About Malcolm Lawson
Malcolm Lawson is a real estate agent with REAL, a content creator, Air Force veteran, and single father to a special needs child. Malcolm joined REAL in 2021 when it was less than 1,800 agents and has been helping it grow into what it is today. Malcolm has personally attracted more agents to the company than any other agent and is an official “Growth Ambassador” for the company.
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My Story Of How I Got Here
Military Career
My story really begins when I was 20 years old and decided to join the Air Force. My career took me all over the world, including 2 years living in Misawa, Japan, 5 years at Andrews Air Force Base, and 4 years working at the white house as part of the White House Communications Agency.
During this time, I also started my first YouTube channel for fun! It’s called Survival Know How and it has around 200,000 subscribers today, and that’s really where I learned about video editing and YouTube.
White House
While working at the White House, I got to travel all over the world and had the privilege of meeting & working for 3 U.S. presidents. President Obama, President Biden (then VP) & President Trump. In total, I spent 11 years in the Air Force, and the biggest thing I got from my time in it was just confidence in myself!
My Son Aiden
In 2015, while working at the White House, my son Aiden was born and forever changed the path my life was on! We did not know it at the time, but Aiden was born with a genetic disorder known as Fragile X, which causes severe intellectual disabilities and autism. He was a very stressful baby, and with me traveling so much, this obviously put a lot of stress on my family.
So in 2017, I decided to leave the Air Force and find a career field that paid better and that had more flexible hours so I could help take care of my son. My mom is a real estate agent also, and so, with zero experience with sales, running a business, or marketing, I left the military to become a full-time real estate agent.
My Real Estate Career
I joined my mom at Keller Williams Realty. Coming from the military, I really respected Gary Keller’s leadership and read all of his books!
I fully drank the Keller Williams Kool-Aid and did every painful thing they told me to do! Made cold calls, knocked on doors, and handed out my business cards to complete strangers in shopping centers…all of these things killed me inside every time I did them.
That first year in the business was obviously rough, but I worked my but off 7 days a week from sunrise to sunset and somehow survived my first year.
With my background as a YouTuber, I knew there had to be a way to leverage video to generate business. And even though there were practically 0 real estate agents making YouTube videos in 2017, I started experimenting with them myself and pretty soon actually generating leads from them!
By 2020, my YouTube channel was consistently generating me deals, and I closed 30 transactions that year, which I was pretty proud of for being my third year in the industry.
In 2021 my path forever changed again. As Mike Tyson says, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”.
In February 2021 my wife of 11 years divorced me with split custody of my son. The divorce rate is higher for couples with kids with disabilities because of the added stress. So in 2021, I found myself a single parent of a child with disabilities, trying to run a real estate business, which is no easy task. I was under a lot of stress at this time. The stress of having my entire life savings more than cut in half, the stress of losing my wife whom I’ve known since I was 15, and the stress of being a single parent.
I gave it my all, but in the end, I realized I had to either reduce the number of transactions I did or sacrifice the amount of time I spent with my son. My son is my big “why” in life. I knew giving up any time with him was non-negotiable for me.
REAL Broker
Around this time, I had three really good friends join a new brokerage called REAL Broker. After some talking with them, I found myself on a video call with Time Macy, Brad McCallum and the CEO and co-founder of the company, Tamir Poleg.
I could tell instantly that Tamir was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met; he had a bold vision for where he wanted to take REAL, and he seemed like he had the skills to carry it out.
REAL also offered something that my previous brokerage did not, and that was an additional stream of income in the form of revenue share for helping the company grow. With my new life circumstances, REAL offered me an opportunity to still earn a living while doing fewer transactions and spending more time with my son.
My Life Today
Fast forward almost 3 years since I made the decision to join REAL, and I have carved out a pretty comfortable life for my son and I. I make a full-time income from revenue share for helping grow the company, and this has allowed me to reduce the number of homes I sell.
Joining REAL did not just change my business, it changed my life and allows me to spend more time with my son.
They say “the worst thing that ever happened to you often turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you” and I think about this a lot. Because of my son, I left the military and took a chance at being self-employed and realized that I LOVE being self-employed and am never going to have a boss again in my life! In 2021, my son again challenged me, and I joined REAL because of it, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made for the two of us!
