A Football Life: My journey before real estate

My life has not always been about real estate. Before real estate my life's work was one thing. College Football. 

I graduated in December of 2013. After that I accepted a graduate assistant job at Dakota State University. Getting a small-stipend I was in heaven. Getting paid to coach football and get a master's degree. I moved in with another graduate assistant paying 180 a month for a small bedroom apartment. We spent 80 hours working and tried to do homework when we could. 

Through motivation of purpose and sheer will I was able to become a full-time coach the following year and eventually move up to offensive coordinator in three years. I was lucky enough to have great coaches and players around me and we were able to improve each year. 

This led to getting a job as offensive coordinator at a higher level at the University of Minnesota-Crookston. I spent 2 years there until December of 2019. I was on the road recruiting when I got a call to come back to the office. The following day we were told by the president that the school was shutting down the football program. With no other options and nothing else holding me to the Upper Midwest I returned home to Iowa in hopes of spending a few months looking for another football position. 

This coincided with my mom and I finishing our flip house (which I became a little more active in the final two months lol) and my attendance of my cousin's wedding in Florida in February of 2020. While sitting on the beach I was talking to another cousin about his recent purchase of 6 rental properties and he was asking about our flip which we had just accepted a purchase agreement on. 

Having traveled with my mom, aunt, and grandma down to Florida and spending a week there I was happy to talk to someone more my age. We talked for a few hours on real estate in which he brought up that he listened to the BiggerPockets Podcast. I am and was a huge Podcast fan but I am also skeptical of new podcasts as I get very picky what I listen to. One podcast I have listened to since its creation is the Jocko Podcast. So seeing that Jocko did an episode with the BiggerPockets guys had me sold. I started with that episode and listened to probably over 350 episodes since. 

As all of you know a few days after that talk I had on the beach the chaos of Covid broke out. The higher education and small-college football world took a huge hit with hiring freezes, cancelled seasons, and layoffs. Having no prospects of finding a job in 2020 and the seed of real estate growing in my mind. I began studying and looking for my first property.