We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gail McAlmont a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Gail, thanks for joining 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.

When I think back and reflect on the decisions I’ve made in life, many of them I would now consider to be very risky lol. However, when I made them, they were simply necessary to get to the next stage in life. The biggest risk I would say I’ve taken is leaving my home country to permanently move to the USA about 12 years ago. At that time, I had a great career and stable life. I was the Marketing Manager of the largest Telecommunications company in the country the time, I had family, friends and an overall great life. However, I wanted to achieve a lot more so I decided that I was going to give up everything I had known, the life I had built, the career I developed and the people that I loved to come to a brand new place where I knew no one, had no job and had to start from scratch. I didn’t know what I was coming to, or what was waiting for me, or even what would happen, but one thing I did know was that there was no turning back. It was only forward from that point on.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well, it all started on a small beautiful Caribbean island called the Commonwealth of Dominica where I was born and raised. I made the permanent move to the US in 2010 and began my journey in New Jersey. A few months later, I decided to move to Houston, where I now call home and this is where I discovered my love for Real Estate when I became a homeowner. As a Realtor, my business is all about helping individuals in the Houston and surrounding areas realize their dreams of homeownership. A huge part of being a Realtor is building strong relationships in the community while becoming the go-to person for creating solutions. Due to my involvement in various industries, I became not only the go to person for matching individuals with their dream homes, but also matching individuals with their ideal jobs. This soon developed into my newest business venture as a Recruiting Partner with Goodwin Recruiting. As a Recruiting Partner, at Goodwin Recruiting, we establish deep, long-standing relationships with our clients across the country who rely on job seeker recruitment services to send them the best person for their open roles. We pride ourselves on our job seeker recruitment services and being partners with our candidates. For every candidate, we hand-tailor the search based on individual career goals and specific areas of importance that have been outlined. In both businesses, we treat our clients with respect and dignity and strive to ensure that we are delivering exceptional service along the way while maintaining open communication and transparency. One thing you can be sure of by working with me and my team of professionals is that we will always work with your best interest as our top priority!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Many times we see the successes of individuals but we rarely see or hear of the trials that they endure, the sleepless nights, the tough lessons, the 18 hour days and I think it is necessary to include that narrative in every success story told along with lessons learnt and those that you worked to un-learn. One huge lesson that I had to unlearn, was the idea that working until you drop is the only acceptable contribution that you should make in anything that you do. As an entrepreneur, it is no secret that you put in a sometimes-insane number of hours while building your company and brand. This can translate to 18 plus hour days of non-stop work where you give your all while sacrificing in other areas in life such as important relationships, engaging in activities that you love, family and overall self-care.
I have had to work very hard to un-learn this lesson as it became more of the norm rather than the exception which means everything else tends to take a back seat. Self-care and creating healthy boundaries are essential parts of this marathon called life and is very necessary in preventing burn out and maintaining a positive outlook. For this reason, I make deliberate efforts to work in various versions of self-care into my routine whether it’s setting my alarm to practice moments of mindfulness throughout the day, getting that much needed massage or my favorite things, spending uninterrupted time with my family and travelling to a new place.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Getting to where I am today did not come without it’s fair share of challenges. When I first moved to the US, I moved here with one suitcase, $1200 and the mentality that failure is not an option. I approached every challenge and road block that came my way with this mentality and it allowed me to me maintain a laser focus in achieving my goals. This meant never giving up but instead looking at creating solutions and opportunities as opposed to waiting for them to happen. These challenging situations have played an integral part in shaping me into the person that I am today and building an internal resilience that I am truly grateful for. With this outlook, I have been blessed to build a successful career and businesses all geared towards meeting the needs of others and I’ve done so while being a single mom to an amazing 16 year old young man and the caretaker to elderly father. Is it tough? Absolutely! But at then end of the day, I want to not only build an empire for my family, I also want to serve as an example to others that although challenges may come our way, we can create our own solutions and our own opportunities to build the life that we envision for ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gailmcrealestate
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gail-mcalmont/
• Other: Email: [email protected] Phone: 346-708-2852

Image Credits
Brave Roots Studios