TBConsults is a dream come true for me.  Me, of course being the TB in TBConsults.  When I was young, I was one of those kids who knew exactly what I wanted, which was to be able to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and if I wanted to do it.  And at a very early age, I knew that meant achieving financial freedom which would then give me time freedom. 

Shortly after college, when I was old enough to do so, I set out on my quest.  I left the comforts of my tight-knit family home in West Virginia and headed west.  When I arrived in Tucson Arizona, I had everything I owned in the back seat of my Subaru.  After going through all the money I had, I found myself living in an apartment with two of my friends, each one of us financially worse off than the other.  Being raised the way I was, I took on the responsibility of feeding the group, often times trying to figure out how to make one pound of ground meat feed three people for at least three meals.  Too proud to call home for money, there was a time when I had to sell my jeans to help pay the rent.  My dining room table was a cardboard box covered with a pillow case and my bed was a single mattress on the floor.  In spite of all that, I was still determined to Live My Dream.

I refused to give up and therefore started testing different opportunities.  Let me humor you for a moment and let you in on some of my ventures. I mastered a newspaper delivery route for the sole purpose of being able to do two routes in the time other newspaper carriers did one.  But hey, there’s twice the money in two routes!  And, I could do it between the hours of 2 am and 4 am which gave me all the time in the world during the day to figure out a business venture.  Who needed sleep?!

Then there was the “Selena Hotline”.  So sure that this was going to be a huge money maker, I put everything I had into researching all I could about the life, career and untimely death of Selena.  I even hired a friend who translated the whole script into Spanish, and we recorded it in English and Spanish.  Selena was an icon, and I believed that anyone who loved her music would want to know everything about her.  I would have made money on every call if only people would have called.  Unfortunately, they didn’t. 

Now believe me when I say that I tried almost anything legal that I thought would make me rich while working from home, including buying cars from government auctions, driving limos, selling Cutco knives, working a network marketing company, starting a freight brokerage company while exploring a reminder service opportunity, all in hopes that something would spark my entrepreneurial spirit, then I would open my own company and become independently wealthy.  

I could tell you about some other not so great ideas, like trying to buy over 100 used refrigerators at an auction, but I won’t.  What I will tell you is that I learned what worked and what didn’t.  And the most important lesson I can share with you from all these experiences:  when I stopped scrambling and focused, there was nothing more powerful. 

During my testing phase, I pursued the safety net as an employee.  My first real paycheck finally came when I was hired as a temporary “peak season” employee.  That led to a 14 year career with the Fortune 500 company, United Parcel Service.  I started out as a driver and delivered packages in Tucson, even when temperatures hit 110 degrees in the summer.  I worked my way up from driving to supervision and then to upper level management positions in Customer Service.  In my 11th year with the company, I achieved one of the goals I had set for myself:  to work in the UPS corporate headquarters in Atlanta Georgia!  I was on top of the world.  I worked on national projects, carried a ton of responsibility implementing new programs, traveled around the country facilitating the training on these new programs,  got paid well for what I did, loved every moment,  but … had no time freedom.

Fortunately, back around the time of my second year of driving, I discovered the concept of investing in real estate!  So with a steady income in hand and a new found focus, I began buying and renting out houses in Tucson.  I found my niche and one of the tickets to living my dream.  And when the time was right, I retired from UPS and moved back to Tucson where all my investment properties were.  Staying aligned with my profitable real estate ventures, I then became a licensed Realtor, continued to invest even more so, formed joint ventures with other investors, and was in charge of my own life and schedule.  When asked to go into management with Southern Arizona’s largest real estate firm, part of the second largest real estate company in the country, I accepted. 

I was able to put the lessons I learned about business, time management, accountability and commitment from UPS together with my acquired knowledge about real estate and investing.  I conducted classes, coaching sessions, created curriculums and courses company wide, all designed to help other people achieve the next level of success in their personal and professional lives.  The results were outstanding! 

All the while, my lot in life was improving every day and my childhood dream of being able to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and if I wanted to do it, came true!