How to Pivot Into Real Estate After Setbacks | Akeem Raji on Pressure to Pivot

Akeem Raji (00:00)
I would say my key advice and and just my my personal experience, I will always say start off part-time, you know, slow roll it, take it day by day. The biggest thing is get a mentor in that new field that you’re trying to pivot to. Somebody that has gone through it before you. Cause nine times out of ten, they know the mistakes that may come your way. They probably already experienced it, and that can help you kind of just navigate and actually avoid certain risks.

Dylan Silver (02:02)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by returning guest, Akeem Raji, a Metro Atlanta realtor who has a background in music and the corporate world, and he’s soon to be releasing a book, Pressure to Pivot, which we’ll be discussing here today. Akeem, thanks for joining us again.

Akeem Raji (02:22)
Thank you. Thank you for having me, man. It’s honor to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:26)
Now let’s talk about the inspiration for this book, Pressure to Pivot. Where and when did you decide to start writing a book?

Akeem Raji (02:37)
I decided to start writing a book last year, around November. I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues and he was like, “Listen, man, you should write a book about your experiences. You’ve went through a lot of adversity, you’ve had to, you know, retrace your steps and pivot, whether it be from music, being in the corporate world and then transferring into being a realtor, doing real estate.” He is like, “So you know a thing or two about trying to, you know, kind of regain your steps after just what most would say falling off or having like an obstacle in your way and just most people probably wouldn’t be able to figure out, but you know, you kinda have to turn lemon into lemonades, you know.” So yeah.

Dylan Silver (03:25)
And you know, when we talk about being able to pivot, this is something that a lot of real estate investors and folks throughout the real estate segments—anyone that you’re in—have had to face and are facing currently. You’ve done it several times. Is there any one lesson from the book which, you know, you feel might be most applicable when people are going through these pivots that they’re making?

Akeem Raji (03:28)
And we—I would say keep this in your mind that nothing is happening to you, it’s happening for you. And also whatever we call losses, which are really lessons, use that as data to propel you to the next level. And when I say that, kind of look into what you did and what you didn’t do and kind of just refine it and retune and get back on the trail and keep going.

Dylan Silver (04:17)
Now you mentioned a couple of pivots that you’ve you’ve had to make and I read a a short portion of the book earlier today and it was talking about basketball and we were talking in the green room about basketball. How had those early, you know, memories and experiences impact the way that you’ve approached some of the more recent pivots?

Akeem Raji (04:21)
E, o, yeah, remember. Well, I think the biggest thing is I’m also a spiritual person. So I look back and I put God first in everything I do, first and foremost. So with those situations, I always remember that God brought me through and I always came out better on the other side. Also with these experiences, I noticed that I always took out the positives, focused on that, and then anything that was a situation that I fell short on, I made sure I just worked on it. Whether it be let’s say we’re gonna get back to basketball, right? Let’s say I had to work on my left or work more on my shots or free throws, that’s what I would focus on for the next go round, you know? So yeah.

Dylan Silver (06:13)
Now, when we talk specifically about what happens during a pivot, I’ve had to make several of these myself. One of the first things that I’ve recognized is a element of almost suspended disbelief. Like, “I can’t believe this is happening, right? I put so much time and energy into this, and now this isn’t gonna work.” And this has now happened, you know, several times where I’ve become almost accustomed to having to deal with it, but I feel like—

Akeem Raji (06:19)
Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Dylan Silver (06:42)
In our generation and—and the younger generations are having to make more pivots than older generations where, you know, you might come out of school and you might get a job, that job might not, you know, pan out, or the—the business might shut down and there might be, you know, funding issues, or, you know, the whole field that you’re in might become less lucrative, or there may be more opportunities elsewhere. And so having to make these pivots while jarring seems more relevant now than ever.

Akeem Raji (06:49)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. I agree, especially with the whole thing of AI coming into play, a lot of people getting laid off, and enormous amounts. It’s not just like hundreds, we’re talking about thousands of people getting laid off. I think now more than ever, people need to learn and kind of dive into their skills and be more creative. Think outside the box. Because everybody’s has something that they’re good at. Something that they do every day that’s—that comes second nature that they’re not thinking about, that they’re not capitalizing on.

Dylan Silver (07:43)
Like to maybe back up if we can and dive into one of the pivots that you mentioned, which is going from corporate to real estate. And for a lot of people who are looking to make a similar transition, one of the most challenging things is the consistency aspect because people are already maybe somewhat tired or fatigued from their corporate job and they’re trying to get involved in real estate, and they may be either doing it part-time or just diving full in.

Akeem Raji (07:46)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (08:14)
It’s a not a straightforward transition going from, you know, a predictable income to something that’s unpredictable. How have you managed to find yourself along that journey as a—a realtor?

Akeem Raji (08:27)
I would say my key advice and and just my my personal experience, I will always say start off part-time, you know, slow roll it, take it day by day. The biggest thing is get a mentor in that new field that you’re trying to pivot to. Somebody that has gone through it before you. Cause nine times out of ten, they know the mistakes that may come your way. They probably already experienced it, and that can help you kind of just navigate and actually avoid certain risks and propel you a little bit faster along than others.

But my main thing is just having a good mindset towards it, giving yourself grace. Know that it’s possible—not I’m not even going to say possible, you’re going to make mistakes. So don’t be hard on yourself and know that this is going to take time. This is something new. It’s just like a baby from crawling to walking, then walking to running. It is all a process. So just trust the process. Take your time, take it day by day. Worry about your own pace. Don’t compare yourself to others. And most importantly, going back to what I said earlier, make sure you get a mentor who has expertise in the field that you’re going into.

Dylan Silver (09:37)
You know, mentorship is one of these things that can hugely expedite the learning curve, right? And so when people are looking at making a pivot, one of the things that they don’t often, or in—in many cases, consider is that their past experiences from something totally unrelated can be very much applicable. Like take basketball to real estate. Well, what is, you know, related? That competitive spirit, you know, working well in a—in a team.

You know, I’ve even had, you know, basketball coaches on the show, and I’m not going to do it justice, but talk about each component in a starting five, you know, whether that’s your—your realtor, your lender, you know, a wholesaler, you know, your—your source of funding if it’s not, you know, traditional financing and then one other, right? And so where do you, you know, see yourself in that? And so when we make these pivots, oftentimes we discredit or discount our previous experience—

Akeem Raji (10:09)
Well, no.

Dylan Silver (10:37)
But with a mentor in place, they can help us see, okay, I’m not just jumping into this with, you know, no skill sets that transition here.

Akeem Raji (10:37)
Yeah, I agree. I think that’s very true. I’ve—I’ve had people, even mentors that came in and let me know like, “Hey, listen, you—you can’t let go of what you learned from the past, whether it be in your music career, corporate—those things work hand in hand.” And that’s the biggest thing. With music, a lot that comes into it is promotion, marketing yourself, putting yourself out there. It’s like sales. People have to buy into the brand. Same thing as a realtor. They have to buy into your brand and trust you to guide them to buy a home.

So what do you do? You got to put yourself out there. You got to go to networking events. Same as you do with music—you go to networking events, pass your—your music around. You’re selling yourself to the labels, just like as a realtor, you’re selling to your—yourself to potential clients that you can represent to either buy a home or even helping them sell their home. So that’s one thing how I looked at it. It went hand in hand. Whether doing flyers, things of that nature, marketing ads on social media, it all was one and the same when I looked at it. I was like, “Okay, I already know how to do this. I’ve been on the radio doing interviews. All I have to do is now kind of translate that experience into real estate,” which is what I’m doing today.

Dylan Silver (12:41)
Now, for folks who are listening and are, you know, hearing about your background and they may be looking at careers, you know, either as a realtor, you know, corporate or—or music, and maybe they’re trying to decide, you know, “Well, where do I fit in?” Based on your experience, looking back, is there anything that maybe you would have done differently? Would you have started with music? Would you have started with corporate or would you have started with—with real estate?

Akeem Raji (12:44)
Mm, that’s actually a great question. My thing is—my—my motto really, I walk around with no regrets. But if I were to change anything, I probably would have started with real estate. Definitely, definitely real estate, because it’s been around me my entire life. My uncle’s in real estate. I remember when I bought my first—first home at the age of thirty, it was just all around me all the time. My father talked about real estate all the time. Everybody around me was pretty much involved in real estate. But at that time I was just so involved in my corporate job and, you know, doing the music, I just felt like I didn’t have the bandwidth. But going back I would have started with real estate for sure.

Dylan Silver (13:58)
You know, it’s one of the most fascinating things about being a real estate operator, realtor, you know, investor is that we are innately tangent to real estate, even if it’s unintentional. We’re renting somewhere, we’re living somewhere, right? And so you can either kind of, you know, do the back seat and—and, you know, let yourself get taken along in the real estate journey, or you can be the one driving—

Akeem Raji (14:13)
Right. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (14:27)
The—the car, the train, so to speak. And so once you start to see, okay, well, I’m renting here, I could be owning here, and then you own the one, then you rent it out, and now you have two properties, and then, you know, you’re on the brokerage side, so you know, well, okay, I can help other people who want to maybe replicate the success that I’ve had. Even if it’s not something that is necessarily right off the bat some huge cash flow, money making operation, that those extra connections, those extra transactions have a—

Akeem Raji (14:42)
Exactly. Right.

Dylan Silver (14:57)
You know, trickle down effect that is huge.

Akeem Raji (15:00)
Right, correct. I do agree. And I—and I’ll even do you one better—like even going back to music, people who is out there like artists who’s doing music right now, think about you going into that studio that you’re recording music, you have to buy your time. You have to pay for studio time, right? And that building’s being rented out. So the thing about if you go into real estate, you buy a building, build out your own studio, you then own that building, you own that studio. Now you record your own music for, f, for free and you also charge other artists who can pay you to record in that same facility. So it’s—it’s always a bigger picture to it when dealing with real estate.

Dylan Silver (16:23)
I mean, no question. I mean, when we’re talking about these studios, I’ve heard people, you know, who have podcast studios that they’re renting out. And so there’s so many, I would say, new and emerging ways for people to make money in real estate that, e, it seems like every month or every quarter there’s something new that I’m learning about, right? I do want to pivot here though and ask you about the process of writing this book. There’s a lot of guests that I’ve had and then also, you know, folks that I interact with here in Texas who are interested in writing books, but you’ll get started and you’ll realize this is a kind of a heavy undertaking. “I’ve got to write a couple chapters here. It’s got to sound good and you know, I’m trying to put my best foot forward. Who’s gonna read this, right?” How has the process of writing a book gone about for you?

Akeem Raji (17:04)
Line, run. For me, once again, it—I learned a lot about myself. I learned how patient I was. I learned how deep I can go into my self reflection, especially when it’s a book like this, you really have to self reflect a lot. And also the strategy behind it, right? So there’s no burnout. I gave myself a goal. Every day I was like, “I’m gonna write a page a day. I’m just gonna write one page a day.” And I’m just gonna put my thoughts out. I’ll tell people don’t think too much about it. I didn’t, because the first draft is not gonna be perfect. The most important thing, you want to get your thoughts out.

And you also wanna kind of create an outline of how you want the book to flow. So every chapter, I would say for me, I came up with a title—and I came up with a title for every chapter before I actually even put the content in between the lines, if that makes sense. So I knew the direction I was going to, especially when I came to a chapter, “Okay, this is what I’m working on today. This is what I’m gonna focus on.” And then when I went to the next, it was—and—and it just became an ongoing process until maybe four months to six months later I was done with it, got it edited, and then I was ready to go.

Dylan Silver (18:34)
Any major challenges that you would tell folks if they’re writing a book, you know, “Don’t do it this way,” or, you know, “Utilize some of the—these techniques”—any—any gold nuggets for folks who are looking at becoming an author?

Akeem Raji (18:48)
I would say now that we’re in twenty-twenty-six, make sure you utilize AI as much as possible to streamline a lot of this stuff, especially when it comes to editing. Invest a lot into AI.

Dylan Silver (19:02)
I can imagine that. I was just gonna say, read—reading and rereading, you know, the—the work that someone has written about themselves or about their own life and they’re trying to say, “Is this good? You know, how should this be worded and what’s this gonna come off?” And if the book’s long, you know, how long does that take? I can imagine the editing process takes quite some time.

Akeem Raji (19:15)
Right, right. And—and I would also say make sure like whatever title that you first come up with, don’t get too attached to it ’cause you may have to change the title, you may have to change some things, tweak things here and there, because you just never know what could happen when it comes to like, you know, ownership, copyrights, things of that nature. So that’s one thing you gotta look at as well.

Dylan Silver (19:44)
We are coming up on time here, Akeem. Thank you for—for joining us today again. Anything else you’d like to mention directly to our audience?

Akeem Raji (19:47)
Yeah, yes. So July tenth, twenty-twenty-six will be the official drop of Pressure to Pivot. It is actually an ebook. Right now I do have an email list. The link is provided on my Instagram page, Raji the Realtor, or you can also go to my YouTube page, which is also Raji the Realtor. And then I’ll have the link in my description. I have the link in my bio. Feel free to contact me, Raji the Realtor, and also email me at Raji Investment Group.com ([email protected]). You can reach me there as well. And once again, Pressure to Pivot July 10th. When one door closes, I’ll be there to open the next. All right.