Yesterday was the fall equinox, one of two moments each year when day and night are roughly equal.

Today, they aren’t.

The balance has already tipped. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer, and nobody calls that a failure of the system. That’s the system working exactly as it should.

I’m thinking a lot about balance this week. Mainly how overrated it is and how it seems like an unattainable societal goal, particularly the idea of work-life balance. Especially in real estate, where “balance” mostly means you managed to eat lunch sitting down.

There are weeks when work wins. Three listings coming on, two deals threatening to fall apart, a client texting you at midnight because apparently no one told them you’d achieved work-life balance. Then there are weeks when things quiet down and you can sneak out on a Tuesday afternoon, take the long lunch, actually make it to the thing your family’s been asking you to show up for, and act surprised when they act surprised.

That’s the deal.

And yet we spend an enormous amount of energy trying to engineer some perfect equilibrium, giving the right amount of attention to our work, our families, our bodies, our friends, our homes, and ourselves, all at the same time.

I don’t think that place exists.

Your regular résumé tells me why you’re qualified. Your alt résumé tells me who you actually are.

I think about this a lot because I spend an unreasonable amount of time reading real estate agent bios, and I have some questions.

Do you really have a lifelong love of architecture? Did you really get into real estate because helping people find a home has always been your calling? Are you sure your unique combination of market expertise, tireless work ethic, and deeply personal approach is what sets you apart?

Because there appear to be several thousand other agents with the exact same unique combination.

This isn’t a criticism. We’ve all been taught to do this. Somewhere along the way we learned that sounding professional meant editing out anything that couldn’t be connected directly to our qualifications. So we keep the sales awards and lose the summer we spent on a fishing boat. We mention the MBA and leave out the mediocre band we played bass in for ten years. We list transactions but not the fact that we grew up above our parents’ restaurant, spent five years designing theater sets, or once moved to Argentina without knowing a single person.

Those things may have nothing to do with how good you are at selling real estate.

But they have quite a lot to do with you. And that’s what most bios are missing. Not another credential. A person.

So make an alt résumé. Not a list of secret strengths. Not ten hardships followed by what they taught you. Please don’t tell me hitchhiking through Ireland taught you resilience.

Just write down ten things you’ve done that would never make your actual résumé. The strange jobs. The detours. The things you tried and abandoned. The places you lived. The worlds you briefly belonged to.

We spend so much time trying to sound impressive that we forget impressive and interesting are not the same thing. One gets you taken seriously. The other makes you someone people actually want to work with. Your alt résumé knows the difference. Trust it.