What a Kitchen Table Conversation Taught Me About Career Resilience

Why the right traits matter more than titles, tools, or resumes.

The second listing appointment of my real estate career felt very different from anything I’d experienced in marketing leadership.

There was no overly “perfectionized” PowerPoint deck to distribute. No reputation to lean on. No crutch or safety net within reach.

Just a kitchen table, a couple I’d only recently met, and the quiet realization that whatever happened next would depend less on my credentials and more on how I showed up in that moment.

Not long before that, I was still in marketing—moving through a season I hadn’t planned for. After being laid off twice in 18 months, I found myself doing what many marketers do in uncertain moments: trying to understand what still mattered when the fragility of titles, teams, and tools became impossible to ignore.

That’s when I started noticing a pattern.

Many of the people who seemed most resilient weren’t the most specialized. They weren’t necessarily the best at using a single platform or program, either. Instead, they carried certain traits with them, no matter where they went.

Almost a year ago, I coined the term “Traits That Travel,” and I began writing about these critical characteristics on LinkedIn—not as a manifesto, but as a way to make sense of my own experience. The eight traits include:

• Accountability

• Reliability

• Curiosity

• Flexibility

• Persistence

• Transparency

• Clear, consistent communication

• Enthusiasm

At the time, it felt more like a working theory than a foundation for professional growth and success.

I didn’t realize how quickly I’d be testing it.

The experiment I didn’t plan to run

Marketing is obsessed with outputs.

Frameworks built.

Campaigns launched.

Pipelines influenced.

Those things matter. They always have.

But when I stepped into real estate, none of them mattered in the way I expected. No one cared about my portfolio. Being relatable—human—mattered more than anything I expected.

When Jay Mandel recently interviewed me about my transition from marketing to real estate, we both described it as a pivot. In reality, it has felt like both a leap and a stripping away.

In marketing, many of these traits are real and, in some circles, valued. But in my experience, they were often buffered by systems and leaders that prioritized predictability over adaptability.

Accountability looked like hitting a quarterly target, no matter the emotional cost.

Persistence looked like a rigid roadmap that extended six months out.

Communication looked like town halls that rarely, if ever, provided the clarity people needed.

In real estate, the buffer disappears.

• Accountability means there’s no one else to hand the outcome to.

• Reliability means being trusted to guide one of the biggest financial decisions of someone’s life.

• Curiosity means learning contracts, neighborhoods, negotiation, and human psychology—quickly.

• Flexibility means adapting in a market that doesn’t care about your plan.

• Persistence means hearing “not yet” far more than “yes.”

• Transparency means telling the truth even when it risks a deal.

• Communication means explaining what’s happening in a way people can actually understand and use.

And enthusiasm—something I’ve always valued—took on a different weight. Not because I suddenly became more confident, but because momentum had to come from somewhere when confidence was low.

What marketing taught me—and what it couldn’t

Here’s what surprised me most: none of this made marketing feel irrelevant. If anything, it made me appreciate it more.

Marketing taught me how to think, how to frame ideas, how to communicate in ambiguity. But stepping outside the industry clarified something else: the skills we talk about most often are supported by traits that receive a fraction of the focus.

How many of us have worked with people who looked ideal on paper but struggled in practice? Or others whose resumes didn’t fully capture their impact?

Yet our hiring systems, performance metrics, and career narratives still prioritize what’s easiest—and most comfortable—to quantify.

Here’s the hard truth:

Across industries, we hire for familiarity with tools. We promote based on visible outputs. We evaluate talent based on past responsibilities, not behaviors that fuel future growth.

But when the environment changes—and it always does—it’s the people whose traits travel that adapt first and, arguably, best.

Titles are blurring. Career paths are no longer linear. And in that reality, the most dangerous assumption is that success is tied to a role. My transition isn’t proving that marketing skills are obsolete.

It’s proving that the right traits make just about any skill portable. Some skills stay in industries. Traits? They travel.

And if there’s anything this season has taught me so far, it’s that these eight traits may be the most honest measure of whether someone can thrive—no matter where they end up.

-

Marc Thaler is a Broker/REALTOR® with The Jim Allen Group - Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston in Raleigh, North Carolina. Follow him on Instagram and LinkedIn, and learn more about his JAG journey.