Earlier last month I was getting ready for the biggest professional event of my 40+ year career. I had been working every day, for the prior six months on developing a dream CRE brokerage event, we called “MassimoCon”. My goal was to make it the greatest conference in the brokerage industry’s history.

I had invested more money than any real estate project and admittedly invested more time, energy, and attention than I should have. And then it happened.

On the day before the scheduled event, I was hit with a blinding, nauseating migraine like never before. I was paralyzed with pain and shortly thereafter the realization that everything I envisioned, planned, and worked for was gone. Or so I thought.

When my team was informed of my condition they quickly went into action and revised the two-day event to minimize my time on stage. Even the presenters I was working with adjusted and adapted.

At one point two presenters told me to go back to my hotel room and get back to bed. “Rod – we got this”, they shared. “We got this.” I went back to bed and knew everything was going to be ok.

The result was the conference was better without me monopolizing the stage. The event went off without a hitch and our sold-out audience didn’t realize the magnitude of my ailment. More so the critiques on social media supported that MassimoCon was a one-of-a-kind, great event.

Who are the people in your life that will be there when everything seems out of control? Who are your wingmen? Who will say “we got this” when things seem at their worse?

Rod Santomassimo, CCIM, is founder and president of the Massimo Group, LLC, New York, N.Y.