We Are Only One Decision From a Totally Different Life

[Account Closed]

I was driving home from a party yesterday afternoon and saw a truck with a big American flag driving on the freeway. I asked my wife what's the occasion? She said September 11. She reminded me that I've been off my W2 for exactly 7 years.

Around April 2009, I was polling my family and wife's family about me quitting my job. Both of us have a decent size family with 5 siblings on my side and 6 siblings on her side. As expected the responses were overwhelmingly negative. Almost everyone thought I was nuts. This is 2009 when the sky was falling and everyone was getting laid off. Those, who still had a job, was working to death in fear of getting laid off. Here I was, wanted to do just the opposite in pursuit of my dreams. Thankfully, wife supported my decision.

By July, I planned for my exit and wanted to make it a memorial one. September 11, 2009 happened to fall on a Friday. So much memory came back when I looked at this date on the calendar. I remember vividly what I was doing and where I was when our country was under attacked on 9/11/2001.

On my last day at work, I felt liberated. However, I had mixed feelings on my drive home. On one hand, a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulder. OTOH, I was nervous and scared. What if scenarios were running through my head. 

Long story short, it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. Not only have I replaced my low 6-figures salary, I have also accumulated a decent size real estate portfolio in the Bay Area....a tough task by many standards. It has been one of the best 7 years of my life. It's easy to look back now and smile, but the decision was an extremely difficult one at the time.

If you have Sunday syndrome, I know how you feel. I used to feel that way on Sunday afternoon. Feeling nervous and occasionally sweaty palms thinking of going back to work tomorrow? Well, you're only one decision away from having a totally different life. As Albert Einstein wisely said "A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is NOT what it is built for."

Best of luck.

[Jeff Pollack]

@Account Closed, you are a braver man than I, my friend. By late 2011 I started buying out of state (TX) and had a plan to leave the day job. I was going to collect enough cash flowing property out of state (SFH, duplexes, triplex, quads - in TX and GA) to quit the day job within 3 years and do real estate full time. But as I came to realize later, leveraged SFH homes really don't cash flow worth a damn, but that's for another thread.

I collected quite a few of these out of state properties, but I was not going to hit my "walk away" number any time soon.  My wife would periodically suggest, "Why don't you just quit and do real estate full time?  You hate your day job.  Just walk away." But I always had some reason for why it was not the right time or why it made sense to wait a bit longer. I did not like working a J.O.B., but was not uncomfortable enough (or brave enough) to walk away.

Then I was done a HUGE favor at the end of 2013. About 75% of the company I worked for got laid off. We could all see the train coming from a mile away. Everybody knew it would be a nasty layoff, but nobody knew exactly when it was coming our how big it would be. I decided to embrace the impending doom. I told my supervisor/head of the department that I hoped to be laid off.  When layoffs were announced 6 weeks before they actually happened everybody was freaking out. Getting their CV's together and job hunting. I was the only one in the company who was happy. In fact, I was thrilled. I had already decided the layoff would be the best thing that ever happened to me. I told everybody exactly what I was going to do next and burned all my bridges to ensure I could never go back again.

It was a bit rough at first and luckily my wife had the day job with the benefits, health insurance, etc for the family or it might have gotten a little dicey.  My father suggested numerous times that I should consider looking for a job. By then I was so mentally beyond that concept that I told him I'd rather live out of a cardboard box than work for somebody again. 

That first year after being laid off I acquired 10 more properties for the same amount of $ out of pocket as the first 3 had cost. And this year I'll make more than I did during the last 5 years of my low six-figure day job. Unlike Minh I did not have the guts to jump into the deep end of my own volition, but am very glad I chose to embrace the change when it was forced upon me and am grateful for being laid off. If you're waiting for the push that may never come you may want to reconsider.

Cheers,

Jeff