“Akiko-san, thank you for everything!”

Manao, whom Calder absolutely adored, finished his one-year exchange program and returned to his university in Japan.

While staying with us as a homestay student, Manao had taken over from Shotaro in helping Calder with his homework for Japanese school.

Every Saturday, Calder attended the Columbus Japanese Language School. The school follows the same curriculum guidelines established by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Keeping up with that curriculum with classes only once a week meant there was a lot of homework.

Calder had lived in Japan until he was three years old. But after spending his days immersed in English at a local preschool in Columbus, within a year, his Japanese had virtually disappeared.

There was an obvious gap between Calder and his classmates at Japanese school, many of whom spoke Japanese every day at home with both their mothers and fathers.

Even with Manao, whom he adored, getting him to do his homework was a struggle.

“Calder, why don’t we just quit Japanese school?”

I can’t remember how many times I said those words.

Every time I did, Calder would look away, tears running down his face, and silently shake his head.

No.

He didn’t want to quit.

If quitting wasn’t an option, then I had to find a way for him to continue.

One of the other mothers at the Japanese school told me about a tutoring school in Dublin that helped children keep up with their Japanese studies.

Around the same time, I had been receiving offers from other real estate brokers.

“I want to build a brokerage made up entirely of agents who specialize in working with real estate investors.”

That one was different enough to catch my attention, so I agreed to meet him for lunch.

“No desk fees. I’ll give you your own office. We’ll pay for your signs, lockboxes, and business cards. How about an 85% commission split? Would that convince you to join us?”

By then, I had finally begun to understand just how many different real estate business models existed.

Brokerages came in every shape and size, and the terms, fees, and compensation structures offered to Realtors varied enormously.

I hadn’t gotten my real estate license because I wanted to become a real estate agent, so these were things I was only now beginning to learn.

I was also beginning to realize something else.

I was no longer in the same position as a brand-new agent who had just received her license. I had a track record now—and that gave me room to negotiate.

Still, I wasn’t thinking about changing brokerages.

I threw away the typical recruiting mailers as soon as they arrived. Even when I went to lunch with brokers who tried to recruit me, once I declined their offers, that was usually the end of it.

Except for one broker.

He was different.

He kept contacting me.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Finally, I gave in.

“OK! I will come to see you tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.”

I agreed to meet with Kurt for one simple reason: I figured that once I met with him, heard what he had to say, and politely declined to move to his Re/Max office, he would probably stop contacting me on a regular basis.

And then I discovered that his office was just around the corner from the Japanese tutoring school I was considering for Calder.

Before meeting Kurt, I had an appointment with the owner of the tutoring school, about 30 minutes from my office in downtown Columbus.

For now, Calder himself wanted to continue attending Japanese Saturday school. So what I needed was simply someone who could help him with his homework and keep him from falling behind in class.

But if the day came when he could no longer keep up, I wanted to ask them to start over and teach him Japanese again—this time at his own pace.

“Look! He escaped from the zoo!”

Three-and-a-half-year-old Calder, who had only recently arrived from Tokyo, spotted a squirrel playing in the park and excitedly said this to an American man standing nearby, pushing a little boy about Calder’s age on a swing.

The man smiled at him.

“Sorry, I only speak English. But wow, you sure can talk!”

Maybe Calder assumed that a man with a child his own age—someone just like his dad—would naturally understand what he was saying.

So he simply spoke to him in Japanese.

And the man kindly answered him anyway.

Calder had always been outgoing, the kind of child teachers described as “the life of the class.”

I wanted him to adjust to life in America as quickly as possible, so I encouraged his English.

Perhaps a little too much.

Children have an incredible ability to absorb language. Calder learned English astonishingly fast.

But in less than a year, Japanese—the language that had once been his first language—had almost completely disappeared.

If I gave up on Japanese Saturday school, there might be no path left for Calder to keep speaking Japanese.

And suddenly, something that had been weighing heavily on me finally lifted.

If Saturday school eventually became too difficult for him, this tutoring school could be another way forward.