I got fired: what I did about it and lessons learned

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Honesty is always the answer. I cannot remember who told me that, or if I read it somewhere in a book, but it is so true. If you always tell the truth, you never have to worry about covering up a lie. It is such a freeing feeling, so liberating and inspiring. I am brutally honest (sometimes it doesn’t serve me well) but most of the time it is my guiding light and beacon. The title of this post is brutally honest. December of 2017, less than a half of a year after I married my beautiful wife, Taylor - I was fired from my job. That is not an easy thing to swallow, especially for an achiever like myself. I was disappointed, embarrassed, emotionally on a roller coaster. But the most interesting thing I felt was motivated. This was a clear contradiction. Here I am, driving home after just getting fired and couldn’t even grab my things from my desk and I am motivated. I am inspired. I am ready. I was having the same feeling of living a truth filled life. I was anxious and concerned about getting fired, but I was feeling completely free and liberated at the same.time.

My wife was incredibly supportive. It might be good to add that she had just recently quit her safe corporate job and joined a boutique consulting firm herself. So here we were: one of us newly starting a career and the other unemployed. Little did I know, that was the last time I would ever be employed by someone else. I am a strong believer in personal and professional development, so up to this point I had been diving deep into Strengthsfinders and other assessments and even had a coach. He helped me realize that it was time to start something of my own. So I did.

I started “consulting” small businesses on their sales processes (or lack thereof) and doing some coaching as well. I also started buying real estate for our investors with a separate company here in KC. I loved the real estate function, sourcing, negotiating, and communicating with our clients is a rewarding job. I also thought it was interesting dealing with clients on the sales consulting side, which I am also very passionate about. I quickly learned that I am much more of a coach than I am a consultant. Consulting requires a lot of attention to detail and busy work, something I am not strong at - while coaching is 1on1 and is a people business - which I very much enjoy.

At one point about 6 months into this new venture, (which I was cash flow positive from month 1) my wife looked at me and said - you need to focus. Focus on 1 thing. Which reminded me of one of my favorite books written by Gary Keller - The One Thing. And so I listened. I doubled down on learning more about the different facets of real estate and committed 100% to it. 13 Million dollars in sales and over 80 transactions later, here I am.

I really believe that I am so hard headed that God literally had to force me out of my job. And I am so glad it happened. This year I have had more freedom, fun, and rewards than I ever have. I have 3X’d my income, (which I started at a decent place) been challenged more than ever before and have helped more people on their path to becoming financially free that I am hooked. I am hooked on working for myself and partnering with smart, motivated individuals.

Lessons learned:

  1. Being in business for yourself is not easy, but it is rewarding

  2. You must have high levels of emotional intelligence

  3. You can’t be afraid of failure

  4. People are going to tell you NO

  5. You must be self-directed, motivated, driven, focused and disciplined

  6. What you DO does not define who you are

  7. Life is about much more than your career

  8. Pick yourself up, everyday

  9. Find your why and craft your vision

I am now 100% focused on helping people like yourself craft a vision of the life they want to live and figuring out how real estate investing might get them farther, faster. There are so many different questions I had when I started investing in real estate 5 years ago - and I know you do to. That is why I built this new site: livefreeman.com I am investing in myself, everyday. I am investing in my clients, everyday. I am investing in real estate everyday.

I look forward to speaking with you about your dreams, goals, and vision. I hope I can be of service to you.

#LiveFree

“Faith, Family, Food, Fitness, Future, Fun”