This is something I have long thought about – and have written many times before.
But so far… I have either always deleted it – or just let it sit hidden and in private.
Why?
Because believe it or not – even despite multiple courses, hundreds of videos, thousands of articles, and multiple thousands of pieces of other content – I personally do not like attention. Not when it’s focused on me – I would much rather talk about the things I do and what I teach, or other interests – just as long as we are not talking about me personally and my personal life.
Some people DO like the spotlight – for fame and attention itself.
Thats NOT me.
I could care less about any of that, except as needed to market my businesses and products – nothing more than that. However, I do get it, and I do understand some people are curious.
Nevertheless, people’s stories are interesting. I know I am very interested when it comes to the people I like and follow – knowing how they grew up, how they live and where they came from, what challenges they overcame and what other events shaped them into who they are today is very interesting to me.
So with that in mind – as much as I would really rather not – I will begin slowly adding information and updating my own story here and there.
As you can see this is a subpage of an about page – an About page which is itself very long and focused on my work.
That means only the really curious will dig this far down to read this.
Maybe someday I will actually post the long version. Until then, I will give you the really short version overview.
I was born in Alabama in the early 60’s and grew up partly in the city – until I was about six or seven years old. My brother and I lived mainly with our great grandmother – and occasionally with our mother and father briefly, while they were together – which wasn’t long.
Then I went to live on a large livestock farm about thirty miles away that was 1800 acres or so.
There I learned how to drive, how to operate all kinds of tractors and farm equipment from that age on. I raked and bailed hay, put the hay in the barn with a New Holland Bail wagon, did bush hogging and many other things.
We raised chickens, hogs and cattle and produced a crap ton of hay – which we sold to surrounding farmers as well as used some of it for our own cattle.
By the time I was 7 or 8 I was working pretty much a full-time job – and I have been working ever since too.
On the farm I learned how to hunt, fish, process what I killed or caught and how to cook it too. I learned how to handle weapons safely and accurately, and how to survive in various weather situations and conditions.
I particularly loved to fish – usually from an old Jon boat on our private pond which was full of bass, brim and catfish. By the age of 11 I learned to ride motorcycles and love doing it too. I have owned motorcycles off and on for most of my life ever since too and still love riding – though at the moment I don’t own one (may have to fix that soon ; )
I have two brothers – Russell (Rusty) and Mack.
My mother and father were divorced by the time I was four and my brother Rusty was about two. Mack was not born until the 70’s which was a few years away, and he has a different father – my stepfather Alan.
I left the farm when I was about 14 or 15 – just got on my motorcycle and rode away, never looking back – and never regretting that decision either. Thats another longer story. Maybe I will eventually share it and maybe not.
For a couple of years there after that I lived with my great grandmother who was and still is (even though she has long ago left this world) a very important person in my life. She was something else, and she was an amazing person. I was always told she was Cherokee – and whether true or not I do not know and do not really care. She was just MaMa (pronounced MaW MaW by us) and she the most important member of my family.
Another important person was my uncle Russell (who my brother was named after). He served in WWII in the Navy and had two ships torpedoed out from under him in the Pacific.
During the time I lived with my great grandmother I did what many teenage boys did – and that was raise all kinds of hell. I raced cars, drank whiskey and beer, got into a few fist fights, stayed out all night and slept all day – if I wasn’t working. I worked for money to keep my car on the road and in racing condition (1974 Pontiac Venture – meta flake gold, aluminum ET slotted wheels) which I loved very much and miss it today.
The first paying job I ever had was as a brick masons apprentice – and still one of the hardest jobs (maybe THE hardest!) I have ever had. Though I enjoyed it, learned a lot, and was in probably the best physical shape of my life. My hands were so tough I could have probably snatched the bark off a tree.
We worked mainly on new homes and went up and down the streets bricking entire homes one after the other – about a week per house (back then we bricked the whole thing – not just the front). This is probably where I began to develop an interest that would become a lifelong obsession with real estate and homes of all kinds.
The next job I had was working in a table factory on an assembly line putting tables together. I also enjoyed it too for a while – but I realized it could become my life (there were whole generations of families working there!) and I decide that was NOT going to be me.
So I decided to join the military. I did so for many reasons. The first was adventure and travel, the second was because I was angry at the world and actually wanted to go to war, and yes, I did want to serve my country and be patriotic too – but honestly that was third on my list at the time.
So, I wanted to join the Marines.
To the recruiter’s office I went. It was lunch time, and the Marine recruiter was out getting a burger or something. So I sat down and waited in the lobby area for him to return. A Navy recruiter came out of his office across the hall and started talking to me about the Navy. He asked a lot of questions, and I told him why I wanted to join the Marines. While I respected the Navy because of my uncle Russell – it was not my first choice.
The old chief said ” So you want to fight? I’ve got something you have got to see, and I think it’s exactly the thing you need!” and he invited me into his office to watch a film.
He got a couple of coffee cups off hooks and pulled a bottle out of his desk drawer, then he poured me and him some whisky in those coffee cups – and turned the film on.
It was a recruiting film for the Navy Seals – and I was very impressed, and immediately hooked. I wanted to be a Seal.
By the time the Marine recruiter got back I was already in the process of signing up with the Navy!
I was only 17 so MaMa had to sign some papers to get me in. Then off to boot camp in Orlando – and after that then off to Dam Neck (Fleet Combat Training Center) in Virginia Beach to complete Operations Specialist A school – then on to my first ship. You could not just go straight into the Seals – you have to do all this other stuff first – then test and apply for BUDS (Seal training) and that was what my plan was.
I got sidetracked for a couple of years (Hey I was only 17, 18 years old!) enjoying being a Fleet Sailor – seeing much of the world, drinking and fighting in bars and having a blast. I was 17 when I went in and turned 18 in bootcamp.
By the time I was 19 I was back on track to continue my journey toward becoming a Seal and I was working out and running every day. I did thousands of pushups, sit-ups, lifted weights and ran as many miles as I could push my body to do – which was a lot. I was also running the confidence course at Little Creek Amphibious bases every chance I got.
I made a deployment to Beirut and while there went ashore in a Seal boat and took the entrance physical test to become a Seal. Some reporter was there and for some reason homed in on me and took several pictures which I still have that wound up in a News Paper.
When I came back in off that deployment, I was running at little creek one day, and supposed to meet up with a buddy of mine later. I went looking for my friend in the Helm Club (base club) but didn’t find him right away – but I did find a beautiful girl sitting all alone looking a bit unhappy. So, as I walked by her on my way out the door in search of my friend I said, “why such a sad look on such a beautiful face…” and she and I have been together ever since – more than forty years or so now and still counting.
Her name is Elizabeth, her friends call her by her nickname “Abbie” and I call her Betsy (which is what her family has always called her).
After I met her and married her, we had a son, and that changed my goals and plans. My destiny was no longer to be a Seal, but to be a husband and a father and to become an entrepreneur, real estate investor, real estate agent, trucking company and small business owner and an instructor, coach, and mentor to thousands of people over decades of time and still counting.
My life so far has been a strange and interesting journey. Along the way I done many different jobs and owned several businesses. My wife and I together opened and ran numerous small businesses over the years as “side hustles” before that term ever existed.
We have made a lot of money. Lost it all. Made it back and continue to learn life’s lessons – and we teach what we have learned and what we know.
It took years to develop and to fully understand but my chosen destiny and where I enjoy the work most is in Teaching, Training, Coaching, Mentoring and helping other people learn new skills and do better in their own lives. While money is very nice, and it is necessary too – it goes far beyond just making money.
There is a very deep satisfaction that comes from training and helping other people – and seeing them achieve various successes of their own.
Another thing I want to mention is MISTAKES and FAILURES…
Over the years I have certainly made more than a few. While I will never go into great detail on that aspect of my life as it is far too personal, and not everything needs to be always be public – I do feel like at least touching on a few things is useful. Thats because it is so easy to look at anyone who currently has any level of success and assume they never made any mistakes, they haven’t experiences failure or other tragedies.
Yet that’s never the truth.
Everyone has had all of those things happen to an extent or another – though they may not want to share the gory details (or relive unpleasant times) with the whole world.
I will say that I have made all kinds of financial mistakes, taken on way too much debt, spent more than I made, failed to have enough in saving or reserves and done all kinds of other less than smart things with money, credit, debt and other things. I’ve made personal mistakes too…
But here is how I handle all that – first I never cry about the past because it’s pointless and there is nothing, I can do about mine or you can do about yours either – except to learn from it and not repeat the mistakes.
Over the years I have had a few people erroneously believe that somehow everything has always just worked out easy for me – which is utter bull shit. The same for many other people I know that have achieved some success, including many that have achieved far more than I have – so far. People assume they were smarter, or better off to begin with, or gifted, lucky or whatever – and again that’s just not true.
To achieve the success that I do have I have had to work my ass off to do it and as I mentioned I have stumbled, failed, fallen and gotten back up countless times my friend… and so do all of us who try to do anything worth doing in this life.
Thats my life so far.
Perhaps like you, we don’t always wind up where we initially set a course for – sometimes we wind up doing much better. Yet the journey must begin somewhere to get anywhere at all – and life’s journey is funny like that sometimes.
While I never became a Seal, I did do a great many very satisfying things.
I did get scuba qualified on my own, and jumped out of planes a couple of times, took martial arts for years, went rappelling and did all kinds of other things to get my adrenaline rush. I still do what I can – though not nearly as much or as extreme as I once did (it upsets my mate too much!) So, I try to behave as best I can…but I still have the urge to jump out of planes and other such things from time to time, even if I don’t actually do it.
Adventure and recreation are still important, and I do what I can. I do ride mountain bikes, kayak, and am learning paddle boarding (swimming ; ) and starting to play disc golf too when I find time available.
Today my wife and I own and operate TRS which is always going to be at its core a TRAINING, CONSULTING and COACHING company – though we do many other things too.
I also take jobs and work from time to time as a contractor or employee temporarily to meet my goals when it is beneficial. Right now, I am running my company and working for a tractor trailer training school overseeing its CDL school. I am also creating online courses, writing books, and other publications, doing affiliate marketing etc. I am focusing attention also on recruiting and training Real Estate agents.
To be continued…. (Maybe ; )