The Night I Stopped Just Thinking About It
Morning Reflections with LauraJo
How long can you sit with something — thinking about it, turning it over, knowing something needs to change — before you actually do anything about it?
Does that sound familiar?
I’ve been thinking about that lately. And it took me back to late August 2020.
I was at my desk, working late. Because that’s what I did.
A thought popped into my head:
Hey — it’s COVID. People can’t go into classrooms anymore. I wonder if they’ve put the real estate licensing classes online. No driving. No set schedule.
I stopped what I was doing, pulled up the Arizona School of Real Estate website, and yes. I was right.
COVID was doing what COVID did. And I was doing what I did — working late, managing life, trying to hold it all together. Sixty to eighty hours a week. A good salary, a good job, and absolutely no time left over to wonder who I was outside of all of that.
But in that moment, something shifted.
I can look back now and know I wasn’t really looking for a real estate career. Something else was emerging.
What I was really looking for — underneath all the hours and the busyness and the exhaustion — was some sign that I could still do something different. That it wasn’t too late. That I wasn’t so locked into who I’d been that I couldn’t find something that brought me joy. That was fun.
That there was still a LauraJo in there somewhere who didn’t just want to work.
Who wanted more.
I remember going to find my husband and talking it through with him.
Am I nuts to be doing this?
He was his usual loving, supportive self. Reminded me that I can do whatever I set my mind to doing.
So I signed up for the licensing course on September 1st. Finished it in two and a half weeks. Studied, passed the school exam on a Saturday, and signed up for the state exam the very next day — September 20th.
I still remember standing outside the testing center, waiting to go in, listening to people talk about coming back for their second, third, even fourth attempt. These were experienced Realtors — people with licenses in other states — talking about how difficult the Arizona exam was.
One of them looked at me and asked how many times I’d taken it.
Oh, this is my first time. I just passed the school exam yesterday.
They laughed.
Well, good luck. You’ll be back.
No, I said. I’m going to pass it.
They laughed some more. Like I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I passed.
It was September, which means it was still very warm — let’s be honest, hot — in Arizona. I came out of that testing center with that piece of paper in my hand, got into my car, turned on the AC, and just sat there.
And I remember thinking:
Oh my gosh. I can still do hard things. I can still commit to something and actually follow through.
Something shifted in that moment. Quietly. The way the most important things usually do.
Because what I realized later — what I’m still noticing in myself sometimes — is that there’s this space between knowing something and actually moving on it. I had been thinking about change for a long time without actually doing anything about it.
Maybe you know that space too.
I didn’t end up selling real estate.
What I ended up doing was something I couldn’t have named yet — rediscovering who LauraJo is. What she wants. Who she is underneath everything she’d been doing and being for everyone else.
I had lost myself somewhere along the way. And I needed to find my way back.
That question — who am I, really? — is part of what this space is about.
Not because I have the answers. I don’t.
But because I’ve learned there’s something powerful about being willing to ask the question at all. As one of my daughters once reminded me: get curious.
So maybe that’s where we begin. Not with a plan. Not with an answer.
Just with the question.
Who are you, underneath it all?
You don’t have to answer that yet.
Just ponder on that. Notice what comes up.
And here’s what I really want to leave you with today:
How many of us are sitting in that same space — feeling a gentle nudge, a quiet yearning, knowing something but still just... thinking about it?
What’s something you’ve been thinking about but haven’t moved on yet?
Don’t answer out loud. Just notice.
Ponder on that.
Press play if you want to hear this in my own words — that’s where this space will probably feel most like me.
Make it a great day! 🌿