My Son Turned To Me And Said, “Dad, I Love You. I Had Such A Great Time, I Want To Do More Of This.”

My 10-year-old son and I were on our way back from an impromptu ski trip to Utah. We spent 3 straight days skiing together and sleeping on the floor and couch at my good friend’s home. It was our first real father-son trip together and we both wanted more.

Unfortunately, my career made it difficult to spend a lot of time with my family. I had to make a choice. My father died at 41, I was 5, and I didn’t get to spend time with my father the same way I was able to spend time with my son during our fantastic trip.

This month I chose to leave my 18-year career in medical sales. When I turned 25 and started my first “real job” with Pfizer, I told my girlfriend (now wife) I was going to retire at 40. She remarked, “You won’t ever retire! You’ll always find something to do!”

She was right. I now hate the word “retire” and don’t let my clients use it; however, I’ve decided to make a change.

When I was in college, I formulated a simple plan to get to financial independence by 40:

1. Buy enough properties to produce a cashflow of $10,000 per month.

2. Get a high-paying job in the medical device field

3. Pay the mortgages off over the ensuing 15 years, so that I could be financially independent by the age of 40.

Now before I go through each step, let me say that after finishing my M.B.A. in Portfolio Management I knew one thing; I wanted to be an investor. I had day traded in the stock market and made (and lost) a lot of money. I loved the idea of buying and owning businesses and property. Now I just had to make some money to invest!

Step 1 took me from age 21 to age 27 as I accumulated residential rental properties every year from 1999-2005. These were high-quality rentals in college towns and other great neighborhoods. The real estate market was red-hot and it was easy to buy properties. However by around 2005 it didn’t make sense to purchase and rent anymore. I stopped buying before the peak and crash (which saved me a lot of money)! During this time not only did I get my real estate license, but I managed my own properties. I went to a ton of real estate courses and meetings and continued to learn how to optimize my returns in the market. My portfolio yielded around $11,000 per month in gross rents. Now on to step 2 . . .

I worked my way towards my ultimate goal: become a medical device rep in a high-paying area by age 30. I worked for Pfizer for 2 years before moving on to being a medical device rep for J&J selling hips, knees, shoulders, and trauma implants. The hours and days were long; I regularly worked 14-hour days, and I would be on call 5 days a week. But I loved what I was doing and knew it would pay off. After only a year I was recruited to work for Medtronic, the world’s #1 medical device company. I continued to work, learn, and network. At age 30 I was offered the opportunity to take over a territory in Asheville, NC. Asheville was one of the towns on the spreadsheet I developed that ranked multiple cities across the country based on quality of life, cost of living, etc. (that’s the engineer in me!) I love spreadsheets and data. Today I use the same type of process today to rank cities where we purchase apartment buildings.

The next 8 years with Medtronic were both arduous and rewarding. I went periods were I would work weeks without a single day off (my longest stretch was 7 months). However, I got to be a part of an amazing team that provided top-quality spine care to thousands of patients. I averaged about 15 surgeries a week or over 5,000 cases during my time in Asheville with Medtronic. Our business continued to grow and we developed a partnership with the largest hospital in Asheville; Mission Health. With the prospect of managing 30+ surgeries a week and a top-level trauma center I decided that I needed to focus more on my family. Fortunately I had a choice!

15 years after beginning my plan I had sold all of my residential properties and moved our equity into commercial (mostly multifamily) properties. This was a deviation from my original Step 3. The benefits of doing this were less hassles, no management, higher returns, and lower taxes. I had found a better way! The passive income from our properties in addition to my wife’s (modest) income as an architect more than covered our monthly expenses. I was able to walk away from a very lucrative job at only 38.

Today our investments continue to produce enough cashflow to cover our expenses. I don’t need to work in a demanding role that pulls me away from my family. However I still love the industry and being in a role where I get to help people every day have better lives. The highlight of my career was the people. The surgeons and colleagues that I got to work with every day. I particularly enjoyed hiring, mentoring, and training new reps and helping them to achieve their full potential. This is my purpose and passion. I’m going to continue to do this through Next-Level Income.

My personal mission is to share the strategy that I used and help others to achieve the same financial independence that we did. If you’d like to learn how I used the Next-Level Income strategy to build a portfolio of passive income investments, email me or get a free copy of my book and learn how to get access to cash flow investments. If you’d like to learn more about my coaching programs, send an email to coach@nextlevelincome.com