Last weekend, the TWR Group executive team and I spent three days in Dahilayan for a strategic planning session with Jonathan Lee—and it turned out to be one of the most meaningful and clarifying experiences of my real estate journey.

Jonathan has been in the industry for over three decades. He built his own realty from the ground up, grew it to 50 agents, became its CEO, and eventually led it through an acquisition. He later became CEO of Keller Williams Malaysia and scaled it to nearly 1,000 agents. Listening to someone who has actually built and scaled at that level is a rare privilege—and truly a blessing.

What struck me most wasn’t complexity. It was simplicity.

One of my biggest aha moments during the session was this:

The real estate business is actually very simple—we’re the ones who tend to complicate it.

When everything was stripped down, it all came back to just three fundamentals:

Leads. Listings. Leverage.

That’s it.

An agent needs all three to succeed. And as leaders, these are the three things we should constantly be talking about. Everything outside of these? Mostly noise. Mostly distraction.

You need leads—because without leads, there is no business. You need listings—whether preselling or brokerage—because listings create inventory, credibility, and momentum. And you need leverage—through tools, admin support, media, systems, and leadership—so agents can focus on what actually moves the needle.

What was mind-boggling to me was this: I’ve been in the industry for over a decade. We’ve built businesses, teams, and systems—but we hadn’t fully codified the business down to its pure fundamentals.

And that’s the lesson.

When you can make something simple, it means you truly understand it. And when you truly understand it, you can finally teach it.

That clarity changes everything.

This experience reminded me of my core responsibility as CEO:

• To cast a clear vision
• To set clear standards
• To empower people to uphold those standards
• And to hold the team accountable with consistency and integrity

Our vision is bold and clear: 1,000 elite agents nationwide by 2030.

Not growth for the sake of numbers—but excellence at scale.

Those three days were rewarding, meaningful, and deeply productive. We didn’t just talk about goals—we broke them down into simple tasks and executable strategies that will allow us to actually hit them.

This retreat wasn’t about hype. It was about clarity. It was about fundamentals. And it was about building something sustainable, teachable, and repeatable.

Sometimes, the breakthrough isn’t learning something new. It’s finally seeing what’s always been there—clearly.