Real estate may be Boyd’s business, but it’s his journey that has people talking.

On December 6, 2021, Boyd dropped off his freshman son at Mira Costa High School. It was just another Monday morning in the South Bay. There was no hug, no heartfelt goodbye—just a casual “Have a great day.” Neither of them could have known how significant that morning would become. Less than an hour later, Boyd was in the back of an ambulance in acute respiratory failure, his heart in atrial fibrillation. He was rushed to Providence Little Company of Mary in Torrance, where he suffered a major hemorrhagic stroke.

Emergency surgery was required to relieve life-threatening pressure in his brain. A few days later, Dr. Sivakumar performed a second operation to install a permanent shunt to control ongoing intracranial bleeding. Boyd spent the next 37 days in the hospital, much of it unable to move, speak, or perform basic functions. Because of Omicron COVID protocols, no visitors were allowed. He was isolated and physically debilitated.

After those long weeks in the hospital, Boyd was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in San Pedro, where the next chapter began: recovery. His days were filled with therapies—speech, occupational, and intense physical—often multiple sessions a day. And when he eventually returned home, the work continued. “Chair yoga was my introduction to exercise,” Boyd says with a grin. “Yes, chair yoga! Just a month before the stroke, I was surfing in Manhattan Beach. Now, five minutes of modified movement left me exhausted. And yes, there are actually YouTube videos for that!”

Despite the humility required to start from square one, Boyd’s mindset shifted toward gratitude. “There’s nothing extraordinary about me,” he says, “but there’s something very extraordinary about my recovery.”

He reflects on those 37 days in the hospital as a turning point. “I had 37 days to think about who I was supposed to be. About the kind of father my son needed as he began high school. About the kind of husband I needed to be to my wife of over 20 years, who became my caregiver for six months. I had to accept the reality that dropping my son off that morning could’ve been the last time I ever saw him. But that wasn’t going to be the end of our story.”

With time, determination, and the support of his medical team, Boyd made an improbable comeback. He didn't just recover—he returned with a deeper sense of purpose.

Most people don’t know that before the stroke, Boyd had already stepped away from an enormously successful real estate career. At age 42, he retired and moved with his family to Maui. “I honestly didn’t think I’d go back to selling real estate,” he says. “We built a beautiful life there. But I also knew my son needed different opportunities, and I wanted to be closer to family. So we came back home to California.”

Though he had originally intended to pivot back into real estate development, Boyd couldn’t ignore the relationships he had built over the years. “After everything I’d been through, I figured, why not call a few of my old clients? They had trusted me to sell their homes 20 years ago, and those connections were still strong.”

One of his last major projects before the move to Maui was a home in the Hill Section of Manhattan Beach, designed in a Hawaiian plantation style and built with local architect Louis Tomaro. “Hawaii was on my mind, and I wanted the house to reflect that inspiration,” Boyd says. “We got a record price for it at the time, and that was the launchpad for our move to Lahaina.”

But his true comeback didn’t begin until after the stroke. Just six months post-recovery, Boyd closed over $10 million in sales with back-to-back sales. Recently, he even helped a three-generation family relocate to the South Bay after they watched their home burn in the Palisades fires—live, through their Ring camera. “That one was special,” Boyd says. “I pulled every string I could and got them into a property I was selling within 30 days. That felt good. My client even said that I had provided them ‘a new beginning’. As though I was not humbled enough after my own recovery this declaration dropped me to my knees.”

Today, Boyd is more than just a broker. He’s a symbol of what it means to turn adversity into advocacy. “When life knocks you down, you stay there for a moment, take it in, and then ask, ‘Is that all you’ve got?’” he says. “That became my new attitude. I was already strong and confident, but now I feel like I’m operating with a deeper appreciation for life. I don’t take anything for granted.”

His son—recently accepted to UC Berkeley—is planning to major in psychology. “Ironically, I thought my condition might negatively impact his high school years, but it turned out to be a blessing,” Boyd says. “He got to see resilience firsthand. In fact, he even wrote his college essay about my recovery.”

Now, Boyd is back doing what he loves: helping people navigate major transitions with empathy, strategy, and drive. “I match buyers and sellers during pivotal times in their lives,” he says, “and I try to make the process as smooth and meaningful as possible.”

As for what’s next? Boyd smiles. “My son says psychology is his path for now... but maybe one day he’ll graduate and come join me at Boyd The Broker Real Estate. That would be a pretty great next chapter, don’t you think?”