I started another sales job at 35. In the beginning, it was going well. It was in that six-month mark that I became disgusted with what I was doing, working for a company that I didn’t believe in. I put on a good deal of weight sitting at my desk the majority of the day. My attitude at work sucked and it wasn’t much better in my personal life as well. I couldn’t sleep, and it was so bad that I had to go to a sleep clinic. The results from the sleep clinic were hysterical to me. The doctor took me in her office and she said, “You don’t have sleep apnea. You need to stop thinking.” I looked at her in disbelief. A couple of more weeks went by at work and I was called into the office on a Friday. The woman from Human Resources was letting me go. I wasn’t really surprised.
I felt many different things during that year that I was unemployed. I felt at times that I wasn’t wanted or needed. I felt as though I wasn’t a productive member of society. I asked myself if they would take me back. I remembered something my mother said to me and I think she was mostly right. She said keeping a job was easier than looking for one, especially when you don’t have one. Thanks a lot, mom. That makes me feel so much better.
Over the course of four years, I had different sales jobs which I didn’t particularly care for. At the age of 40, I took a three-day workshop about real estate and started investing. I also became an ambassador for the company and traveled for four years as a testimonial for the company. I started networking with people at a real estate investment meeting on Long Island and started invested in apartment buildings and hard money lending. One of the things that I learned is to not have your money be lazy, and to learn about it because no one cares about your money more than you. I’m better off financially now then I was at 35 but don’t have enough money to retire.
At the age of 44, I moved from Long Island, New York to Tampa, Florida. I never lived anywhere else. It’s now 2018 and the economy has been good for 8 years overall. I believe another recession is coming and we all need to be prepared.
I think the whole moral of my story is that we all have a limited time on the earth and money comes and goes. The key is to be happy and passionate about what you’re doing or you won’t be successful. There’s no such thing as work-life balance. It’s a circle.
