Most children dream of being astronauts, athletes, doctors, or attorneys. At eight years old, I just said, “I want to be an entrepreneur.” Looking back, I don’t even know where I learned the word, let alone where I’d seen one.

Fast forward to my early teens. My parents take me to a new housing tract under construction. We pull into a lot of pure dirt and my first thought is, “We left the house for this? I’m walking through dirt just to get to wood.” Then my mom opens the door. Whoosh. My eyes light up. I am twelve years old and I have just fallen in love for the very first time. I’m walking through the skeleton of a house and running my hand along a rounded staircase. My mom warns me about splinters but I don’t hear her. My heart is so full that the skeletal frame of that building feels more alive than anything I’ve ever known.

My mind had already pivoted before we even left the dirt. It shifted from homes to, “I want to do this with the buildings that have all the stores.” Weeks go by and I can’t stop thinking about that house and wanting to do this thing “with all the stores.” One day I am sitting in the back seat of my mother’s car and I look out the window at the local retail centers. On one side it is a regional center of about a half a million square feet of space. On the other side is a neighborhood center. I didn’t know the term “commercial real estate” back then but I had finally laid eyes on my purpose. I glared out the window and told myself, “I want to do that.”

I grew up and I did exactly “that.” I got my license and navigated the nuances of commercial real estate from retail property management and leasing to sales and back again. But there was one problem. I felt out of place. It wasn’t the dream I had imagined. The “Quiet Luxury” of the industry’s upper class and legacy-educated made the industry feel like a private club where the entry fee was a history I hadn’t been gifted with and an image I couldn’t maintain. I realized that for many the doors aren’t just heavy. They are locked and that lock was going to be hard to break.

Good thing that kid in the back seat was incredibly headstrong.

As they grew up they saw what the world offered and what it lacked. They heard the statistics and they saw the rooms. They heard the conversations and they experienced the rejection. But it wasn’t enough to halt the vision. Those experiences were simply the roadmap leading to a greater purpose. Rooted in that purpose is a collective of other headstrong people with just as much talent and passion as the visionary standing before them.

Drawing from their own playbook they know that sometimes the most powerful plays are the ones made in silence. Silence amongst the strongest of the most underestimated can pack a punch no one sees coming until it’s already landed.

Welcome to Powerhouse.