As I enter the midpoint of my career, one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is those who came before us possess an abundance of knowledge that can simplify our paths and help us avoid costly pitfalls.

In Commercial Real Estate especially, where cycles repeat with eerie predictability, tapping into that hard-earned wisdom is one of the smartest moves any of us can make. A CRE-specific example is the legendary Trammell Crow Company memo from 1989, titled "Lessons Learned in the Southwest."

In 2001, when you needed an answer to a question, you had to visit the school/college library, find a Dewey decimal number, and pull a physical book off the shelf. That same year, Destiny’s Child topped the charts, Apple dropped a new thing called iTunes, and Shrek (the original) ruled the box office. Quietly, something else launched in the background: Wikipedia published its first article, and changed research forever.