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Lea Porter thought she had retired when her kids went to school. Then a career in real estate came knocking—again. Within a year of her return, Porter became one of the top-ranked agents in the competitive Beverly Hills market; she closed $200 million in sales over the past year, inking deals for the likes of Jennifer Lopez. When you return to the workforce after decades away, like Porter did, the most important thing is to play to your strengths, keep a “student mindset,” and know how to find help. “I think a lot of women feel that when you’re out of the workforce, you don’t really have those relationships anymore,” Porter reflects. But as she soon discovered, her wealth of relationships—both within her industry and well beyond it—have become her secret advantage.
I grew up in a family where “follow your dream” was not really something ever uttered. It was more like: you need to get a job, you need to be a noun. My bent was never accounting, but I was pushed into it. I was a first generation college student, from immigrant parents.
I was an accounting major from the University of Texas at Austin. I went right into an MBA program. And from there, I ended up finishing my grad program in California, and then had an internship at TRW Aerospace. I ended up at Xerox as a kind of a corporate financial analyst. at the same time, I got a broker’s license in California. That was really a passion that I had: real estate.
I tried to be in real estate while working full time at Xerox, and that was effectively impossible. So I made the decision to quit corporate America. I was in my 20s, and I didn’t have a safety net. I didn’t have wealthy parents. It was quite dramatic to leave a corporate position in the 80s. Corporate America was booming, and being at a company like Xerox was very prestigious. But I couldn’t see myself doing it for the rest of my life. My boss’s boss was appalled that I would be leaving. But I was happy to leave.
In real estate, I loved it. If you have a passion for anything, it’s not working. It doesn’t matter how many hours you put into it. That’s what I did for 20 years. I built up relationships and friendships.
I retired when my oldest child started kindergarten.
And then In August 2021, a close friend of mine was building a house and wanted to look at some properties. And I said, Let’s do this. It’ll be like shopping for kitchens! It was a lot of fun.
We found a house and she turns to me and says, “I want to buy it.” I’m like, “No problem!” I didn’t have DocuSign or anything, but luckily the broker on the other end had worked with me back in the 90s. I used his office to write all the paperwork. We made the deal, and all of a sudden a career was born—because that deal was $27 million. That was September 2021. By December 2021, I had closed $70 million.
I took my license and hung it up with Coldwell Banker, because I had no back office. I’d been out of it for so long: the contracts had changed; what was once an eight-page legal contract was now 16 pages. I needed help. But I became very quickly top .05% of 50,000 Coldwell Banker agents in the first four months.
That is exactly what I felt: “Oh my God, the business I left in 2005 is not what I came back into in 2021.” It really was like Rip Van Winkle. You fell asleep and you woke up and you’re on a spaceship. My husband was like, “OK, don’t forget your pager!”
All of a sudden, I’m dropped into social media, technology, celebrity realtors, reality shows, websites, Twitter. I knew all these things existed, but how do you maneuver that in an industry you haven’t been in for 18 years? Nobody wants to see my cat Instagram photos. They want to see something relevant. I needed a logo, a website, a newsletter, constant contact. It was quite overwhelming.
And also, how do you talk to people anymore in business? Nobody picks up the phone and calls. Even the tone of a text can be dramatically different from what you actually mean it to be. They’re these minefields that you’re constantly stepping around.
There were two things that I did that were super, super important. First, I went to my manager, and he gave me a social media team to help me with my logo, take over my Instagram, set up a newsletter, set up my website, take professional photos. You have to line up this team. There’s a lot of resources out there; you have to find them and make sure you get them on board right away.
And then I hired a business coach. Six months into my career, I was finding that the cart was leading the horse, and I was really behind the eight ball on a lot of things. My coach has been instrumental in being my mentor. I believe that everyone needs some sort of mentorship, but in my business—which is highly competitive and sales-oriented—no one is going to mentor me because I can be perceived as a threat. I had to find my own resources.
The other thing is finding a support system. I joined two business forums of like-minded women in various industries. It’s amazing how much information and support you get from people around you who are also trying to launch something. It’s almost like group therapy for business. Your significant other can really only listen to you for a solid 10 minutes, and then it’s over.
You can even set up something a little more informal with, say, three friends and just say, Hey, we’re going to meet once a week, everyone’s going to talk about frustrations, what’s exciting, what’s new. It’s invaluable.
When you’re in your 20s and your 30s, you are a super hustler. You have no demands on your time. Everyone totally admires and appreciates that you are working 100-hour weeks because you’re young, and you should be doing that.
What’s been challenging for me, and I think anyone who is re-entering the workforce today, is being more realistic. People will start texting you at the end of the work day, and they expect a response. That’s our societal norm now of always being available twenty-four-seven.
I literally bookended my retirement. I worked long hours, and then I retired, and now I’m back to working seven days a week—which is counterintuitive to the way most people live their lives. Life-work balance has actually gotten more difficult; now I have a life, and I’m trying to figure out work around life.
Setting boundaries is huge. This comes with maturity and it comes with having had time as your own. Then you have to figure out, how do I set boundaries with clients and not come off as dismissive, rude, not engaged?
Perception is everything, and tone is everything. And the art of diplomacy. And also making sure you have someone trusted, perhaps, who you can bounce ideas off of to make sure that tonally you’re hitting the right notes.
The secret is the relationships I have cultivated over the last 25 years in every industry. That has really played well for me, in terms of my ability to go back and plug into these people when I need them.
I am someone you might call a connector. People are very appreciative when you help them. In my situation, and a lot of these high-value, high-profile deals that I’ve been working on, I’ve been able to lean on this.
For example, I need contractors. I need to be able to call one of the high-end contractors and tell them, Hey, I’ve got an issue with this house. Can you get out there meet the buyer right now? And can you try and resolve the situation, because the deal is going to fall apart? I’m able to call a contractor to whom I’ve referred a lot of business to over the years. And if I couldn’t get him to come do that, the deal probably would fall apart.
You need to cultivate those relationships. And the way to do that really is with no strings attached, altruistic behavior. And then guess what? They will jump in and help you every single time.
You need to have a perspective and a purpose of what you want. Be intentional. When you take that approach, I think it changes the entire lens of what you want to do in life. Take the student mindset of what it is you want to do. Lean into the education piece of it. Take notes, ask a lot of questions.
You also have to be protective of your time and energy, and set your pace for your lifestyle and who you are. When you’re 40, 50, 60, competing with people half your age literally translates into defeat. Be very purposeful.
It’s been a two and a half year run so far. I was really going by the seat of my pants. So I’ve become intentional in my thought process. I’ve focused on cultivating more of my 25 years of relationships; I don’t need to knock on more doors and compete that way. My strengths are being able to leverage my relationships, my business associations, and different organizations that I belong to.
Look at where you are in life: What’s the best and the most realistic way for you to create your own business, stay ahead of your curve? Every industry is different.
