Honesty

I have been stuck in survivor mode for what seems like years. I knew it was happening but didn’t know what to do about it. I heard my heroes on the Bigger Pockets real estate Podcast warn about the pitfall of analysis paralysis, and their solution was to buy your first house. Well, I did that, and then I did it again turning the first house into a rental (as was the plan). If I am being honest it was not a smooth transition.
Que the music Bill.

Purchasing a new home by writing my own contract from a template and using a local title office, then rehabbing said new home, while launching my new real estate rental business in the midst of navigating a job change into a department I was unprepared for at work; it does not seem like that much until you consider we were having our second child while fixing up the room she was going to sleep in (painting the room pink, below) and the carpet team the previous homeowners set up were attempting to jack up their prices and sharing they might not be able to install before the baby was due. Oh, and did I mention I was not thriving at work?

So, it happens, life is not always smooth and it does not always go according to plan. To borrow a Stephen “Covey-ism”, the problem is not the problem, it is how we perceive the problem. In other words, it is the choice we make after the conflict arrives that is important. Do we choose flight or flight? or is it really as binary ☯️ as that? Do we have other options? Yes. Yes, we do. The “pause and pivot” come to mind. The old “accept failure as a moment of learning” is a way for us to accept that we failed, move on, embrace the fail, own it, learn from it, and hopefully grow.

Yes, I was working nights and weekends to get a Master of Science in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. I am just going to gloss over how amazing it is that my wife stayed by my side during this time of turmoil. This blog is something that I had every intention of keeping active, and I am dreaming that starting this back up could be one step toward moving back into a state of re-engagement; to thriving.

So, what next? Well, I have a project that I put together during this point in my life when I tried to do all the things at one time. It was a school project so, of course, I made it look as good as possible and painted it as a success, and slapped it on the front page of my LinkedIn profile. Like a total FCUK-ing liar. It is a case study around that new position I got at work, remember that? The one I desperately failed at?
If I am being honest, I could have made it work, but I was in survival mode, remember? I didn’t want to learn the backward process that supported a company, with a mission I was not passionate about, and pour it into PowerPoint decks, I had already done that many times previously and I longed for something new. So, I just went through the actions, while looking for a new job and “running” my new business, but that is a story for another post…

In my next post, I will share that project, illustrate how it failed and ask you how you might have tried something different. It doesn’t have to be something brilliant, just something real.