I'm A New Member and This is My Story

[Carl Dispoto]

About 18 months ago, a childhood friend of mine became business manager at a real estate brokerage one town over from me. His brokerage runs a real estate school and he told me he could waive my cost of admission for the classes to get my license and work with him. I had been in the same thankless job for a decade and a half and it was getting me nowhere.

Shortly thereafter, my mom got sick and passed away, and I decided to take the leap. Started my classes in November of 2019 and was scheduled to take my test in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. All tests were cancelled/postponed, I started working the thankless job from home and my daughter's school shut down.

Finally, I was able to take my exam online in October and passed! Ten days later, the thankless job fired me after 16-plus years, graciously giving me a severance of four whole days.

So, I sat there staring at an uncertain future. No job, wife working part time, too much debt to handle, health insurance set to expire at the end of November. While I wait for my license to arrive, I decided to devote all my non-job hunting time to reading real estate books and the first one that came from the library was "How to Invest in Real Estate" by BiggerPockets.

I ignored their plea to sign up for this site in the intro. But then I got to chapter two, which tells of a "horror story" that sounded familiar. "Nice family ... money drains out faster than it should ... If only I could get that raise ... husband and father loses his job ... inside, they are dead."

My blood ran cold. This chapter intro summarized my past, my present, my potential future and chilled me to the bone.

So now I am here because I refuse to go gently into that good night. I am ready, willing and able to make this happen. I worked hard, overnights, for years at a company that underpaid and underused me. 

I have my license. I have my purpose (my "why"). Now I just need my strategy. So ... I'll keep reading.