From Bretts;

A 23 year old Brett, one year removed from college (Go Herd) and one month into a life changing career walks into work one day to find out the man who hired him has been removed from the position. In walks the regional manager, along with him a tall, intimidating figure stating how he is going to change the culture, productivity, efficiency, basically everything about the job Brett had come to know. He would be the new boss of the office. Just as I am thinking to myself, what have I gotten myself into, he introduces his second in command, a beautiful brown haired girl by name of Peyton (yes she told us she was named after Peyton Manning when she introduced herself).

For those of you who are unaware of the structure of TQL, you train under a successful broker for 6 months and learn the ins and out of the job through them while helping out with day to day workload. Fast forward 3 months, COVID hits which results in some cuts to the office along with my broker at the time pulling me off the floor to let me know he is leaving the company and will no longer be training me. At this moment I pretty well knew whose account I was bound to be training under, that beautiful, crazy girl from Knoxville, TN. For those who are not aware, Peyton and myself have very similar personalities, stubborn, driven, competitive, always think we know what is best at any given moment, also sprinkle in a dash of ADHD tendencies for both of us…. Needless to say the combination of her and I as a team at the time was great at times and other times we both drove each other crazy. As terrible as COVID ended up being for the world, I’m not sure if Peyton and I would be together today had that not happened. While 95% of our office chose the work from home option, there were about 4 of us who chose to come to work every single day. It was during those next 3 months I learned that Peyton was really one of the most kind, fun, and caring people I had met. She taught me a lot about the job in those 3 months, how to sell, how to manage a book of business.. she even celebrated my first close with me. It was during that time period I really started to view her in a different light, this beautiful, driven, independent woman with a bubbly personality.. unfortunately she was my boss and I knew I couldn’t take the shot I really wanted to. Of course Peyton and I never lost our competitive spirit, I still to this day remember Peyton stating at one point in time she didn’t think I would be a successful broker because of some of the habits I picked up on the job. At the time, the determination to prove her wrong would be my driving factor for roughly the next year after I had been freed from the chains of her account.

Over the course of the next year I devoted myself to building my career and growing a successful book of business, often being the last one to leave the office. Once she started to see that I was motivated to make the job work and be a part of the team she was helping grow, we began to grow as friends. Once I had established myself, she pushed me to join the leadership team of the office and in a lot of ways, be her number 2 on the team. Much in an effort to impress her originally, I joined the leadership team and started working closely with her yet again. As time progressed I got to know Peyton even more and started to wonder if the boundaries of boss and employee could be crossed. It wasn’t long before TikTok’s were being exchanged between the two of us (a true Peyton love language) and I knew we could potentially be on to something. One night would be all it took to change the course of both of our lives. A Friday night get together with a whole crew of people from work at a local bar. It was cold out, and while waiting for the rest of our friends to show, a very scared Brett took a shot and kissed Peyton in the front seat of her Camry. From that moment on we were inseparable. We became best friends and partners all at the same time. Two years later it would be the same spot we shared that first kiss at that I would ask her to marry me.

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Crowne Plaza Knoxville Downtown University