“now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Before becoming a real estate broker I was involved in personal real estate investing, starting at the age of twenty!  During my adult years, with the exception of when I was in the military or working for the military, I have been blessed to have had the opportunity, and frankly courage, to start and manage many types of businesses.  Often my business ownership evolved as the result of wanting to accommodate an existing business with goods and services that I felt I could provide just as efficiently as anyone else.  One would compliment the other.  I often found myself managing two businesses and on occasion I felt it necessary to have three businesses operating at the same time.  I have had people ask me how I started a particular business.  When I thought I had explained why and how I had started it I found that they were stuck on the same old question.  But how did you do it?  Explaining once more, “Well, I determined what I wanted to do, found a location and then I put in an application and obtained a license and got started.” Invariably I found out that their real question was “how did you know what to do to operate the business?”  Easy, I would explain, I remember what a United States Congressman once said about the short period following his successful campaign for that office. He said something along these lines; “I couldn’t believe that I WAS a congressman at first, then after watching all the other electives around me for some time, I couldn’t believe that THEY were either.” And so, there it is.  Study up, find the business you want to run, find the location, obtain your required licenses and the people already working in that same business are less talented than you are!  You have no idea what you can do until you have a family, yours and/or someone else’s relying on your success.  Let that give you strength, don’t let it make you afraid and weaken your efforts.  I have owned a liquidation company and a promotion company at the same time.  Do you wonder how one compliments the other?  The promotion company was used to promote the liquidation company and its products.  One of the things that I learned from that business was that after securing a contract, that “I” was capable of hiring actors, writing scripts, do my own filming and editing, purchase the TV spots, and produce fifteen minute franchise films.  Later on the experience gave me the courage to open a modeling agency.  For a while one of the people I taught and promoted was on a TV commercial promoting something every time I turned the TV on.  It felt good knowing that I had, with my limited talents, helped launch a career.  Now I feel that if THEY can do it, I can do it.