How to Never "Work" Another Day In Your Life...

I had just hit the snooze button for the third time…

Although I had a busy day ahead of me which I knew would be good for my business, I dreaded the thought of even getting out of bed and going to work.

For some reason that particular morning, I just couldn’t stand the thought of getting up out of bed going through my normal morning routine, kissing the wife and kids goodbye and heading off to a job that I had over the course of the previous few months had very little interest in doing.

I hated the thought of telling my kids to “follow their dreams” and here I was not even doing it. Frankly, I felt like a fraud for not pursuing what I really wanted in life and could be totally passionate about.

For some reason that day, I just hated the thought of getting in my van and making another pitch for a product and service I no longer had passion for.

I was just burnt out.

Something had to change.

Big Changes on The Way to The Same Thing

Rewind a few years prior, I had just departed my family’s flooring business, moved to a new town and started looking for work. I actually started interviewing for jobs with flooring manufacturers after running my family’s business!

I soon found that I was actually over-qualified for some of the jobs I was interviewing for. Needless to say, I didn’t get any job offers.

After the fourth interviewer had told me I was over qualified for working for them, I thought to myself: “Why the hell am I trying to go work for someone else? I should just start up my own flooring business!”

After all, I was a flooring guy, right?

So I did start my own franchised flooring business and made it pretty darned successful.

But two years later, there I was lying in bed, feeling completely trapped and unfulfilled. I was right back to doing the same thing I was doing before.

Worst of all, I was lying to myself. I was back to doing a “job” even though that job was my own business, it was still a J-O-B because I had no passion and no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.

Do What You Love and You’ll Never Work a Day the Rest of Your Life

I had always been fascinated by real estate though…

I had tried to sweep it under the carpet…because I was a flooring guy.

But was I?

Deep down, I knew I wasn’t really a flooring guy, it’s just what I did for work. But after that first little taste back in the late 90s, I had gotten a glimpse of what it was all about.

And that little taste had convinced me that what I really wanted was to be a real estate investor. But for some reason something for the last year or two I had stifled it.

But here it was coming back again….

“What Are You Gonna Do, It’s All You Know”

It’s not like I hated my job – it was just that I was tired of doing something that I didn’t really love to do anymore. The only reason I had done it is because up until that point, it was all I knew.

But just because people kept telling me I should stay in flooring because it was “all I knew” – I knew that was no reason to not do what you love.

Deep down, I knew I could do it – I just had no idea HOW to do it.

Plus, I had just turned 40 and I was at the point in my life where I was about halfway through my work life. And I thought to myself: is this all there is?

It wasn’t about the money at all. It was about passion. I am confident I could have made that business into a million dollar business – I’m convinced of it. In fact, I was already halfway there. I just had zero interest in doing that.

I knew what I wanted to do – and it had nothing to do with money. Sure, I knew plenty of people “making a killing” in real estate investing. But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t about the money, it was all about doing what you love to do.

Passion and Hard Work Beats Cluelessness Every Time

I knew what I wanted, but there was just one problem. I had no idea how to get there and how to do it while supporting my family. After all, I was completely switching careers and taking this flyer in the real estate investing business without a real safety net – which quite honestly, scared the crap out of me…

Later that day, after a long talk with my wife – “the day of the alarm clock”, I made the decision to wind down my flooring business and make plans to go headlong into the real estate investing business.

And although success did not happen immediately, I could actually say I was a full-time real estate investor – and best of all, I was doing what I loved to do…and still do to this day.

Not too shabby for “a flooring guy”.

Are you doing what you really love to do? Are you not listening to that inner voice that’s been telling you to follow your passion? Or have you done it, made the scary leap and never looked back?

Please leave a comment below and share YOUR story of how you did it or if you haven’t done it yet, leave a comment as well. Perhaps together, we can get you to follow that inner voice and pursue your dream too…

Photo: Indy Kethdy

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.