What I Learned From the Man Who Changed My Career

I’ve been lucky to have incredible people around me through every season of life.

These days, the people I spend the most time with are my business partners, which makes me especially grateful for the strong bond we’ve built. When you’re in the trenches together, pulling long hours, and making high-stakes decisions, you want people like them with you. 

Vincenzo, Pat, and Nikita have been by my side through some of the biggest moments in my career, good and bad. And when it came time to take on a massive redevelopment project like the old Kmart site here in Raleigh, I wasn’t doing it alone. Nikita was right there beside me.

From the outside, it just looked like an old vacant building on the side of the interstate. But to those of us who’ve trained our eyes to look differently, it was an opportunity hiding in plain sight.

That’s something Nikita Zhitov, my business partner and one of the sharpest investors I know, taught me to see early on. He has a gift for finding value where others see nothing. A kind of real estate X-ray vision. And over the years, that skill has turned overlooked properties into multimillion-dollar wins.

One of my favorite things he taught me was about my network. At the time, I was lost and planning to move abroad, leaving behind Raleigh to start a new life. Nikita helped me understand the value of my network and how I could use it as a superpower for my next adventure in commercial real estate.

He said, "If you move abroad with all the gold you've mined in Raleigh, you're effectively dumping it into the ocean. It may be there when you land in Bali, it may not. If you stay, you can leverage all your work to mine that gold and put it into a new venture (CRE)."

That mindset changed everything for me. It reminded me to look deeper. To value all that I had built. And to double down on the overlooked, undervalued assets already around me—whether that’s relationships, my reputation, or even an old Kmart lot.

Now, Nikita’s putting that wisdom into a book. It’s called Expandability of Investment Real Estate: A Guide to Uncovering Hidden Cashflows & Equities in Plain Sight.

It’s a practical guide packed with strategies that help you uncover what most people overlook. It will teach you how to:

• Identify untapped income opportunities hiding in plain sight

• Increase property value through practical, proven techniques

• Boost NOI and accelerate long-term wealth-building

• Implement innovative strategies like short-plating and sub-metering

Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just dipping your toes into CRE, this book will sharpen the way you look at deals. And more importantly, it’ll teach you to stop leaving money on the table.

I’ve seen firsthand what Nikita’s strategies can unlock. 

I’ve lived it. Now, you can learn it.

Let’s get better at seeing the gold that’s already beneath our feet.

Order your copy now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFYRBZKZ

- G aka the Grateful Partner