I went to the West Point Military Academy out of high school, and after graduating in 2005, I became a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
I spent six years in active duty, eventually becoming a captain and commander of a homeland defense site in Shariki, Japan.
I always loved the idea of serving, but I noticed that promotions occurred at generally the same rate.
I saw superstars promoted at the same time as peers who did the minimum to get by — which killed the motivation of the ambitious people.
While in the Army, I had started taking online MBA courses, and since I'd always had an entrepreneurial itch, I decided to leave in 2011 to start a real estate company.
It was a huge adjustment, and at times I doubted my decision to take this plunge. But because I had gone all in with both my time and money, there was no turning back — which, fortunately, forced me to stick it out.
With two partners I started a business, iCandyHomes, which buys distressed properties to rehab and sell. In three years, we've grown our team to 20 people and are rehabbing about 26 homes — but our goal is to grow the company much further.
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When I got home from Japan, I hit the ground running — the day after I arrived, I already had appointments to see homes. I also went back to school full-time to finish my MBA.
But I had been naïve about what it would take to get the business going. I had underestimated the startup expenses, including home-office overhead and real-estate seminars that cost in the tens of thousands of dollars.
I also wasn't prepared for the timeline required to start making money — my first deal took nine months to complete.
This was a humbling period for me. Within months I'd gone from being an Army captain to living in my parents' basement, struggling to get my first few deals done. And while I'd always been a conservative spender, it was still hard to go from having a predictable military paycheck to having no income.
Every bit of money I'd saved, and any money I made on real estate deals just went back into more deals, so I never knew when — or if — I'd have income. I lived with my parents for over a year, and had to take out a small student loan in the second year of school to help cover costs.
But just a few years later, a lot has changed. My partners and I have grown our company enough that I can draw a pretty consistent personal income, although I keep it comparable to my Army captain's salary. I would rather reinvest the earnings back into the company to build its long-term future.
And here's one benefit to being a real estate investor: I live in one of our rehabbed properties — a big lifestyle upgrade from my parents' basement!
In this industry, you can go from feeling rich to broke in the same day. But I love the challenge of owning my own business.
Plus, I love knowing that our team is directly rewarded based on our results, rather than on an arbitrary evaluation process. We've come a long way, and this keeps everyone — myself included — motivated to keep going.
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This post was excerpted from "3 People, 3 Career 180s: 'How I Reinvented Myself After 30'," originally published on LearnVest.
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