We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Athena Brownson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Athena, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
In my former life as I like to say, I was a professional freestyle skier who grew up on the slopes in Breckenridge Colorado. Looking back on my career as a professional athlete, I have realized this was the best business school and preparation that one could ask for. The world renowned coaches that I had the opportunity to work under not only taught me the principles of discipline and accountability, but the importance of truly showing up at your best – building resilience and grit through the process. I now realize that the extremely long days spent between the mountain and dry-land training where excellence and punctuality were expected was really what trained me in the art of entrepreneurship. Skiing showed me that the level of effort you put into an endeavor was a direct indicator of what your results would be, and that hard work, consistency, and showing up at your best would produce success over time. These principles were instilled in me unknowingly at such a young age and I could not be more grateful as they are truly what have allowed me to thrive as an entrepreneur in the world of business.
Athena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Athena Brownson and I was born and raised in a small mountain community called Breckenridge in Colorado. I grew up with a father who was not only a professional skier, but a residential real estate developer and my mother an artist who did the interior design for his projects. At a young age, I followed in his footsteps when it came to skiing and ended up going “pro” as a freestyle skier at the age of 15 traveling the world about 300 days a year chasing snow. I always say this time as an athlete was the best business school and lesson in entrepreneurship that anyone could ask for and prepared me perfectly for the career I never saw myself diving into which was Real Estate.
A dear friend had seen that I was not feeling fulfilled working at the Interior Design company that I was working with at the time, and looked at me and said “Athena, you love people, you love homes and design, why are you not in Real Estate?”. To be honest, it was something I never considered as it was what my father did, but she convinced me to sit down with the owner of her company John Stegner (who would become my future mentor), and after a lunch filled with inspiration and excitement I knew that it was time to take the leap of faith, quit my job and go to Real Estate school! I quit my job the next day, got my real estate license while recovering from my 9th knee surgery and it was off to the races!
I have now been a licensed Realtor for over 11 years and can say whole heartedly that it was the best decision I ever made. I am able to guide incredible humans through one of the biggest financial decisions of their life in buying, selling, investing or developing Real Estate. I am so grateful to be a valuable resource to those looking to build long term financial stability through Real Estate and believe in building lifelong relationships along the way in order to be a trusted advisor to my clients that extends far beyond the closing table. I believe in relationship based business above everything that truly is built on trust, communication and reliability.
I am so proud of myself and my team for creating an exceptional and personalized client experience where they can rest assured knowing they are in good hands for a lifetime!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Growing up as a professional skier (a one person sport) and as an only child, I unknowingly created the thought pattern that I could get everything done myself aka I never learned the art of delegation nor the importance of working with a team. Fast forward as I entered my career in Real Estate, getting started I was still operating under the guise that I would be able to get everything done on my own and to a high quality. Yet as my business started to pick up, I quickly learned how wrong I was. Not only was a running myself to the point of burn-out but I was recognizing that there were some skill sets that I excelled at, and others that were not necessarley my forte. I had a business coach at the time who helped me identify my strengths and weaknesses and explained that until I learned how to delegate my weak spots to others, not only would my business suffer, but I would be taking away the opportunity for someone else to excel at what it is they were good at, thus empowering them to be their best just as I was striving for. It was at this time that I began building a small team around me, ensuring to hire each role by what their strengths were and how they complemented my weak spots. I slowly learned and continue to learn the art of delegation because as corny as it may sound, team work really does make the dreamwork and I would be nothing without them!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Well, a large part of my journey over the past 8.5 years has been one marked by resilience and grit to say the least. Right as I began to find my stride in Real Estate, it was unfortunately time for me to have an additional neck operation from a previous ski injury. As I was recovering from surgery, my body began to come down with an assortment of strange symptoms, extreme fatigue and joint pain unlike anything I had experienced thus far. I was very fortunate at the time that my surgeon actually recommended we test me for Lyme Disease as a young, healthy athlete should not be having such strange illness symptoms. Sure enough, a few weeks later I was diagnosed with late stage chronic Lyme disease. Within 6 months my world had completely been turned upside down and I was almost unable to get out of bed and in excruciating constant pain. I soon became reliant upon plasma transfusions every 3 weeks and was being studied by doctors around the world due to the complexity and severity of my illness. Yet through all of these medical trials, I was able to continue working in Real Estate I believe because it is truly my “why”. Having a career that I truly love, being able to work with such incredible clients, and being supported by the best team anyone could ask for has kept my eyes looking ahead even when it felt impossible. The last 8.5 years have been truly story after story out of a science fiction novel, yet I could not be more proud of the resilience and perseverience that I have exhibited in my willingness to keep pushing forward and become a top Realtor in Denver.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.athenabrownsonrealtor.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athenabrownsonrealtor?igsh=MWs1bXZrMHM2NGlyag%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578290246370
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/athenabrownsonrealtor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AthenaBrownson-DenverRealt-k2m
- Other: Google Business Profile – https://share.google/R3XdQG1oBZps8n7Oz
Image Credits
Kassia Phoy