Posted on
November 27, 2025
by
Karli Fortin
Today’s my last day in La Ventana… and there’s something about leaving a place that shows you who you’ve become. Who you once were. What you’ve learned. How much you’ve grown. How the choices you made brought you to the people you’ve met and the life you’re living today.
La Ventana is the place where I decided to become a Realtor.
I remember the exact moment.
I was lying on the top bed of my truck camper, gazing out the window with my head lazily resting on my soft pillow. I watched the kiters zoom back and forth, jump and twirl. But something inside had shifted - the fire for the sport that once consumed me wasn’t there anymore. I felt complete with that chapter.
For five years, kiting had separated me from my first career as a plumber - eventually working renovation contracts on hotels in Whistler and Vancouver. I had exasperated every angle of that work. I still enjoyed pieces of it, and I loved the people, but my wings needed to spread. I knew it for years. YEARS. I filled my best friend’s tireless ears with ideas: massage therapist, physio, horticulturalist, acupressurist… the list was endless.
One day she said something that still rings in my ears:
“Just do it. Time is going to go by anyway. Try something. Go for it.”
Famous words from my sweet Erica that still carve my life's existence.
But the analysis paralysis was still my disease.
And there I was in that camper, uninspired by my sport after devoting my life to it, traveling and kiting for eight months out of the year… and my heart felt it so deeply:
It’s time to devote myself to a career that will be my everything. A place I can pour my heart and soul into.
Becoming a Realtor was never something I saw coming.
It was a “fuck it” moment in a La Ventana café. I clicked “Enroll” on the real estate course. I just needed to DO something.
My first attempt failed. I didn’t prioritize it, albeit I tried. A year passed. I traveled some more, went back to plumbing, tried… but I didn’t finish in time.
By then, I knew my goal had to become a real goal - not a fantasy.
So I bravely asked for a layoff, went on EI, shoved myself into a tiny home built cubicle with physical walls on each side, and disappeared inside my determination and hard pressed focus.
For three months I studied eight hours a day, as fast as the course allowed.
I wrote the exam and passed with 87%.
I was SO excited to start this career.
After drooling over mortgage math, after swimming through legal jargon, after pushing my brain harder than I ever had… I came out driven. Inspired. Hungry to help people. Hungry to learn everything. I said yes to every odd deal because I’m resourceful and I trust myself. And because this industry is full of helpers - I knew I was never alone.
Fast forward six years, and I’m here again - returning to the life I left, seeing it through completely different eyes. The version of me who once devoted every cell of her body to sport has transformed into a deeply devotional agent, someone who loves supporting people through some of the most stressful, meaningful, and life-altering chapters they’ve ever walked through.
Some people come to real estate for the hustle or the lifestyle.
I came to it ~ or.... maybe it came to me ~ for the service.
I live to support people through the unknown, the transitions, the grief, the excitement, the ride, the stepping-into-something-new, something beautiful.... I live to make the heavy parts feel lighter. To create clarity where everything feels overwhelming. To hold the details so they can hold their emotions. To celebrate the magic, the synchronicities, the dreams coming true, the passion for life's growth being expressed. I'm here for it.
I cherish the opportunity to treat people’s lives as important as my own.
To carry their decisions with the same weight and care as if they were mine.
My clients’ needs and choices become my top priority - not because I’m supposed to, but because it’s who I am. Agency is a profoundly beautiful thing. It is a massive honour. It asks you to step into someone else’s world with respect, with heart, with courage… and advocate like their future depends on it. Because it does.
And something happens when you do that — when you live for someone else’s peace of mind, their safety, their success.
A different kind of strength wakes up.
It’s internal, quiet, grounded - not loud or performative.
It’s the kind of strength that doesn’t always emerge until purpose calls it forward.
Supporting people has become my fuel, my clarity, my devotion.
This work gives me something that sport never quite did - a reason to rise into the very best version of myself, one decision, one deal, one human at a time.
This is the life I’m living now.
One deal at a time.
All in.
Fully devoted.
