At the Collaborative Real Estate Summit, I outlined six leadership traits that have guided my career. In earlier articles, I explored five of these traits that have guided my career.
To close this series, I want to focus on the role of vision. Because without big ambitions, even the strongest leadership principles fall short.
Why Big Ambitions Matter
Marcus Aurelius once said, “A person’s worth is no greater than the worth of their ambitions.” That truth has shaped my career. From early on, my philosophy has been simple. Go big or go home. If you’re not willing to think boldly, why bother?
No one wakes up in the morning and decides to be mediocre. Everyone wants to be great, but greatness doesn’t come by accident. It requires leaders to be purposeful about stepping outside of the day-to-day grind and making room to dream.
Knowing the importance of ambition is only half the battle. The real challenge is creating the space to think boldly when the demands of leadership press in.
Making Space for Bold Thinking
Every leader I know is busy either running deals, managing teams, or solving problems. That busyness can crowd out the time needed to think about the future. That’s why I set aside what I call “time boxing.”
Each week, I block out a time on my calendar that’s non-negotiable where I think about what’s next. Sometimes I’ll step out of the office, go to the cafeteria, or find a quiet library space. The point is to separate from the daily noise and ask, “How can we go bigger? How can we go bolder?”
Andrew Carnegie once said that those unwilling to think boldly are destined for mediocrity. I firmly believe that. Teams don’t rally behind “good enough.” They want to be part of something that aims for the stars.
Once you make space for bold thinking, the next step is to turn those ideas into action. For me, that often means setting ambitious goals.
The Power of Stretch Goals
At SEI, I became known for setting stretch goals. These are targets that at the start of the year, even I knew we probably wouldn’t fully hit.
The team didn’t always love it at the moment, but there was a reason behind it. If you shoot for the stars, you might miss, but you could still hit the moon. If you only aim for the moon, you may never leave the ground.
The higher you set your sights, the more you and your team will achieve, even if you fall short. That’s the essence of daring to dream—pushing beyond what feels comfortable to discover what’s truly possible.
Looking back, it’s clear that dreaming big and aiming high has defined not just my leadership style, but this entire series of principles.
Looking Forward
Daring to dream is about more than ambition. It’s about carving out the space to think boldly, setting goals that stretch your team, and refusing to settle for “good enough.” It’s the mindset that transforms possibility into progress.
Over the past few articles, I’ve shared six leadership principles that have shaped my journey: persistence, authenticity, continuous improvement, transparency, failing fast, and daring to dream. Each one stands on its own, but together they form a framework for leading with conviction and building organizations that last.
Leadership is about staying persistent when the path is hard, being authentic when pressure tempts you to conform, striving for improvement when success makes you comfortable, practicing transparency when silence would be easier, embracing failure when risk feels daunting, and daring to dream when the world tells you to play it safe.
These principles have guided me for decades, and my hope is that they’ll serve as guideposts for you as well.
