My name is Blake and I'm 28. Believe it or not, I feel like I've wasted a good bit of my working life trading time for money. I'm married with a 14 month old son and have never felt like a great provider to him or my wife. As a family, we've had to make several decisions lately based on our average financial positioning, none of them being life or death or anywhere near that serious. But as a husband and father blessed with the task of providing for them, it pains me to see them have to settle. As I see it, mediocrity is the slow, easy death of the masses and I'm not ok with being average. Other than sports, real estate is the first thing that gives me that excited/nervous feeling in my stomach when I think about all the possibilities (Self-proclaimed sports addict). The goal is to create a lifestyle for myself and my family that allows for financial freedom, time independence and simply a better quality of life amongst other things. I look forward to absorbing as much as I can from people more successful than myself and fostering mutually beneficial relationships through the Bigger Pockets community.