Do you remember back to your first time being a manager? It doesn't even have to be in property management/multifamily housing. What made (or broke) that experience for you? If there was something you could change, what would you have changed? If there was something you didn't know back then, that you wish you had, what would it be? If you had a stellar first managerial experience, what made it so great?

I'll share my story in hopes it will encourage you to share yours. My first managerial experience was not in property management, it was in retail and I was 19 years old! They had just fired the Store Manager and Assistant Store Manager and had promoted me from Inventory Supervisor to Store Manager. I had NO experience (and no business) managing a store and was clearly unqualified, but also very eager. I was hungry to obtain professional success (or what I thought was professional success at that point in life) and was a fast learner. The rest of the team was shaken up from them letting go of the Store Manager and Assistant Manager but understood why. Even in my inexpertise, the two ex-employees' immaturity far outweighed anything good that they may have brought to the table. Overall, there's nothing I would have changed about it or anything that I look back on and wish I had known. I wish I had maintained the connections I had built then for a longer period of time because I stepped out of being a manager for a few years and really needed some guidance once I got back in. I wish I had found a mentor at that point to call back and say, "Hey, I need your advice!"