Never allow waiting to become a habit.

Live your dreams and take risks.

Life is happening now.

Hi my friends. I hope you are having a great day. I love the quote above. I believe in taking risks, trying to be better than I am today. Believing in my dreams and working to achieve my goals. I know you are like that too, or at least want to be.

Some times you have to step outside of your comfort zone. You have to take a look at what you want to do and take a leap of faith that you can achieve that dream. That goal. Yes, it will be scary, but you can't keep waiting around for the perfect time.

Back in 2003 I wanted to go into sales as a Loan Officer. The market was the best it had ever been. Ever. More people were buying homes. Mortgage lenders were making a lot of money as well as everyone in the real estate, building and finance industries. I had been a consultant before I accepted my current role in as a CIO. I loved doing sales presentations as a consultant. I loved meeting the people, going to trade shows and networking. I loved sales. I wanted to get back into it.

With the mortgage market booming, I knew I could do well and wanted to step out. It was a big risk. Going from a 6 figure salary and bonus to 100% commission was scary. I had a daughter in college and one getting ready to in a couple more years. I wanted to make that jump.  I was nervous. 

When the President of the company said they wanted to take the company paperless to save money and be more efficient, he hit one of my other passions. I always believed we could take the mortgage industry paperless. So I accepted the role as the head of this new project and decided to wait on my goal to go back into sales.

We worked tirelessly to implement the new system. We worked for the next couple years through struggles in that area and finally were ready to implement into our post closing department. Shortly after going live, my position with the company was eliminated. I was now out of a job with the company. They gave me a great severance package. I was excited to start looking for something new. It was now April of 2006. Three years after my initial desire to go into the career I had dreamed of.

I spoke to the head of the sales team at the same mortgage company and said I wanted to be a loan officer. I had spoken to them about it in 2003 and explained that after having my position eliminated, I could now pursue the position. The market was still doing well, I had a cushion of money coming in for 6 months. They agreed to pay to send me to Loan Officer training. That was a big expense. It was a big risk, but I was unemployed and had to find a job. It would be easy to sell loans since I knew the industry so well and just had to learn how to sell loans. It would require taking a risk.

But I finally took the risk.

I started out doing well after I got out of Loan Officer training. Then the market took a bigger nose dive than I did in the 5th grade off the high dive. And it hurt much worse. Not just for me but for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands more.

I took the risk. The market crashed and hurt me and many others. 

I had to start looking for work. I reached out to vendors I had worked with for years and the Imaging Vendor I had been working with the last three years agreed to hire me. During salary negotiations, the Mortgage Market went in the tank even more and most of their mortgage customers went out of business. The hiring manager called me to tell me the company wouldn't be able to hire me. They were going into a hiring freeze.

So I had to start doing something. I took my money out of my 401K and started a new business.

I started a business opening a Coffee News Franchise. Several of my friends were doing well selling advertising for years. But with the mortgage market crashing and the area economy driven by that market, ad sales dwindled and so did my new business. I had to shut it down.

Two businesses failed back to back. We lost everything, We had to file bankruptcy. I took a job at a grocery store to pay the bills and eventually went full time to be able to pay for insurance. You have to do what you have to do.

I've later found a great job in California making a salary for a great, stable company that takes great care of their teams.

Yes, I took a risk and it failed. I crashed. However, I learned a lot from that crash. First, I wasn't the only one. It wasn't because of what I did that caused the failures. The market crashed and destroyed many careers.  It was a tough market. The point of the story us you can keep waiting. If you make waiting a habit you could miss the best opportunities. Had I went ahead in 2003 and become a loan officer, I likely would have done very well and things would possibly have turned out differently. Or they might not have. The point is I wouldn't have known either way if you don't take the risk and get the experience.

 People are going to give you grief when you take risks. But don't let waiting around become a habit. Take the risks and live your life. Life IS Happening Now! You can live it, too.

Go Out Today and Take Some Risks - Live Your Life Today