Don't Quit Page 20
The miraculous journey that I’ve taken with my father, I’m extremely blessed to take with my clients. Because I can easily soulfully connect to who my clients are, revealing my client’s core issues or their much needed insights in any aspect of their life happens within minutes. The power of being seen is very healing and transformational! We can all be more present in our lives by starting with ourselves and looking into the mirror to really “see” and reconnect to our own true essence. Being “different” has become a true gift in my life that I’m so grateful to share with others around the world! I will leave you with a point of view gained through experience, which I share with my dear friend and mentor, Jean Houston.
“I have found that most people, given the vision of the possible, along with the opportunity to learn new ways of being, can discover and enjoy fuller awareness of mind and body that grants them entry into a world larger than their aspiration, more complex than all their dreams.”
– Jean Houston, The Possible Human
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Honor the presence of others...experience how practicing philotimo is so powerful!
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Sophia Stavron is a sought-after dynamic international speaker, #1 bestselling author, executive producer of multiple Emmy and Telly Award winning films, and authority on using and teaching the Ancient Greek secret to transform any aspect of your life...Philotimo LifestyleTM. Sophia is vice president of HopeSeed nonprofit organization that empowers and uplifts underprivileged children and orphans. She has been seen on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and WFAA-Dallas, TX. To arrange for speaking opportunities, media appearances/interviews, mentoring, or mastermind events, please contact her at www.SophiaStavron.com
CHAPTER 31
I Knew Everything. I Lost Almost Everything.
by Howard Pierpont
Y ou won’t find a course description for a solutionist in any education catalog. There are no degrees in being a solutionist available. If you have ever been in a hospital, often the doctor will make rounds every day but doesn’t have the time to dwell in depth on all your issues. Doctors appoint hospitalists that can come in and spend the time fielding questions and working on preparing the patient for the best outcome. Sometimes the hospitalist will discern what seems to be a minor item that is really a major factor. As a solutionist, I perform a similar role with businesses, municipalities, and not for profits.
If someone already knows how to solve their issue, I’m not of much assistance. If someone works in an organization where the definition of a consultant is “someone that wears a suit, travels more than 50 miles, has a shiny briefcase, and tells the boss what we have already told him,” I’m not your guy.
As a solutionist, I listen to all sides of the issue, inquire about items that may not have been discussed, offer suggestions, and try to reach consensus. My role is to move the process along. I was not there when your process started, I was not there when it had issues, and I will not be there to the end. You own your success.
I have worked under government contracts as part of a team focused on resilience and redevelopment of communities impacted by all types of disasters. In other cases, organizations turn to me for guidance for a number of groups when the supervisor and leader understands there is a need.
I am fortunate to have been born into a warm, considerate family. While my mother attended church every Sunday, my father had his ritual of starting the noon meal. While there was a grace said at every meal, there wasn’t any discussion on religion (or politics), but there was a sense of faith: faith in oneself, each other, and our extended family. I knew I could depend on relatives and cousins as well as a circle of friends.
I learned that you worked on issues as they arose and built trust and relationships. When someone decided, we lived with that decision. If they chose to leave, while we might miss them, but they were gone, and we had to move on.
I went off to college and made a series of decisions that, I will just say, were not the best. I started a family and had to leave college to keep things going. The jobs that I could find were on the low end of the pay scale. While I was struggling to make ends meet, I was becoming further concerned that I was not headed toward my dreams. There were many issues that continued a downward spiral.
I became a single father after my son's mother left. Trying to work and be a single parent is not an easy task for anyone. This was certainly not the life I had envisioned. Over time, his mother returned and took custody. So, things were going from difficult to worse, and I entered another downward spiral.
I did remarry and moved into the home where the new wife had grown up. I did not understand the dynamic of being in someone else’s familiar territory with a long history of how they had run the day to day activities. She had two children who would come to the house to visit their grandparents. No one was sure how to act or react to me being there. Then, as my wife and I talked about planning our reunification with my son, he was thrust upon us. While it was great to have him home, this added tension to the marriage.
I figured that if we bought a different house, all of us could start over and rebuild the family as a unit. While the new house was fine, it was never really home. One Thanksgiving, my son and I went to visit my parents for the weekend. I returned to the house to find the house empty. The furniture and the rest of the family was gone.
While my family had been disrupted, there was little I could do to try and change minds. I was faced with the loss of my home while significantly in debt and working a job that I didn’t really like. At my low point, quitting my job and lifestyle looked like a wonderful idea.
I was fortunate to work for a mentor that took me under his wing. He had been in a similar situation some years before. He packed up his life and moved across the country from Washington state to Massachusetts. He told me, “If you can’t fit it all in a VW MicroBus, you don’t need it.” He told me to have faith in myself.
I realized that I had lost my way and wanted to quit because I didn’t have faith. Over time, I rebuilt my faith in myself. The more personal faith I had, the further forward I progressed. I went from having a job that I didn’t like to retiring after almost 27 years from the same company. I had company moves from Connecticut to California and then to Oregon. When I retired, my now wife and I moved to Colorado, where we live now, to be near the grandchildren.
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On a trip, I found a coffee mug based on the Mark Twain quote, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” When I left home, I was very confident that I knew what I needed to know and that there was little left for me to learn. I was sorely mistaken. I wasn’t as wise as I thought I was. I realized that I needed to rely on others and have faith in myself.
Once, while I was running a business continuity program for a major company, I had a reluctant participant. She was well-mannered, nicely dressed, and highly-educated. She openly indicated that she felt the program had little value. During our group meetings, I stressed the need for personal preparedness, supplemental power, and methods to heat water and food. Just knowing that those areas are taken care of can encourage peace of mind.
Then, she traveled to Florida for a family get together just as a hurricane passed through. She was from an area that doesn’t have hurricanes, and the weather event was somewhat exciting. The excitement turned to despair when the family had to live in close quarters without electricity or air conditioning.
When she returned to the next meeting, she was all excited about working on the project. When she told us the story of what had happened, she made other believers. She now had faith in the program and helping not only her family, but also others. She now understood that while our corporate program was working toward resilience, if her family had a good supply of food, water, and electric power, things would have been less stressful.
> I recently was invited to speak to some students at my alma mater. There were two different classes, one before and one after lunch along with an open discussion during lunch. I talked about how life changes and how where you start out is not always where you wind up. Many of the students had been concerned that their chosen field was too small, and they would be limited in career opportunities. Through the classes and the forum, we agreed that there were many possibilities, and they needed to have faith that they would make the best decision possible.
One sophomore female student was enrolled in both classes and stayed through the entire three hours. When we were done, the professor invited me to his office and invited her if she had time. She said she had to meet her father in 45 minutes to find out if she could continue her schooling. She joined us, and we talked about the sessions and how they were received. The professor asked her if she would like to share her story.
Seeing her in class, I never would have imagined what I was about to hear. She was one of three children and was a twin. Her twin had Asperger syndrome and had been having significant difficulties. He had been heading down some dark roads, and she had been trying to help bring him back. Her parents had just gotten a divorce, and they had also filed for bankruptcy. Everyone was still living in a high-tension house. She was attending school and working an almost full-time job while trying to assist her brother. She was a tennis player on the university team. Issues arose when she didn’t want to party, and she was enduring a significant case of peer body shaming. She was ready to quit and just accept her fate.
Earlier in the semester, she decided to confide in some of the professors. She had gone into counseling and was working through many issues. She had realized that by reaching out to receptive individuals, she could receive strength to move forward. She had recently lost her grandmother after a prolonged illness. She understood that she had to mourn and move on. With her new faith in herself nurtured by others, she is growing stronger every day.
As a solutionist, I listen to all sides of the issue, inquire about items that may not have been discussed, offer suggestions, and try to reach consensus. My role is to move the process along. I was not there when your process started, I was not there when it had issues, and I will not be there to the end. You own your success.
As a solutionist that has found my own faith, I get to meet and talk to many people. It doesn’t matter where they are from or what religion they may have, they are people―people with issues and unresolved needs. Many times, the issues and needs are derived from some earlier misunderstanding or lack of personal knowledge. With just a little bit of ongoing attention, everyone can continue to grow and have faith in themselves.
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Look at each setback and see how there can be a comeback. Look at what you have done before, even if it wasn’t the right solution at the time. Look around and see what has or hasn’t worked for others. Build on the best of everything and be flexible.
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Howard Pierpont is a solutionist for the Institute for Preparedness and Resilience. The Institute is the educational preparedness arm of the International Association for Disaster Preparedness and Response (DERA), a membership not-for-profit 501(C)3 organization. Mr. Pierpont retired from Intel Corporation where he assumed responsibility for business continuity and preparedness for worldwide engineering. He later worked in the FEMA Long Term Community Recovery Office. He then spent four years speaking about resiliency, social media, and dealing with the government during times of disaster.
www.Preparedness.org
Howard.Pierpont@Preparedness.Org
www.Howard.Solutions
Twitter: solution_howard
970-397-5526
CHAPTER 32
The Hot Shot Banker Who Lost Everything,
Restarted with $525,000 in Debt, Then Became a Millionaire
by Nick Aalerud
M y phone started to vibrate, and my whole body froze. Will I be chased the rest of my life?
My heart raced. I slowly reached down to grab my phone from my right jeans pocket, only to realize…I had left it in my car. It was just my brain playing tricks on me.
I couldn’t believe that even 10 years later, I was still having such an emotional reaction from a very trying time in my life.
While I definitely didn’t have it as hard as many did growing up, there is still something notable about the first time you hit a reset button in your life. I’ve now had five resets. The first left the deepest impression.
I majored in politics at a private liberal arts school in New Hampshire. However, once I realized no one likes lawyers or politicians (being a people- pleaser at the time), I felt I’d wasted a lot in student loans that I’d be paying off for a very long time. Instead, I would become a banker where I could learn about the financial markets.
An HR lady gave me a shot in a temp position at the Federal Home Loan Bank in Boston where I acted as a glorified intern on the trading desk. I sought out something long-term and landed what I thought would be a very prestigious position―working for Mellon Bank. I was so excited for my first job, I was willing to devote everything to it. This started to include nights, weekends, and holidays, and I quickly realized it wasn’t as glamorous as I thought. Lots of great opportunities, lots of great people, but the job was more glorified data entry than anything exciting, and I was burning out quick.
To beat some of the stress, I was obsessed with RISK, the game of global domination. I became very good, to the point where my friends would gang up and eliminate me first.
“Guys, you suck. I should kick you all out.”
I turned on the TV. “That’s it, I’m turning on infomercials and will buy the first thing I see. This is YOUR fault.” I heard a chuckle, but they were into their game now.
I saw a gentleman on TV barking about how I (even I!) could “learn to buy real estate, with no cash or credit, for only PENNIES on the DOLLAR.”
Well, I had to live up to my word. I pulled out my phone and wallet. My friends were still making a ton of noise. I went to bed feeling angry and silly for buying something so ridiculous.
A week later, the binder arrived in the mail. It was sort of interesting―this guy had found a way to track down people who owed taxes and would buy their real estate before the town took the property. The seller would get cash for their house, the buyer got a good deal, and the town got their tax money.
The more I thought about it, the more I knew that real estate was my way out of the grind.
On the last page of the binder, there was small print: “If you’re serious about real estate, call 800-555-xxxx.” I called that number, and the best salesperson in the world got me to pull out three credit cards and pay more than I had in my whole savings account―$10,000 for an eight-week phone coaching on how to get started in real estate.
After jumping on those calls at the only hour I had (9 p.m., while still at my bank job), I got some basics, but all it really did was whet my appetite for this fascinating career. I spent another $20,000 I didn’t have buying other courses, mentorships, and even a motivational hypnosis weekend.
Six months went by, and I looked back at all the notes I had taken and the money I had spent. “What’s wrong with me? Why haven’t I done anything yet?” All my friends and most of my family thought I was being ridiculous for spending my hard-earned money on a pipe dream. I felt alone, ridiculous, and broke.
I was in the shower one day (back when I had more hair) and realized I needed an accountability partner. And my shampoo bottle was as good as any!
“By the time this shampoo runs out, I will have done a deal in real estate.” I murmured.
I wanted to prove to myself, as well as my doubters, that this was worthwhile. Every day, my shampoo bottle would get a little lower and remind me I had to just make it a priority, to shut up (stop the mind babble and the excuses), and DO IT .
I started posting online looking for motivation a
nd help. Someone who read the posts sent me an email. He was out of state and had an opportunity for me.
This person checked the boxes. He was visible online, people in his area had heard of him, and the team members he introduced me to all said he was a great guy. His pitch went like this:
a) He was finding “undervalued” real estate,
b) He had “tenant buyers,” rent-to-own individuals, who’d be renting these properties for 20% above market rent for three years due to some credit issues,
c) They’d sign a purchase agreement to buy the property for 20% above what we were paying for it in three years.
The best part was, back in 2005, it was legal in this particular state to buy a property for $450,000, fund it with 90-100% financing, and have the seller turn around and execute a “payment authorization” at the closing, paying the buyer back $50,000 as a “Thanks! Good luck!” payment.
“So, let me get this straight. You’ll teach me how you do what you do, and we’ll make money from the rent, and from when we sell, AND from the purchase closing? What’s the catch?”
“No catch. I take 40% of the cash generated for doing the legwork, and you’ll get the rest for signing for the loans.”
I supposed that was worth 60% of all this cash coming in. Heck, this guy had all the pins lined up for me. And these houses looked nice based on the pictures.
My shampoo bottle was almost empty, and I needed to bring in cash quick, since my debt had piled up from all those courses and marketing mailers my coach had told me to send out.