There’s a spot on Kilimanjaro – Africa’s tallest free-standing mountain – where a vehicle can reach you for the first time on the descent.
Before that point, if something goes wrong, your options are a helicopter or a stretcher carried by porters. There is no other way out. So you move, and you deal with whatever you’re feeling, because you don’t really have a choice.
After summitting and beginning the long trek down, I arrived at that spot more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life. And for the first time on the entire mountain, I had a choice. A truck could pull right up, I could climb in, and it would all be over. I’d already made the summit. Nobody could take that away.
I won’t sugarcoat it — I thought about it for more than a hot minute. My legs were rubber. My lungs were shot. Every reasonable voice in my head was making a very compelling case for that truck.
But I had made a commitment. So I stayed.
I rested. And the next morning something close to remarkable happened — I felt like myself again. Not just recovered. Alive. That final day out of the mountain turned out to be one of the most memorable of the whole expedition. Views I would have missed. Conversations I wouldn’t have had. A fullness that no truck ride could have ever delivered.
Scottish mountaineer and writer W. H. Murray said it better than I ever could:
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.”
And then he quotes Goethe: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
I’ve turned those words over in my head hundreds of times since that climb. Because in this business — whether you’re a broker-owner trying to scale, a COO trying to fix a culture that’s drifting, a recruiter who keeps getting “I’m good where I am,” or a top agent sitting on a decision about where they really want to plant their flag — there is always a truck waiting on the descent.
It shows up as the market that “isn’t quite right yet.” The recruiting conversation that keeps getting punted. The value proposition you know is strong but haven’t sat down to put into words. The agent who’s been half-out the door at their current firm for eight months but hasn’t made the call. The truck is always there, and it is always tempting.
Here’s where I want to get real about recruiting — because this is where I see broker-owners leave the most on the table.
The agents you want are not sitting around waiting for someone to hand them a better split sheet. The high producers, the ones who close volume and bring energy and lift everyone around them — they’re watching. They’re watching whether the leaders at your firm are committed. Whether the vision is real or just a pitch. Whether the people in charge believe it enough to act on it, invest in it, stake something on it.
Committed leadership is a recruiting tool. Full stop.
When you stop hedging and start deciding — to build the training program, to hire the support staff, to nail down the mortgage and title partnerships, to show up consistently with your agents instead of just during review season — that energy travels. Agents talk. Word gets out that something real is happening at your office. That is how you attract people who are serious about their career, not just shopping for a better deal.
The agents worth recruiting are not looking for perfect. They’re looking for committed.
And the ones already on your roster? They’re watching the same thing. Retention and recruiting are not two different problems. They’re the same conversation.
The hesitancy Murray describes is not weakness — it’s human. Every broker-owner I’ve respected has felt it. Every record-breaking agent has stared down that moment of “maybe one more quarter.” The difference between those who build something lasting and those who stay stuck is not talent or market conditions. It’s that one moment of definitive commitment — and what it unlocks.
When you commit, your energy shifts. Your conversations change. The right people start showing up. The affiliate relationships that stalled start moving again. Your team feels it and responds to it. Murray called it Providence. I call it what I watched happen on that mountain — when you stop leaving yourself an exit, the path forward gets sharper.
The brokers who grow in any market — good, bad, weird, compressed — are the ones who stopped standing at the truck.
They rest when they need to. They adjust the pace. But they never get in.
Whatever you’ve been sitting on — begin it. The last leg is closer than you think. And it’s usually the best part of the whole climb.
If you want to talk about what commitment looks like for your firm right now — recruiting, retention, culture, growth — I’m around. Let’s have a real conversation.
