Introduction

“You’re not a fit for our department,” my new boss informed me during our second conversation. He had voted against me, but enough of the other faculty had voted yes that I got what I thought was my dream job as a professor of family psychology. Now it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. My new department chair was dead set on making sure that I wouldn’t be staying there for long now that he had the power. My job was in jeopardy.

I was never good at having a boss, but from day one, this guy seemed to have decided that sabotaging my career was his top priority. We butted heads constantly, and no matter how well I taught or how many journal articles I published, it was never about that. It was about him winning. It had all culminated in this moment.

It had been a tough journey to become a professor. I had spent nine years of my life getting my PhD, and during that time, my family lived on a $14,000 a year salary, far below the poverty level. We even had to get food stamps. Once I got my dream job, I spent countless hours researching, writing, and publishing journal articles. In just my third year as a professor, I had published seventy-two peer-reviewed journal articles, which is almost unheard of and which was more than most of the professors in my department who had been around for thirty-plus years. But my family was still struggling financially. My wife was a full-time mom, and I was supporting our young family of five boys with a small salary and only one car.

Now I was at a crossroads. Would I put it all on the line to fight for my career as a professor? Or would I risk it all to recreate myself, going in a completely different direction to pursue my newfound passion in real estate? Did I have the courage to put my loved ones at risk to cut off the golden handcuffs? It would require that I walk into the darkness into a 100 percent commission-based career with no past evidence of success.

It was terrifying, but I took those first steps into the darkness. Five years later, my life had completely transformed. No longer is my family struggling to get by. We have a second car now—my dream car, a Tesla Model S—as well as our dream home, a nine-thousand-square-foot mansion in the foothills of the mountains. In 2019, I spent three months of the year on vacation, building priceless memories with my family, and I still made more money than ever before!

Looking back now, I’m grateful for that boss who hated me. He made my life hell, but he also gave me the final push I needed to cut off the golden handcuffs and begin enjoying true freedom.

The Power of Dissatisfaction

Every journey on the road to success begins with dissatisfaction. If you’re completely satisfied with everything in your life, you won’t be motivated to push for greater heights of achievement. Are you 100 percent satisfied with your career right now?

I was a good professor. In addition to my numerous publications, I received invitations from around the world to places like Israel, England, and Australia to present my research. I had an international reputation! I had published five books, including one, titled Publish and Prosper, showing other professors how to write and publish more than they thought possible. Just three years in, I was already set for my entire career. Beyond my publications, I worked hard to be an extraordinary mentor. I love to teach, and I helped dozens of students learn the publishing process. I worked collaboratively with them so that they could get experience in researching and earn authorship on my publications. In this way, I was able to delegate and build a massive body of publications while simultaneously helping to launch the careers of many students.

Most people in this kind of position would be very satisfied, yet I was not. I was bored and tired of the stress of living paycheck to paycheck. I didn’t like being someone else’s servant, and I didn’t feel like I was making much of an impact on the world. In short, I was suffering from the same four sources of dissatisfaction that so many of us struggle with: no fun, no money, no freedom, no impact.

No Fun

I am a people person, and as a professor I was cooped up in my office all day writing research articles. It was boring. I tried to divert myself into my new yard and planted a massive garden and fifty-three fruit trees. While I enjoyed this work, it was only a few hours of fun, with the vast majority of my time still spent chained to my desk. Eventually, I completed all my home projects and was left with nothing but the boredom of my day-to-day job.

What about you? Do you wake up each day excited to go to work? Or has your desk become a prison cell, where you count down the hours until you can leave?

No Money

Professors don’t make very much money, so my family and I lived a very frugal lifestyle. We could afford only one car, which my wife needed to transport the kids, so I rode my bike to work, regardless of whether it was one hundred degrees or minus ten. About the only place we could afford to eat out was McDonald‘s. We never bought an actual meal; we just purchased several of the ninety-nine-cent burgers so we could keep the bill under ten dollars. Though I love to travel, we rarely did. It was simply impossible to go to most of the places I wanted because money was so tight.

Even with the constant skimping and saving, I was under constant financial pressure. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and I wondered what would happen to my family in case of an emergency. I wouldn’t have the means to pay for it.

The most frustrating part was that my pay wasn’t correlated to my performance. It didn’t matter how well I did in my job; my income was fixed with a 1 to 2 percent raise per year. Though I had outstanding performance reviews, I was not rewarded with a higher income.

Do you have the financial independence to do the things you want? Are you living paycheck to paycheck, worried about how to provide comfort and security for your family?

No Freedom

One of the worst aspects of my job was feeling like I was someone else’s servant. I had to get permission for everything, and as I mentioned, my department chair hated me, which was a major problem, since my fate and future as a professor was largely in his hands. He could talk crap about me to the senior professors and ultimately get me terminated. I dreamed of one day being my own boss and calling the shots for my own business. No longer would I need to get permission for something as simple as going out of town, or grovel before someone I did not even like. Maintaining job security meant I had no choice but to follow the system.

Who controls your time: you or your boss? Do you have the freedom to make your own decisions, or are you stuck in a bureaucratic system? Are you tired of always being told what to do, how to do it, and when?

No Impact

So much of what I was going through may have been worth it if I felt like I was really having a positive impact on the world. Yet I found out the average journal article is read by three people outside of the author. I was busting my butt to reach three people who were probably other researchers like me. How could I impact people in the real world? It didn’t seem like I was doing much good for anyone, and this irked me. I knew I could help a small group of my students, but I longed to make a real difference, and my employment was not getting me there.

What kind of real-world impact do you want to make? Does your job empower you to do it?

Faced with all this dissatisfaction, I finally decided I wanted out. I wanted freedom—not just financial independence but also the freedom to do work I enjoyed, to make my own decisions, and to have the impact I wanted. I read a book, much like this one, that explained how passive income through real estate investing could lead to financial independence, and I was hooked. I knew I had to start taking action if I wanted to change the direction of my life, and I was ready to do anything to become a real estate investor. This new journey captured my attention because it presented a solution to the woes I was experiencing as a professor.

Why Real Estate as the Path to Freedom?

You may ask, why is real estate the path to freedom? Of all the reasons, these three are the most important:

#1: It’s Easier to Travel the Beaten Path

Could you make a lot of money by starting a successful business and selling it? Yes, but 95 percent of new businesses fail in the first five years. The amount of work you put in for something that will likely not take off can be enormous. The path to wealth in real estate is well traveled, and success leaves clues. Like any reputable profession, you must get educated and have a mentor to guide you, but real estate isn’t rocket science. Almost anybody can learn and succeed at it.

#2: You Can Use Other People’s Money to Build Wealth

You have probably heard “It...