A Story of Impact from KW Next Gen
Bryce Thompson had been in real estate for exactly one month when his team lead, Mark Dilworth, told him he should come to a Quantum Leap class.
He was 25 years old, born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida. He hadn’t gone to college. He’d never attended anything like a personal development course. He wasn’t sure he was the kind of person who did those sorts of things.
He showed up anyway.
“That was the first time I had ever been to any sort of growth course,” Bryce says. For the first time, someone was showing him not just that his dreams were possible — but how to actually get there. “He showed me what goal setting is and what it means to make my dreams feel attainable rather than just so far away.”
Since then, he says, a lot of those goals that felt far away he has accomplished. What started as one day in a classroom with Mark has grown into something Bryce can barely describe with words. “It’s more of a feeling when you’re involved.”
Growing up, Bryce didn’t have many people in his corner who could show him a different kind of path.
His dad stayed in the corporate world. Bryce wanted something else for his life — entrepreneurship, something of his own. But he didn’t grow up around business owners. There was no one close to him who could model what that looked like or help him figure out how to get there.
“My dad is awesome,” Bryce says. “But I just wanted a different path for me and my family. And I needed someone who could teach me that.”
What he needed wasn’t someone telling him what to do. He needed someone who would help him get to wherever he wanted to go. “You need a mentor that’s gonna let you do what you wanna do, how you wanna do it, and guide you there safely. You do whatever you want — I’ll help you get there.”
KW Next Gen, he says, gave him that. It surrounded him with people who could.
When Bryce was matched with his Quantum Leap coach, Aubrey Bailey, the work went well beyond career.
Aubrey told him his goals weren’t too big. He said they were too small. He pushed him to stop thinking only about business and start planning his entire life — where he wanted to travel, what kind of home he wanted, whether he wanted kids, when he was going to start the family he’d been building toward.
“He wasn’t just focused on me growing business wise,” Bryce says. “He was focused on me just growing as a man, as a person, as a being.”
That shift changed how Bryce used the GPS and 411 — the Quantum Leap goal-planning tools he credits most for changing his life. Where a lot of people think of goals in terms of work and productivity, Bryce started seeing the GPS as a blueprint for everything.
One of his first real goals he put on it: propose to his girlfriend of six years.
“People were saying to just propose,” he says. “For me, it was bigger than that. Putting it on the GPS made it a real goal for me to follow.” He bought the ring. He planned the trip. He got it done before the end of the year.
“Before I knew it, I just started pulling the trigger on things that I was really scared to do,” he says. “Because they felt like such big things. And the GPS shows you very quickly that they’re much smaller than you think.”
Bryce used a Fund My Mission Scholarship to attend Family Reunion — Keller Williams’ largest annual conference — where he was able to network with professionals from across the industry. It was there that he and Kaitlyn Pennington, KW Next Gen’s Events and Engagement Manager, first met in person, and it was the start of a relationship that would eventually bring him to QL Summit as a leader.
That scholarship wasn’t just about one conference. It was about opening a door he wouldn’t have opened otherwise.
“You never know what door you walk through that will open up more opportunities for you,” he says. At QL Summit, he found exactly that — including a two-hour conversation with Jeff from Tuck Media, a former QL attendee who makes videos and photography for KW Next Gen events. That conversation, Bryce says, gave him the guidance that pushed his new venture over the edge.
In her role, she becomes that protection. If a student needs transportation, she figures it out. If they need food, she figures it out. She speaks for them in rooms where their voices don’t carry far enough.
“I don’t want anyone to feel left behind,” she says. “Everyone should have an equal opportunity to grow and to learn. That’s not optional.”
He and two business partners are now launching Coastal Studios, a real estate media company in Northeast Florida that combines his passion for photography and videography with his career in real estate. He’s getting married this November. He still teaches Quantum Leap at his office, often brought in by Mark to share his experience with new students. He introduced his sister — now in coaching while at FSU — and his teammate Donya, who has used scholarships herself.
The ripple effects keep moving outward.
“I realized it didn’t just change my life,” he says. “It changed my sister’s, changed one of my friends, changed the lives of the people I impacted.”
When Bryce looks back on who he was before Mark handed him that invitation, the biggest thing he sees is his own thinking — the ceiling he’d put on himself without realizing it.
“I started for so long just admiring the monuments of top business professionals,” he says. “And now I’m chiseling away at my own and building my own monument for myself and my family.”
He’s 27 years old. He’s teaching the same class that changed his life, and watching other young people walk through the same door he did. He knows the feeling on the other side.
“Your dreams are possible,” he says. “Just go to Quantum Leap and let them help you accomplish them. And they will.”
Bryce was supported through KW Next Gen’s Quantum Leap program, Quantum Leap Coaching, and a donor-funded Fund My Mission Scholarship. To read more stories of impact, visit kwnextgen.org.
