Values Will Outlast Content
I found my favourite high school teacher through an AI search. This is what he taught me – again.
I found my favourite high school teacher through an AI search.
I know. Stay with me – this is a good story.
I wasn’t looking for him. I'm preparing for a webinar, kicking the tyres on Gemini 3 Pro – testing what the new model could do so I could report back to my students – and I’d pointed its deep research at the area where my mother-in-law Carole lives. You know how it goes. One rabbit hole leads to another. And there was his name. I hadn’t thought about him or algebra in years.
So Mark asked Carole (his Mum) if she knew him. Turns out she did. And somehow, she got him to call me.
My favourite teacher from high school, calling out of the blue. It was super cool he even remembered me among the many hundreds of students he had taught over the years.
But, genuinely, it was the best surprise of the year. Possibly several years.
And… it was enough to make me reflect on so many things from that time.
So I messaged him on Christmas Day because I needed him to know that he’d mattered. That, amongst the hundreds of students he’d taught, the lessons had stuck. Not the Maths lessons – I can’t remember a scrap of trigonometry. I’m talking about the kind of influence you don’t fully recognise until decades later, when you’re trying to be a good teacher yourself.
He wrote back with another one-liner that stopped me in my tracks:
“I always believed values would outlast content.”
I’m still thinking about it, so that’s the reason for writing my thoughts down now.
Here’s the thing about Mr Morris: (NB he insisted I call him by his first name now I’m old enough, but for this post, I’ll protect his privacy.) In the classroom, he was always just this calm, steady presence that made you feel like you could do the thing – whatever the thing was.
Maybe that’s why I’ve shied away from the usual motivational rah-rah so common on the speaker circuit in the real estate industry. I now think I know where that came from.
I’m writing this from Singapore – and now Vietnam. I came here to switch off. My brain had other plans.
In Singapore, I kept noticing things. The way AI is woven into the city – not as something to fear, but as something to build with. There’s an optimism here that’s hard to describe until you feel it.
The day before we left, we visited exhibitions at the ArtScience Museum: teamLab’s “Future World” and another titled “Another World Is Possible.” The premise inspired me: while Western popular culture defaults to dystopia when it comes to AI – robots turning evil, corporations winning, everything collapsing – Singapore treats the future as something to be designed. Debated. Actively constructed. World-building as an act of hope.
I was staring at this picture, and one of the security guards started talking to me about it. Here’s what struck me most about that conversation: Singaporeans are genuinely excited for 2050. They’re planning for it. Building toward it. I’m not sure I’ve talked to anyone in Australia who feels that way about the future. We’ve been so conditioned to expect the worst that optimism feels almost naive.
But like any good Hollywood Hero’s Journey or depressing news headline, the clicks don’t happen unless there’s drama.
But, we have a choice, don’t we? We can believe what the media feeds us – the scary, the dystopian, the inevitable collapse of humanity – or we can choose to believe another world is possible.
I know which one I’m choosing.
And sitting with all this, I started thinking about the real estate industry (as always).
Agents have been living with a media-constructed dystopia for decades. The “dodgy agent” stereotype. The current affairs segments. The lazy shorthand that precedes genuinely good people into every listing presentation before they’ve even walked through the door.
Here’s what gets me: mainstream media makes a lot of money from real estate advertising. A lot. But the editorial coverage rarely returns the favour. And an awards night once a year doesn’t undo twelve months of the same tired narrative.
Agents aren’t perfect. Doctors, lawyers, politicians… no profession is. But the story that gets told about agents – over and over – isn’t the whole story. Most people never hear the other side.
We can choose to believe that all agents are dodgy. Or we can look a little closer.
Mr Morris was teaching high school back when the curriculum was king. Content delivery. Syllabus outcomes. Standardised tests. HSC scores.
But he was ahead of his time, and still is.
He knew even then that wasn’t the point.
The way he made us feel in that classroom – seen, challenged, capable – that was the point. What he modelled mattered more than what he taught. I didn’t have the words for it at the time. I guess the point of writing this is that I’m still trying to find them – in a world that seems to be changing more rapidly than ever.
I started Elite Agent twelve years ago. We didn’t really know what we were doing. But we knew the values: Elevate. Educate. Entertain.
The business was content – articles, news, interviews, podcasts. That’s what paid the bills. But the foundation was something else. A belief that real estate agents deserved better than they were getting. That the industry had stories worth telling properly.
It would have been way easier for us to go the ‘clickbaity’ negative route, then hand out a few awards. We could have grown much faster.
Now, with the end of 2025 at the doorstep, content is the thing AI can produce at infinite scale. Anyone can generate a blog post, a market update, a listing description. Your competitors have access to the same tools you do.
So what’s left? What lasts?
Here’s what I want to say to the industry heading into 2026:
Content won’t differentiate you anymore. That’s simply the entry point. Content and marketing will get you found.
But values are still where it’s at.
Your values need to shine in your content. Every market update, every listing, every email should give people a feel for what it’s like to work with you. Should make the recipient feel seen. That’s what creates a connection before you’ve even shaken hands.
And here’s the exciting part: AI can actually help you do this. I’ve spent time this year building out profiles of my voice, my values, my ideal clients – and now the AI I work with understands what I stand for and helps me express it consistently. We’ve done the same thing this year with ATLAS for agents.
It’s not replacing the human. It’s amplifying who we already are.
AI can help you write faster, market smarter, and stay in touch more consistently. And you need that to keep up.
But you also need to realise it can do more than save you time. It can help you show up as the person you want to be – if you take the time to teach it who that is.
There’s a reason Mr Morris was my favourite teacher.
It wasn’t the subject.
It was the values shining through. The calm. The care. The sense that he actually saw us.
That’s my hope for Elite Agent, too – that our values will last way beyond our content and one day people will remember us for that, too.
There’s something very cool about AI leading me back to my favourite Maths teacher. I spend my days helping agents use these tools. I’m always telling them it’s about curiosity, not fear. That AI is a tool, not a threat.
And then this happens. I’m testing a new model, fall down a rabbit hole, and it reconnects me with someone who shaped how I think about teaching, learning, and what actually matters.
That’s not dystopia. That’s serendipity.
Another world is possible. The exhibition said so, and I choose to believe it.
Not a world where AI replaces us, but one where it frees us to be more human. More present. More ourselves.
Mr Morris inspired me once – when I was a complicated teenager who probably didn’t appreciate it nearly enough.
Now, thirty-something years later, he’s inspired me all over again. To be a better teacher. To be more intentional about values. To remember what actually lasts.
So, Happy New Year 🥳
My word for 2026 is simple: Values.
What’s yours?
Love this article Sam. Happy New Year!