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One thing New York City teaches you pretty quickly is that nothing stays the same for long. I’ve spent enough years in commercial real estate and business to know that the market you’re looking at today won’t be the market you’re looking at six months from now. Sometimes that’s an opportunity. Sometimes it’s a problem. Usually it’s a little of both.
I don’t spend much time trying to predict every change that’s coming. Most of those predictions are wrong anyway.
What I pay attention to is what’s happening right now.
What are business owners talking about? Where are people investing? What are tenants asking for? Where are people hesitating? The answers tend to tell you where things are headed before the reports catch up.
A lot of business owners get attached to a plan. I understand it. You spend time building something, so naturally you want it to work the way you imagined it would. The reality is that sometimes the market wants something different.
I’ve changed strategies, adjusted priorities, walked away from opportunities that looked good on paper, and pursued others that weren’t even part of the original plan.
None of that felt dramatic at the time. It was just responding to what was in front of me.
The same goes for setbacks. Every business owner has them. Every entrepreneur has moments where a decision doesn’t work out the way they hoped.
Regroup, figure out what happened, and keep moving. That’s really been my approach through most of my career.
Stay aware. Pay attention.
Don’t get so attached to a plan that you miss what’s actually happening around you.
The businesses that last aren’t usually the ones that got everything right from the beginning. They’re the ones that know how to adjust when things change.
And in New York City, things always change.
xoxo,
Cyn
