Inside the Group Chat: The Support Every Leader Needs

In the real estate world, fewer than five Black women own Keller Williams franchises out of over 800. The usual advice is to compete harder, hustle louder, and claim your seat. But a conversation with Julia Lashay, Oglah Gatamah, Koren Bowman, Kymber Lovett-Menkiti, and Gabby Davis points to something else. The most reliable competitive advantage is not individual grit; it is a trusted circle of peers who understand your exact pressures, mistakes, and ambitions. The result is that leaders who build such circles grow faster, carry less invisible weight, and create opportunities that compound over years. If you have ever felt alone at the top, stuck in a draining competitive dynamic, or wondered why some people accelerate while you grind in place, the answer is not more effort. It is who you let in.

Why the Scarcity Mindset Is a Self-Fulfilling Trap

The most obvious reason women compete is the belief that there is only one seat. Julia names it directly:

"I think it's scarcity... this idea that there is only one seat available... how do you actually shift the scarcity to the abundance of actually like the tables actually better when there is more?"

Here is the downstream effect most people miss. When you operate from scarcity, you hoard information, guard your contacts, and hesitate to recommend others. That feels safe in the moment; you protect your turf. But