Submission AbstractI grew up around real estate investing, so I learned early on how powerful real estate can be in shaping a life—from building a home to building long-term wealth. I chose brokerage because it gave me a front-row seat to the industry. It allowed me to meet people, learn their strategies and truly understand the business so I could eventually apply those lessons to my own journey. To me, development is the genesis of real estate. Understanding how projects are conceived, designed, financed and brought to market allows us to see the industry from a fundamentally different perspective. Rather than operating on a transactional hamster wheel, working in development sales creates the opportunity to understand real estate holistically. It reveals what it truly takes to create the products that agents sell, and it deepens our understanding of the community, the marketplace and the industry as a whole.