In 2013, former professional skier Athena Brownson faced one of her career’s most thrilling challenges at the European Open in Switzerland — dropping into a 25-foot sushi-shaped snow bowl and battling her hero, freestyle skiing pioneer Sarah Burke.

“I ended up nailing it, and I beat her and was able to go into the final round,” Brownson told Homes.com.

It was a dream come true for the 35-year-old. Now, Brownson works as a real estate agent at Compass, leading her team, the Vesta Collective, in Denver.

“It's been a life,” Brownson said.

She grew up in the mountain town of Breckenridge, Colorado. “My father was a professional skier and a real estate developer,” Brownson said.

She said she took after her father, Jon Brownson, when it came to skiing, but not in real estate — initially. “I really equated it with just walking really cold job sites with my father when I was young,” she said.

She became a professional skier at the age of 15. “I was able to get paid to ski, and they would pay for my travels,” she said. For about a decade, she skied all over the world 300 days a year.

“I honestly think everything I know about business and life in general probably came from my years of skiing,” Brownson said, noting that it taught her about discipline and accountability.

Brownson was training for the Olympics when she hurt her knee. She retired at 24.

She decided to follow in her mother's footsteps, Lee Brownson, by pursuing a career in interior design. “I always really enjoyed going to pick out tile with her and meeting with architects to understand floor plans and how properties were going to be laid out,” she said.

Brownson enjoyed being an interior designer, but she said she was missing something. She wanted a career in which the amount of input reflected the output.

After speaking with a friend, Brownson was introduced to her mentor, who showed her the real estate world from a different perspective. “We had more real estate offices in Breckenridge than T-shirt shops, which is saying something,” she said, “so I thought Realtors were a dime a dozen.”

Her mentor offered her a different perspective and humanized the industry for her.

“He really explained to me the importance of a relationship-based business and creating lifelong relationships with clients to be able to be their trusted adviser, to help them make one of the most important decisions to buy or sell or invest that happens in their lives,” Brownson said.

For Brownson, the best aspect of skiing was not just the travel and achieving her goals but flying through the air.

“I really got good at the art of visualization, which is something that's super important in my business now, but I always knew that in skiing if I could imagine myself doing a trick and landing it in my head, that I could do it on snow,” Brownson said. She hurled herself off 100-foot jumps “doing back flips and 720s and 1080s,” she said.

“I really loved the thrill of being able to visualize something [and] then know that I can do it in real life,” she said.

While she was earning her real estate license and recovering from neck surgery, Brownson was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

“The last nine years have just been a journey to get my health back, which is something that only in the last year has really started to happen,” she said. “Through that, real estate was my driving force because I have loved it so much.”

She hopes to ski again for the first time in nine years this winter. “I'm really excited to get back on snow because I think I'm finally healthy enough,” Brownson said. “I didn't think I would ever ski again."

The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What trends are you seeing in your market?

I'm in the greater Denver metropolitan area, so my team covers everything from Colorado Springs to Boulder. Honestly, in my 11 and a half years of real estate, I would say this is the most challenging market that we've experienced. We have about five months of inventory, which is completely unheard of for Denver. Two years ago, we couldn't even keep a property on the market for more than a day or two. Now, our average days on market is closer to 70 for properties under a million. It's honestly a really great time for buyers.

What is the biggest mistake you see new homebuyers make?

Being afraid to ask questions. I think everyone kind of has this preconceived notion that they should understand what a real estate transaction looks like. No one ever learns how to get a mortgage or what it looks like to keep your credit score in a healthy place or let alone what a real estate transaction looks like. I would never go to doctors and expect to know what they were going to be doing to me in knee surgery, what the steps involved are. I think oftentimes new homebuyers get intimidated by the process.

What are you binge-watching?

I am so corny, but I've been watching "Selling the O.C." [and] "Selling the City." "Million Dollar Listing" is my favorite show. I love anything real estate related. I just watched a series called "Goliath." I think it's on Peacock with Billy Bob Thornton. It's three seasons. I would highly recommend it because it is captivating. He's a lawyer taking down big corporations.

What are your other hobbies?

I'm big into fitness. I work out like a crazy woman, mainly to keep myself sane. I do a lot of weightlifting and high-intensity circuit training. And then I'm a big crafter. I'm a total nerd when it comes to arts and crafts. I actually have a little side hustle of making really cool patched-out hoodies, jackets and things like that. I can't sit still, so if I can be doing something with my hands, that keeps my mind calm.