09/28/2026
💪 Monday Motivation
2006. 2016. 2026.
Three completely different seasons of my life.
And when I look back at them today, I'm reminded of something I've learned over and over again:
Growth doesn't stop just because you reached a goal.
Five years ago, I shared a post about the difference between who I was in 2001, 2011, and 2021. A lot of people connected with that story because those years represented some tremendous highs, lows, struggles, changes, and victories in my life.
But today, I want to look at the journey from a different perspective.
🙏 In 2006, I was still a young man, but my life was already changing. I had become a father. I was working in retail management and learning what it meant to provide for someone besides myself. I was learning responsibility, leadership, sacrifice, work ethic, and how quickly life can force you to grow up.
I certainly didn't know where my life would eventually take me.
But looking back, I can see that God was already preparing me.
🏡 In 2016, I was a brand-new real estate agent.
No brokerage of my own. No big organization. No awards. No long list of accomplishments.
Just a new career, a lot of ambition, a willingness to work, and a belief that I could build something meaningful.
I started full-time in December 2015, and I hit the ground running.
Within three years, I had created my own independent real estate team of half a dozen or so agents.
Two years after that, I took the systems, processes, training, and experience I had developed through that team and my year-round real estate classes and built Property Champions from the ground up.
For five years, Property Champions became an incredibly important and successful chapter of my life and career. We grew across the Tri-State Wiregrass region, helped a tremendous number of people, developed agents, built relationships, and accomplished things that the brand-new agent in 2016 would have been thrilled to know were coming.
And I'm proud of what we built.
But here's something I've come to understand:
A dream coming true doesn't mean you're finished dreaming.
A goal accomplished doesn't mean you've reached the highest level you're capable of reaching.
And the end of one successful chapter certainly doesn't mean the story ended with it.
📈 Now it's 2026.
This December will mark 11 years in real estate. So much has happened and been accomplished in that short time, and somehow the opportunities in front of me today are greater than anything I imagined when I started.
Property Champions wasn't the finish line.
It was preparation for something bigger.
Those five years taught me an enormous amount about leadership, business, people, systems, training, recruiting, relationships…and myself. They helped me better understand my strengths, identify areas of opportunity for further development, sharpen my mission, and recognize what I ultimately wanted my organization and my life to become. By the end of five years, that wasn't the same as the beginning. It had evolved.
And then, in God's timing, the right people and opportunities began coming together. God certainly works in mysterious ways.
My good friend and mentor Joshua Smith and his GSD organization partnered with Jay Kinder and Honey Badger Nation alongside Mike Sherrard and the Wolfpack. Less than a year later, I made the decision to merge Property Champions into that partnership as well. It wasn't just one of them that changed that, and it wasn't just two of them either. It was the extremely unique opportunity to partner with all three of them at once and unite all three teams and organizations with mine that made that difference a reality.
Suddenly, the ceiling became much, much higher.
🌎 What had once been an organization of a couple dozen people concentrated primarily in our local area has evolved into being part of something involving hundreds of fellow team members across the United States and in several countries.
We're no longer limited to one office.
One city.
One market.
One or two or three states.
Or even one country.
And I'm sitting here in little ol' Dothan, Alabama, looking at everything God has allowed me to experience and thinking...
Who would've thought? Where are you taking me, Lord?
Who would've thought that little redheaded Stevie from Milmor Village and Southside Elementary School would grow up and have the opportunity to help so many people and positively impact thousands of lives, right here from the Wiregrass and what others may think of as the “sticks of Alabama”?
And the part that excites me most?
I don't believe I'm anywhere close to finished.
There can be a tendency in life to look at someone's accomplishments and assume they've reached their destination.
He built the company.
He got the awards.
He accomplished the goals.
So...what's next?
More growth is the answer.
Not simply bigger for the sake of being bigger. Nope, I've learned that's not the goal.
The goal is…
More opportunities to serve.
More people to help.
More relationships to build.
More people to teach.
More lessons to learn.
More places to go.
More ways to grow.
And more goals I haven't even thought of yet.
Because personal development changes your goals.
The person I was in 2006 couldn't have written the goals I had in 2016.
The person I was in 2016 couldn't fully imagine the opportunities I have in 2026.
And I certainly hope the man I become over the next ten years can dream bigger than the man writing this today.
❤️ More than anything, though, I am grateful.
Before anything, I'm grateful to God and my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I can't express that enough in my prayers.
I'm grateful for every client who trusted me.
Every agent who believed in me.
Every person who took one of my classes.
Every mentor who poured into me.
Every friend who encouraged me.
Every person who referred somebody to me.
Every person who supported one of my businesses.
Every person who opened a door.
Every person who prayed for me.
And every family member and friend who believed in me through the years…both those who are still here in this life to see this chapter and those loved ones I miss so much and desperately wish were here to see it.
Knowing that I've made people I love proud means more to me than I can put into words. It truly does.
And, again, above everything else...
Thank You, God. Thank You, Jesus. 🙏
I've learned that God's plan doesn't always look like the plan we wrote for ourselves.
Sometimes a door closes because there's another one we haven't seen yet.
Sometimes what we think is the destination turns out to have been preparation.
Sometimes God allows us to accomplish the thing we prayed for…and then shows us that He had something even bigger in mind.
So if you've accomplished a goal recently, don't become complacent.
And if a chapter of your life recently ended, don't automatically assume you failed. Don't let others project themselves onto you. There's more to be done.
Keep growing.
Keep learning.
Keep developing yourself.
Keep serving people.
Keep setting goals.
Keep trusting God.
The goal isn't to spend the rest of your life protecting yesterday's accomplishments.
Become the person capable of accomplishing things yesterday's version of you couldn't even imagine.
I was blessed in 2006.
I was blessed in 2016.
And, Lord knows, I am tremendously blessed in 2026.
But I don't want to spend the next decade looking backward at what I've already accomplished.
There's too much life left to live.
Too many people left to help.
Too much potential left to develop.
And too many opportunities still ahead.
The journey isn't over.
In so many ways, I believe it's just beginning.
The future is incredibly bright, and I couldn't be more excited to see where God takes us next.
Thank you to everyone who has been part of these first chapters.
I can't wait to see what we write next. ❤️
Go out there and MAKE it a great week! 💪
