A life in progress.
The short version.
My name’s Chris.
I run a real estate business called River Realty, lead a team of people I care about deeply, and try to stay human while doing both.
I write here because I need somewhere to put what I’ve lived through.
And because I know I’m not the only one trying to lead, build, and grow, without losing the thread of who we are.
The longer version.
I grew up in a house where silence carried weight.
Where you learned early what to say, what not to say, and what to carry quietly.
There were things I held back then that no child should have to.
And for a long time, I thought the only way through was to harden.
To build armour.
To push forward.
To get on with it.
So I did.
I started working young.
Started leading young.
Started holding pressure like it was a badge of honour.
I built things.
Businesses, teams.
A family.
And then watched some of them break.
Divorce. Burnout.
And a long stretch of pretending I was fine when I wasn’t.
I used to think leadership meant having all the answers.
Now I know it just means being the first to go deeper,
particularly when you really don’t want to.
To be honest first.
To go quiet first.
To say what’s real to yourself first.
Then having the courage to share.
What I believe now.
That we don’t need more polish.
That resilience isn’t about performance, nor was it ever supposed to be.
It’s about recovery.
I also believe that stillness is a strength, not a threat.
That healing doesn’t have a timeline.
And that building a meaningful life takes honesty, humility, and often comes with a few broken pieces.
Why this site exists
Part of it is for me.
To get things out of my head, onto a page,
and into something that makes a bit more sense.
Part of it is for others.
For the people who are holding a lot, struggling quietly, and trying to stay good while doing well.
And part of it is a pushback.
Against the ideal of an industry, and a culture, that keeps convincing us we have to be “more” to be worthy. Or that the mask matters more than the human underneath it.
This space is my reminder that it doesn’t.
That there’s strength in being honest.
In going slow.
In showing your work, even when it’s messy.
And if anything here helps someone else remember that, even for a moment, then it’s done more than I could hope for.
So if you’ve scrolled this far…
I hope you find something that feels like permission.
To slow down.
To lead differently.
To drop the act.
To stop waiting for someone else to go first.
There’s no funnel.
No course to sell.
No pitch coming later.
Just some things I’ve learned, usually the hard way, about what it means to lead, lose, rebuild, and stay human through all of it.