Deals don’t just live on spreadsheets. They live in conversations. They live in proximity.
Some of the biggest opportunities in my career didn’t come from cold calls or marketing campaigns. They came from being in motion, having conversations, and being surrounded by the right people.
Just last week, a normal bike ride turned into a group chat with friends — one flying his plane, another entitling hundreds of acres for master-planned communities. By the end of the day, we were talking about carving out 150 acres in Florida for a potential aviation development or buying an existing 80-acre farm with a private airport on it.
The next day, a routine call with a broker in San Antonio turned into a conversation about a 75-unit apartment complex near our target area as a value-add play. The next call was to our broker who has a potential buyer for our small apartment building in a sub-market in Michigan. This deal could be traded into one of these next deals.
That’s entrepreneurship. Normal days, normal conversations — but when you’re surrounded by builders and doers, those conversations turn into opportunities.
Proximity creates perspective. It forces you to think bigger. When you’re in the room (or the chat thread) with people buying deals like buildings, farms, developing communities, and building software to underwrite commercial real estate deals, your definition of “normal” shifts. Flips and wholesales start to feel small and will go undone. You start thinking about multi-million dollar deals, going vertical, acres and niche communities, not just flipping doors.
That’s why proximity is non-negotiable. If you’re surrounded by people who are content to coast, you’ll start coasting then eventually stall. If you’re surrounded by people who build, you’ll start building and the momentum builds.
The skill I’ve always had is connecting people. It made me a great wholesaler when I flipped hundreds of deals. Now it puts me in the middle of multi-million-dollar conversations about aviation communities and master developments or hometown multi-family deals. That’s not luck. That’s proximity.
If you’re serious about scaling, audit your circle. Who are you riding with? Who’s texting you mid-flight? Who challenges your definition of what’s possible?
Because in this game, your circle defines your ceiling.
— Steve