In 2006, Phoenix real estate started sending quiet warning signals.
Land deals slowed.
Apartments turned into condos.
Speculative money poured in at prices that made no sense.
Anyone paying attention knew the music was about to stop.
I was fortunate—I had savings. What I didn’t have was a plan for what came next.
On a whim, I started Xpleo Media.
There was no master strategy. No long runway of experience. Just a strong cup of coffee, a stubborn streak, and an iMac. I taught myself to code. Built websites. Figured things out as I went.
The technical skills weren’t the hard part.
The hard part was realizing that the one skill I’d never really needed before—relationships at scale—was now unavoidable.
Land investing runs on a small, tight client pool. Marketing doesn’t.
So I did what everyone does when they don’t know better.
I started networking.
When Activity Masquerades as Progress
I went to the events.
Shook the hands.
Collected the cards.
Cocktails in one hand, business cards in the other, surrounded by pop-up banners and recycled sales pitches.
It felt productive.
But something was off.
Most of these interactions weren’t relationships. They were transactions waiting to happen—or worse, distractions dressed up as opportunity.
I didn’t know these people. I knew their scripts. Their drinks of choice. Their elevator pitch. I knew exactly how the conversation would go before it started.
And still, I kept going.
Over time, that effort turned into a box.
Three thousand business cards.
A physical representation of a “network” that didn’t feel real.
The Moment It Broke
One day, I realized something uncomfortable:
I was busy—but I wasn’t connected.
My so-called network didn’t know me. And if I was honest, I didn’t know them either. We were orbiting each other, not building anything together.
So I did something that made no sense on paper.
I threw all 3,000 business cards away.
No announcements.
No farewell tour.
No LinkedIn post about it.
I just stopped.
It felt like loss at first. Like I was burning bridges. But in hindsight, it was more like walking away from a dysfunctional relationship you’d outgrown.
And then something unexpected happened.
The phone rang.
Not from everyone.
Not from most.
From about twenty people.
The Network That Remained
Those twenty weren’t calling because they needed something. They were calling because they noticed I was gone.
They were the people who cared how I was doing—not what I could provide. The ones who wanted to build, not extract.
That became my real network.
Not large.
Not flashy.
But aligned.
We had beers together. Met each other’s families. Helped each other through hard seasons. Built businesses. Failed. Recovered. Gave back.
Opportunities didn’t come from volume.
They came from trust.
That core eventually grew, shifted, evolved—but the foundation never changed.
Character first.
Purpose clear.
Service before self.
What I Learned the Hard Way
Most people don’t have a networking problem.
They have a misclassification problem.
They confuse:
Activity with alignment
Contacts with commitment
Volume with value
A big network without purpose is noise. A small circle with shared values compounds.
Real relationships require:
Shared mission
Mutual accountability
Time investment
And the humility to serve before you benefit
That’s why not everyone fits—and that’s okay.
Saying “no” early saves years of frustration later.
Why This Still Matters
If you strip away the buzzwords, here’s the truth:
Networking doesn’t build businesses.
Relationships do.
And real relationships cost you something.
Time.
Attention.
Ego.
Sometimes opportunity.
But what they return—trust, leverage, resilience—is worth more than any stack of business cards ever will be.
What to Sit With
If you’re honest with yourself:
How much of your “network” is just familiarity?
Who would actually call you if you disappeared?
And are you building proximity—or alignment?
Because at some point, everyone has to decide:
Keep collecting cards…
Or start building something real.
I made my choice the day I threw the box away.
And I’ve never looked back.