The Work From Anywhere Agent

39. The Surprising Shift That Helped Me Finally Let Go of Control

• Alexa Rosario

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Ever catch yourself so deep in building systems that your team starts to rely on you for every single decision? That’s exactly where I found myself this morning—a classic “lights on” moment that flipped the script for how I lead and grow my business as a work from anywhere real estate agent.

Today, I’m peeling back the curtain on the blind spots I never knew were holding me—and my team—back. From wrestling with delegation to realizing the true power of teaching others to think and build like you do, this episode doesn’t shy away from the messiness of leadership. I share the simple framework I’m now using to turn weaknesses into strengths, both for myself and my remote team, and why building people matters far more than obsessing over perfect systems.

We also dive into practical strategies for helping VAs and new hires move from unconscious incompetence to real confidence—plus, the ripple effect it’s sparking in our team culture. Curious about creating a more empowered and resilient team (without burning out or micromanaging)? You won’t want to miss these insights.

Let’s talk honestly about growth, leverage, and what it takes to step out of your own way as a real estate entrepreneur. As always, you’re invited to continue the conversation with us in the Business Systems for Realtors Facebook group—see you there!

Alexa:

In today's episode, we are talking about something that is I don't even know how to explain. In this sense, this is something that I've realized is a blind spot of my own. So I've spent so much time focused on systems right, I've been the one building the systems and then really focusing on having my team members execute those systems, and so the problem with that is that they start to rely on me to be the person to make all the decisions right, and so whenever we run into an issue, it ends up coming back to me and then I'm the one solving the issue. And so a couple weeks ago, I had this random epiphany and it wasn't like I was doing anything specific, but it was one of those moments where it was like a download from God that was like, hey, pay attention to this. And what that came down to was that I realized that I needed to step off of my soapbox of systems and really focus on leverage and focus on getting my leverage to be the ones to build the systems. And so I've been super adamant about the fact that when you bring in a VA, typically they are not going to be very good at building systems. They're going to be great at executing systems, and so that is something where I'm still figuring out how to find the balance between the two, because I have found that once you give them the foundation and they start to understand how the systems work and how they all come together, then at that point, when you're starting to stretch, then you can teach them how to think like you and how to build systems. But I still stand by the fact that when you're bringing people into your world, unless you're willing to pay them a ridiculous salary to be the ones that are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to the thinking and the building and the systems and all that fun stuff, and you want to bring somebody in with a system already underneath them, and then, once they've sort of mastered that system, then you can start stretching and saying, okay, like now, let's start building on top of it. But you can't bring somebody in, especially in a low paid position, like a VA, without giving them something to build off of. So that's been my biggest kind of thing up until now.

Alexa:

And then, like I said, once they start to get really good at that, where there's a sort of model of personal development that goes from what's called unconscious incompetence, which means you don't know that you don't know something. Think of it as like a blind spot for you, something that maybe has been holding you back, but you don't really know what it is. And typically, I find the best two ways to identify your blind spots are number one look for the things that you're resisting. Right, because things that you're resisting are usually because you're not good at them or there's something that you feel like you don't know, or there's something you don't know how to do, and so you end up sort of self-sabotaging, procrastinating and looking for ways to avoid that thing. And the second is getting feedback right, asking people like, okay, I'm stuck on this thing, I need help figuring out where I or what I'm missing, where I'm falling short, and being really open to hearing that feedback, and they'll tell you what your blind spots are. Obviously, it has to be someone who is educated enough to be able to give feedback constructively, to be able to see the whole picture, all that fun stuff. But I'm being really sort of practical here. Those two things right is look for the things you're resisting and then look for feedback and you'll find your blind spots. And you're not going to find them all at one time. It's not like this is a one-time exercise, this is something just ongoing.

Alexa:

Then, once you've identified what your blind spots are, then you've sort of revealed them in the light, right. And so then it becomes a conscious incompetence, meaning you recognize that you don't know how to do something, you recognize that you're incompetent at a specific thing and I know that that word incompetent is going to be triggering for some people, but if we're really honest, not knowing how to do something is an incompetence, and we all have them, right. Like I am incompetent when it comes to football, like I don't know anything about football other than you catch a ball, you run it down the field, right, like that's, that's pretty much it. So we all have things that we're just super incompetent about, and when we can remove the emotional reaction that we have around that word or around that thing, then we can start to move forward from it, right? So now we know okay, I don't know something. So let's start putting together a plan for A how to learn what we need to learn in order to get good at that thing, and B how do we develop a process so that it happens every time? And so those two things the learning and the doing, or the learning and the testing.

Alexa:

I would say that brings you into conscious competence, meaning this is when you know how to do something, but it probably takes a lot of effort, right? It's something that you have to think about. It's something that requires a lot of decision making. It takes a lot of brainpower to really think through the process, to remember how to do all of it. This is where SOPs come into play. This is where checklists and email templates and all those things really come into play, because you're focusing on doing it right, but it takes effort to be able to do it right.

Alexa:

And then the fourth step of this is unconscious competence, meaning you do it without even thinking about it right, and so this is where you sort of internalize things. It becomes your intuition. You don't really know how you know this. You don't really remember the exact process, right. It's not something that you just have to sit there and think about. You just kind of do it. Think about breathing, think about brushing your teeth when you wake up in the morning, you can kind of just do it on autopilot riding a bike, driving a car, all those things where you're, where you know, like you know those times when you've been driving and you're like I don't even know how I made it home because you've just been like spaced out the whole time. That is an unconscious competence, right.

Alexa:

And so when we can be really conscious of for ourselves number one, like taking ourselves through that journey, what is our unconscious incompetence, and then taking it through that process of bringing it to an unconscious competence, that is the journey. Then, when we really mastered that, then taking it down to our team members and saying, okay, let's work on revealing those blind spots and then taking them up through that ladder so that it becomes unconscious competence and think about the loyalty, think about the culture that you build when that is the mindset that you take your team members through. And so that has become really a framework that I've focused so heavily on with my team members. And I have to tell you, in talking about this and really relating it to a growth plan, like not just saying, hey, let's reveal all your blind spots and let's pick on all the things you're not good at, but focusing on like, okay, the reason we're doing this is so that we can take you through that ladder and identify those blind spots and make them strengths of yours and really understanding, like, what do you want out of this role? I have to tell you, I did this exercise with my team a few weeks ago and, oh my God, they started reaching out and being like, hey, I want to learn how to do this. Hey, I don't feel like I'm good at this. Hey, can you help me with this? Hey, like I need to build my skills around this.

Alexa:

So most of my conversations with my team at this point have been really focused around like getting them into trainings and all those things where they are loving this aspect of it, where they don't feel like they're being put on the spot for not knowing something, but instead empowered to turn that weakness into something that's a strength. And for some of them, they've even told me like hey, I want to be in this particular role. Like great, let's start building your skills so that we can get you into that role. And that is how they've and I have to say I've seen the culture shifts in our team from that one exercise almost completely shift. And so now I'm thinking about, like more ways that I can give them the frameworks and the mental models that I use to make decisions and I use to grow the business in helping them implement those in their own personal lives, and so now, stepping out of this, I need to be the one to build the systems and instead being like I need to build the people and let the people build the systems.

Alexa:

That is my new soapbox. That is the thing that I'm recognizing is, more than anything, holding me back and keeping me stagnant in my business, and that's where this there's another great book called a CEO does three things, and it's people, culture and numbers, right. And so think about the people are your leverage, the culture is how they feel about your business, and the numbers is the KPIs, the profit margin, all that fun stuff, right. And so focusing on those three things becomes all about the leverage rather than focusing on the systems, and so obviously, I'm still going to talk about the systems.

Alexa:

I think it'll be fun to even bring my team members on here to talk about the systems that they're building and the systems that we're building together, right, because it's not just me handing it off to them and saying, okay, like I'm not doing this anymore, it's a collaborative effort, so I can teach them how to think in the form of systems and then, as they sort of prove that they understand, they prove that they're capable, they prove that they get it, they prove they want it, they prove they have the capacity for it.

Alexa:

Then that's where I start to say, okay, I can take my hands off of this, right, but that is the next journey. And typically I find that when I go through a mindset culture shift like this, it takes about somewhere between like 12 and 18 months for the transformation to fully come into play. And so, with that in mind, that's the episode for today. I hope that there's some kind of nugget in here, and as you're starting to build with your transaction coordinator, your showing agent, your virtual assistant, like you may have to be the person to build the systems for the meantime, but as you start to grow and as you reach a point where you say, okay, I'm now at the point where I need to focus on leverage, focus on the talent rather than focusing on the systems. That's where you can start to let go. So, with that in mind, that's the episode for today and, as always, please join us in our daily Facebook discussion in the business systems for realtors Facebook group, and I will see you in the next episode.

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Alexa Rosario

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