The first record I can find in my digitital footprint about BP was an email my wife sent to me with a blog post on here about short sales in 2009. I think I may have come across the site here and there occasionally, but I dont think it made any lasting impression on me til 2013 when @Brandon Turner sent me the following email in April 2013.

Awesome Russell! I'm glad it worked!
Hey - are you on BiggerPockets yet? If so, send me over a colleague request sometime! If not - do it! :)
Seeya around! Let me know how things go!

We were trading emails about one of his spreadsheets I had purchased off his own personal site. The right email, at the right time, would have a dramatic impact on my professional life going forward, and I had no idea. This was right around the time that I was getting ready to leave my well paying job in healthcare to become a full time investor and real estate agent, and BiggerPockets would become a huge part of my success over the next 6 years.

Ive been thinking a lot lately, with this 10,000th post coming up and having just turned 40, what the keys to my success have been. While there are probably hundreds of little things that have added to it, I think the #1 key to my own success, and I think for many others, is that I surround myself with successful people.

My social circle is filled with very successful people...a congressional chief of staff, a dod policy advisor, a partner at a major DC lawfirm, the head of social media for Fannie Mae. Ive been friends with the same guys for 20+ years now, and we have all grown a careers to amazing heights together. In my professional life Ive surrounded myself with some of the most successful people in my industry. When I moved into being an agent full time, I decided to join the market leading brokerage in my metro area, and decided to join the highest producing office of that company, and decided to measure myself against the top agents in that office. Now I am right there with those individuals in the top 1% of this profession. Then in my online life, here on BP, I too surround myself with incredibly successful people like @Mindy Jensen, @Alexander Scott Felice, @Joel Owens, @Brie Schmidt, @Dawn Brenengen, @Darren Sager, @Ryan Murdock, @Ned Carey, @Jay Hinrichs.

Alex says Broke is a Choice.....and similarly, I am a big believer that Success is a Choice, and the start of that success is surrounding yourself with successful people. Because then you have no choice but to also be successful.