It’s a trip to get older.  There are days you think “well, this sucks” and then there are days where it’s peaceful and you can feel gratitude for the experiences that come along with getting older.  I’m going to be 42 next year, and I’m just now feeling like I’m starting to turn the corner on the stupidity of my youth.  From what I understand, men mature slower than women (as if that’s some big disclosure no one already knew).

The more I meet young investors and work with them, the more I get excited to help.  I get really jazzed up when I see people in their late teens and early twenties excited about real estate.  I always think to myself, if only I had been that excited about anything besides drinking, partying, girls and hanging with my boys, I would be so much further than I am today.  Again, men take longer to mature.  I didn’t have the resources that kids have today.  The internet was just starting when I graduated high school.  There were no real mentors in my circle that put out the idea that you could actually become anything of a success.  There is a just a wealthy of knowledge at the fingertips today which is an amazing blessing and can also be a bit of a curse.  The point is, the opportunities to learn are just amazing.

At the age of 37, I finally hit that “I’ve had it” limit.  It was a culmination of working in a financial services career that I absolutely despised, and my daughter being born.  It was the perfect combination of not wanting to waste another minute hating my work and wanting desperately to be someone that my kid could look up to and respect.  How could I someday look her in the eye and tell her that she could be anything she wanted, if I wasn’t doing the same?  That accountability mirror told me I’d be a hypocrite of epic proportions and it was time to turn it on.

The question I get most often is, “where do I start?”.  I can only tell you where I started and that was with personal development.  I knew I wasn’t going to be able to change overnight.  I had over 10 years of negative energy stored up in my brain.  I’d lost my job with Lehman Brothers at the start of the Great Recession.  My first foray into investing ended horribly and I was financially broken.  Then, I got stuck in the idea that I had to take a job in financial services and spent literally over 3,000 days hating my professional life.  How I did I make it through that?  Mostly alcohol and living in denial.

So, I had A LOT of work to do on myself.  I started listening to people like Grant Cardone, Andy Frisella and Ed Mylett every single day.  I started to realize that I failed before because I had the wrong information.  So I started modeling those that were doing well in the business.  Taking time to learn from them and be a resource however I could.  I changed my health and fitness regimen.  I began eating better, drinking less and reading more.

What happened?  Those massive changes began to beget massive improvements in my life.  Gone was the anger and depression.  Gone was the fogginess of weekend hangovers.  I had more energy to give.  I started a business that now employs 6 people.  I work with partners that have invested millions of dollars into our company.  I’m developing some new projects that I’m incredibly excited about.  I’ve leveled up my friendships and know more people that inspire me to do more.  My relationship with my wife is better than it’s ever been and I’m a positive role model to our daughter.  Getting older isn’t for the weak, but I can tell you that I’m humbled to have the chance to do it and treat it as an incredible privilege.  A lot can happen in 5 years for you.  Imagine where you’ll be in 5 years and then 10.  The possibilities are endless.