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Kirsten Jordan of Douglas Elliman thought that joining the cast of Million Dollar Listing New York in 2020 was going to catapult her into success.
As the first female and mother (of three, all under 10) to join the cast of the series, she was prepared to show the world onscreen just how much of a boss she was.
Kirsten Jordan
“When I was cast, I thought it was going to be the beginning of the rest of my career,” Jordan told attendees at Inman Connect New York on Tuesday.
Jordan thought the gig would solve all of her problems, but she quickly realized it would simply add another complication to her already very full life.
Jordan said that most people idealize being the CEO of their lives and their businesses, but the reality is that it’s an extremely challenging gig, with a ton of responsibility. She also realized it’s not really possible to be CEO of every facet of one’s life.
“This whole idea of being a CEO, how do you do it all? How do you be everywhere?” Jordan wondered. “I realized there was no actual way I was going to be able to do that.”
When she started filming for MDLNY in January 2020, Jordan was still a part of a team, she didn’t yet have an assistant, her childcare was patched together, “and weekends were a race to the bottom.”
Two months into filming, she was so burnt out that she got terribly sick and had to take a week off of the show and one-and-a-half weeks off of work.
“I had been running my business and my life like a chicken with my head cut off,” she said.
“The [MDLNY] producers pulled me aside and said, ‘Listen, we love you, we picked you … If you don’t get it together and figure out how you’re going to do this, the opportunity is gone,'” Jordan revealed.
After taking a pause to reflect on her life, Jordan was able to come up with a system to rein her life back into order. As a result, her revenue increased tenfold and she became her own team leader.
Jordan’s Rule 1: Work and life integration will never be perfect
Jordan said she doesn’t use the phrase “work-life balance” because there typically is no balance — everyone has to figure out how to juggle it all in the ways that work best for them. She said the key is to create rituals, routines and a plan about how to leave the house in the morning to go work.
Jordan’s rituals and routines are the systems she has in place to make sure her day goes smoothly, like making sure she wakes up by 5:15 every morning and ensuring her kids put their clothes out for school the next day before getting into bed.
“Being able to have the rest of the people in your life on board with the systems is how this works,” she added.
Jordan’s Rule 2: Own it: You cannot do it alone
As Jordan said, no one can be CEO of every aspect of their life. She delegates daily tasks by ranking them on a one to three scale.
The No. 1 tasks are things Jordan alone can complete. No. 2 tasks are specialized tasks that she needs to train someone specifically to do. No. 3 tasks, which Jordan recommended everyone start off by delegating, are the things “that make you a worse person after you’ve done them,” she said.
Jordan’s No. 3 task is dropping her kids off at school — the traffic, the chaos, etc., just puts her in a terrible mood.
Jordan’s Rule 3: There will be judgment
No matter how these changes impact your life, Jordan said that everyone should be prepared to receive — and brush off — some serious judgment from all corners, including family and friends.
“Get ready everybody,” she said, “especially the women out there. Everybody’s going to judge you when you start saying ‘no’ to stuff.”
“My mantra when somebody says that to me is, ‘What would that Fortune 500 CEO say to them?'” she added.
That Fortune 500 CEO probably wouldn’t even bat an eye.
In closing, Jordan encouraged agents to start thinking about what they can let go of in their lives.
“I’m probably the only person at this conference who wants to give you fewer things to do,” she said.
