If life is a story, mine is pretty humble. I was very reserved, well, painfully shy, when I was a kid and I was a bit overweight so I enjoyed high school, but it had its challenges. I was pretty average with school work, but I hung out with a lot of really smart kids. I was not an athlete, but loved sports and hung out with a lot of athletes. I was probably the most cut kid from sports in my four years at Lincoln High School. Twice a coach told me, you just took yourself off the cut list. Twice, I was cut the next day. Ha! Coaches are so fickle! All of that is for a little context to understand the next few paragraphs and some of the events that affected my life.
First and, most importantly, was marrying Mary Margaret. I tell just about everyone, if I did anything right in this life, it was convincing this cute girl to marry me, not an easy task for a shy guy. We have built a family together and a very good life. She also gave me the confidence to run my own business and, during the Great Recession, leave that business and start my career in real estate. She was also the driving force for us to purchase single family rentals. We make a very good team, but I would probably still be in my first home, if it was not for her.
Lake Tahoe Half Marathon
Training in Mixed Martial Arts was also important to me. I spent about five years training and I did earn my black belt. It is ironic how things work. I started my training to become stronger and feel more comfortable if I ever had to defend myself, but I feel that other aspects of the training have been more important to me. Our training started each day with, "looking for the good." Five years of that and reinforcement by our teachers really made a change in the way I viewed life. We also had to perform in front of crowds for our tests. For a back of the room, reserved guy, like me, it really made me confront my fears.
My First Half Marathon, The Lucky Run
Joining Runnin for Rhett was also a life changing event for me, though I did not know it at the time. I hated running. My knee hurt. I thought my athletic life was over. My wife made me join (I told you she was smart). The training was nothing like I had envisioned and I loved the people that trained with me. They all seemed to have challenges in life and just keep moving forward. Runnin for Rhett calls it, Moving into Life. Daily training led me to running my fasted one mile, a 10k under one hour, a half marathon under two hours, plenty of trail runs, my all time high in bench pressing and two marathons, all over the age of 53.
The founders, Randy and Beth Seevers, also heard me mention my fear of speaking so they challenged me to do some inspirational speaking at their training sessions. I was nervous, but happy with the results. 😀 They have also asked me to be on committees and even given me one of the most important job at Capital Beer Fest, overseeing one of the gates. We have to get thousands of people in the festival in a very short amount of time. Yes, they have challenged me on multiple levels.
Each of these events have really helped build my confidence. As my confidence has grown, it has spilled over into my real estate business. I do things that I never even thought I could do. For example, about a year ago, I started building a YouTube Channel. I have close to 100 videos and getting close to 500 subscribers. I even speak in many of the videos. Not necessarily well, but I am getting better. And that really is what we try to do in this world, get better. Right? Never, did I ever, think I would have a video on YouTube with over 5,700 views.
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Thank you for the challenge, Anna Banana Kruchten CRS, Phoenix Broker and Carol Williams. This one was a challenge!
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