We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Ranew a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brittany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Self publishing my fiction novel this year was a big risk! It’s been a long-held dream of mine to publish ever since I finished the novel in 2013. But I let fear get in the way of pursuing my dreams! I have built a successful real estate business over the last ten years and with that comes a lot of personal growth. I finally realized that it was time to stop being afraid and take steps towards my passion. The feeling of regret for not sharing my book with the world was outweighing my fear of rejection or failure for the first time in my life. I had a story to tell and it was worth telling!
Brittany, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
After getting laid off from a corporate job in 2010, I found myself trying to figure out what the next steps were for me. I had started a side business of event planning that was growing steadily and while I was working other part time jobs, it just didn’t seem to be going anywhere. In 2013, I decided to try something I’d always been interested in – real estate. Not too long after I started, I realized my event planning business just wasn’t my passion so I closed that down and went full time into real estate. I fell in love! I love the fact that with real estate you still owned your own business while getting support and mentorship from the brokers and agents around me. I have always enjoyed helping and serving people and who doesn’t love to look at pretty houses! When my husband and I relocated to St Pete in 2015, it was a daunting task to start my real estate career over in a new area. But I drew on my experience with relocating to the area and how challenging it was. When you don’t know anyone or how to even navigate a new city, you need help with the littlest things like finding a doctor. I wanted to provide that concierge-style service to my clients and help people fall in love with the Sunshine City in the same way I had. In 2020 I started my podcast, St Pete Soul so I could share my new love for St Pete with others and help newcomers and locals embrace what makes our city so special. It’s really helped me plug into our community so whether that’s helping people relocate here, make a local move or sell their home and go off to their next adventure, I know my connections within the area help me provide the best resources to my clients.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I have always struggled with anxiety and when we moved to St Pete from Alabama it came back full force because I had left everything I knew to move to a brand new city. Being an entrepreneur and struggling with anxiety can be especially difficult because so much of our success as business owners starts with our mindset. In business and in life, your mindset helps create the reality that you find yourself in. I need to stay in a positive, growth mindset if I want my business to grow and so I knew that I had to change some of my habits and routines to help me with these things. I committed to doing a morning routine that would help put me in the right frame of mind every single day. By starting the day off with gratitude, affirmations, prayer, meditation and exercise, I was priming my brain to seek out the positive things in every circumstance instead of focusing on the negative. This helped me develop a more resilient way of moving through life’s ups and downs so I can keep making progress on my goals.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I first started my business, I was so scared of failing that I never pushed myself. I had self-imposed limiting beliefs that were keeping me from realizing my full potential. I think often we put ourselves in boxes in an effort to make us feel like we are safe and secure, but really you are just stopping yourself from growing past your comfort zone. By pushing outside your comfort zone, you enable yourself to experience real growth and become a better version of yourself each day.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BrittanyRanew.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brittanyranewauthor/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanyranewrealtor/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYuEpAbnFwtXO09xe1jr9Fg
Image Credits
Nina Bashaw Photography