Why/When to take a break from investing

[Sam Yin]

I want to hear people's opinions on taking purposeful breaks from active investing. It would be great to hear the perspectives from all experiences. I hope to find others who may have felt a bit lost at times during their journey and how they redirected their focus back into the game to expand their AUM.

BACKGROUND:

I am now father of 3 (teens and tween) and have worked hard just about every day of my life since I arrived in the US at about 12. Years of factory sweatshops/piece work sewing women's garments, to diamond cutting throughout high school and after. I was in the Army two days after high school graduation to deal with the fall of Yugoslavia, then became a postal carrier, a baker in a doughnut shop, a coffee distributor, a motorcycle mechanic, and the list goes on. I always did many jobs concurrent to each, often only sleeping a few hours a day for many years, and almost failing out of High School at one point. In 2020, during the start of the pandemic, I stumbled upon a BP podcast on YouTube. Spent months watching and absorbing knowledge of BP and several other internet personalities. I decided to make REI my wealth-building vehicle and took the plunge. A few years later, I was able to achieve F.I.R.E. but I still kept at the REI business. As I reassessed and refined my operations, I am about as passive as I should be, spending about 1-4 hours/month dealing with landlord issues. However, I keep a pulse in the market by communicating with people and Agents of the industry, taking up about another 4-10 hours/month of my time. I told myself that I would do three transactions per year, and so far I have met/exceeded that goal since I began. But as time goes by, and my focus leans more toward legacy building, I am sometimes conflicted as to where to focus my energy... continue expanding, educating the kids, or enjoying the moment and allowing the kids to do their own thing versus steering them into REI.

I find myself taking pauses to enjoy the cash flow, spend time with the kids, and deal with my wife's hobby farm... involving about 70 chickens and two separate gardening areas, while she enjoys working full-time at a local college. But each time I pause actively seeking more investments, I get pulled right back in by Agents in the business, making offers on my properties. That would spark me to consider them, then immediately look for an upleg, and the hustle is on again for another month or two to get things stabilized. Then the cycle repeats. After a few times, the cycle has now become intentional and it seems to be a good balance to make all that work WORTH IT. For some extra context, I feel I have focused on work/life balance, leaning a bit more on life than work, and perhaps been too lenient on my kids/wife. The reason this came about is because I could and I did it when I felt the family needed more of my attention. 

Does anyone else experience something similar? Furthermore, has anyone been caught up in this cycle for a while, only to look back and see flaws or thought they should have done it differently? Do you ever feel that maybe you began to stray a bit from what made you successful or got too relaxed and lost focus on your REI goals? I guess the bigger question is when did you feel it was necessary to stop totally... or did you just keep trucking along and accumulate more, just slower?

I value everyone's opinion as I am always reassessing my roadmap.  Thank you in advance.