a hug, win or lose. He does care that I've been able to support him and create opportunities because at the end of the day, that stuff really does matter. So here's my takeaway. If you're building a business that steals your time from the people that matter most, ask yourself, is it worth it? Build a business that gives you presence, not just profit. And I would think about where can I trade all the times that I'm busy for actually being present this week?

Lesson number two is: do the bucket list things. Create the experiences that light you up. This summer I got to live in Huntington Beach for half the summer and it was amazing to slow down and get out of the Arizona heat and for those that live here you know how hot it gets and just live in a totally different rhythm. I walked every single day by the beach, by the ocean, I had space to think. I got to reflect a lot, probably more than I thought, and to see what it felt like to live away from my usual environment. And you know what I realized is while I love the scenery of the beach, I actually miss my day-to-day of work. 

I know I'm weird like that, but building things or helping people build fuels me. Taking action, creating momentum, coaching, it totally energizes me. And even though I had a beautiful luxury home in Huntington Beach, I missed waking up in Scuttle. Actually, I also thought when I rented the house, I thought this would be my dream home. It had three floors and I'll tell you now, and I actually told our realtor out there is I don't wanna have a three story home because the master bedroom was upstairs and the kitchen was downstairs. So anytime I forgot my phone cord or anytime I forgot my laptop, I hated going up three flights of stairs. I would try to throw things down as much as I could, or I'd tell the boys to go get it upstairs. And so that told me I am not a three flight stair person. 

I also miss the sunshine. I miss the energy and the feeling of just being home in Scottsdale. That experience showed me something that sometimes you don't know what you truly love until you step away. The takeaway here is don't wait for the someday to try things on your bucket list. Go test them, create experiences that give you so much clarity. Sometimes we have things on our vision board and we think, you know what, I'll just wait and I'll work so hard and I'll accomplish it. And then when I retire, I'll go buy this beach home. I'm so glad that I got more more clear of what I would want my beach home to look like. 

For me, I now could see myself doing summers away in the future and even probably traveling to different places, but Scottsdale will always be home for me. So here's my question for you. What's one bucket list experience you can test this year? As we are going into the last quarter, I'm actually thinking about where do I actually want to visit in 2026? I have been invited to out of the country retreats. 

And I'm really pondering and going, do I want to go to those places? Cause I've been to both of them before; one is Greece and one is Turks and Caicos, or do I go with friends or like business partners and go somewhere so rad that I've never been. 

So lesson number three is when things matter, you make time for them. This summer, I'll tell you my mom's health declined rapidly. I went from being so busy in my business, not having time and also probably juggling sports to spending almost every single afternoon with her, handling her doctor's appointments and watching her memory slip in and out. I think one of the hardest things and I've told so many of you and so many of my friends this one of the hardest things that you go through is watching your heroes or watching your parents slowly decline in front of your face. 

I'll never forget my son's Senior Night. I didn't know at the time, but that was going to be my last time that my mom would ever go out. And that was only February of this year. Since then, it's been a journey dealing with her falls, dealing with all the worries, dealing with the tough decisions about her care, watching cameras and not being able to sleep. But here's what struck me. Even though she's got some good days and bad days, she knows her daughter has been there. 

Her kids have been there. Her family has been there every single step of the way and we have given her the best care possible. One day in the moment of clarity, she told me, I'm good. I actually could cry right now as I say that. And then she said something that broke me, but also freed me. She said, go and make sure your family's good. 

That same week, even without me telling him, Brad told me "you need to play bigger, that's what your mom would want". 

And you see, I made a choice this past year after seeing her in the hospital multiple times, after putting her on hospice, I pulled back, I paused on our mastermind. I didn't throw any big events. I took people off my one-on-one coaching roster because I was in that season. She was my priority. 

And now because she's in good hands, I'm ready to step back into everything. The lesson is when something truly matters, you make time for it. There's different seasons in life and they shift. Business can always restart. You can always make money. You can always build things. But family moments, those are some of the times you don't always get back. 

So here is my question for you: are you aligned with the season you're in right now? 

And lesson number four is you'll make things happen no matter how challenging they are. This summer was a whirlwind with basketball. Brad resigned as a head coach because of parent drama, not player issues, but parent issues. And let me tell you, when you get in a world of competitive sports or when parents want to protect their children, and I totally get that, the world can get very toxic. And as Brexton came in as a freshman, he started playing right away. Matter of fact, he was on varsity and that triggered a lot of jealousy. Suddenly parents were upset. Their kids weren't starting or they weren't playing or they were still on JV. Some even wrote fake emails, anonymous emails. 

And I'll tell you that on another episode, I probably said it was the most immature thing that I've seen in my adulthood. It was catty. It was toxic. And it took a lot for me not to respond to a email and anonymous email that I saw because boy, did I have some things to say. 

I actually read it to Bryce and Bryce said: Mom, it is such a good email, but I'll tell you these parents, there's no way you would give them a different perspective. There's no way you can change their mind. 

And at one point I looked around and thought, this isn't even about kids anymore. It's about parents fighting their kids battles. And that's the exact opposite of what I teach my sons. 

Sports teach you how to compete, how to handle ups and downs, how to earn your spot. This is not participation when it comes to sports, especially when you get competitive, especially when you go to the elite level, especially when you're getting recruited. Why? Because I've seen it with my son Bryce. 

It's about growth. And in the end, we've made the decision to move Brexton to another school. And here's the other thing for those that are listening that have kids in sports and that probably have a freshman or somebody that wants to play at another level at a higher level outside of high school is. 

I'll tell you this, the one thing, and I think this applies to business too. The one thing that you never want to get in bad terms with are some of your coaches, because when you are getting recruited, they will ask their coaches, whether it's their club coaches, their high school coaches of how they are as a player. And the second question is how are their parents? And when you have a bad relationship with a previous coach, they will tell the truth. 

And so here's the deal. I think that when I look back at this situation, we had to move Brexton and it was hard. He lost some friends, some relationships, but he still keeps in touch with some of them. And I told them, this will only make you stronger. I'm not here to baby my kids. I am not that parent and I will not fight further battles. I have told them that if you need to speak to your coach, it's you that talks to your coach. I have never ever met with a coach, even as pissed off as I have been in some of these games or what they have done to my kids, I have said, you know what, you've got to own up. 

This is your relationship with your coach. And I think that is what kids need and makes them stronger to actually even later in life. They use it when they go into the workforce. When it came to Brexton, here's what people forgot and here's what people don't see, the kid has put years of work and I probably could bet my life on this. It really started with some of the JV parents, especially against some of these JVs. Can bet my life that, that kid, my kid, Brexton has been in the court, has been in more games, has been challenged more times than any of their kids hands down. And it's probably why he played two grades up. 

It's probably why he battled against his older brother who was four years older than him and he earned his skills because he was able to compete. He was able to battle even when it didn't feel good, even when he lost. And so my takeaway is challenges will come, but they will force you to level up. They will force you to move faster and adversity only, only, only sharpens you. So I want to ask you all is what challenge in your life right now could actually be your training ground. 

And the lesson number five is if you want to level up, you have to be willing to fail. I realized something this summer that if you radically want to level up your life, you definitely have to be willing to fail. You can't wait for perfection. You have to be willing to look dumb. You have to be willing to have people even talk about you, not in the most positive light. And you have to be able to keep going anyway. The truth is 

The people who achieve the most aren't mistake free. They make plenty of mistakes and the ones who have failed the most have learned and I kept on moving. They kept their mission, their mission. They kept their goals, their goals. So here's the one liner I want you all to remember. Failure is not a stop sign. It's just a speed bump. And the question is where is fear of failure keeping you stuck? 

And lesson number six is the cost of staying stuck is higher than the cost of going for it. This past year, I pulled back on my business because I needed to, but I realized something, playing small has a cost. It's not just a lost in revenue. The real cost is regret. It's being stagnant. It's missed momentum. So if you're worried about the price of going for your dream, look at the price of staying exactly where you are. The times that I have wanted to hide or the times that I've wanted to not see anybody. Those are the times where it was the most uncomfortable to travel, to go into these masterminds, to go to these events. 

But I'll tell you, every single time I came back, I was so glad that I pushed myself to go to the mastermind, to go to the event, because in the end, prevented me from keeping stuck for even a longer time. So I can tell you staying stuck is way more expensive. And I want to ask you all is what's the hidden tax you're paying right now for not moving forward, for being comfortable, for playing small. 

And last but not least, lesson number seven is do business with people you want to do life with. The older I get, the more I realized I can build and scale anything. That's not the question anymore. 

The real question is; who am I building it with? I am trying to find my superheroes because it's way cooler and way more fulfilling to do business with people you actually want to do life with. People you'd vacation with, people you'd hang out with, people you would call in hard times. So here's my takeaway. I want you to audit your circle. 

And if the people you're building with don't energize you, it might be time to make a change, I would ask yourself, would I want to do life with the people I'm doing business with? And if the answer is no, it's time to realign. I found myself during summer as I was going through these walks about some of the decisions that I had made and some of the people that I have actually distanced myself with. And it all came down to, are they the same people that are going to go with me to the next level? And if not, it's okay to still love them. just have to love them from afar. 

So here's my recap for the seven lessons that I've learned this summer is 

  • Number one is time is precious. Use it wisely. 
  • Two is do the bucket list things, create the experiences that you want to go after. 
  • And number three is when things matter, you make time. 
  • Number four is you'll make things happen no matter how hard, no matter how big the challenge is. 
  • And number five, if you want to level up, you have to be willing to fail. 
  • And number six is the cost of staying stuck is so much higher than the cost of going for it. 
  • And last but not least is do business with people you can do life with life. My friends is the best teacher and the lessons usually come disguised as experiences, as challenges and even setbacks, but they're always shaping us for something bigger. 


And if this episode resonated with you, I want you to share it with a friend who might need to hear these reminders. I want to thank you all for hanging out with me on another episode of the Raquel show. And if you are ready to not just build a bigger business, but create a bigger life, that's exactly what we do inside of the agent CEO method. You'll get systems, you'll get support, you'll get community.

to stop playing small and start designing the business and lifestyle you deserve. I want you to DM me, AgentCEO on Instagram at @itsraquelq, and until next time, I want you to keep taking action and keep Playing Bigger, my friends.