I have a very similar story- been listening to the podcasts religiously for the past 6mo, but live in an area where buy and hold numbers don’t make sense.

If you want to just be together in a sanctioned way there are plenty of religious ceremonies that can "marry" you without the weight of financial ruin. 

It’s all about becoming a thought leader or focal point in your space.

I do have a good mind to pay it back in its entirety now though, since the greatest leader ever to grace the WH is now at the helm, and I would love for him to use it.  

😁To become a good leader, one must first be a good follower.

Its almost like the growth from leveling up a corporate career: individual contributor to manager to manager of managers to director of a department to an executive leader with multiple departments with an ownership stake.All in all, not a bad place to be in, but a foreign world.Feel free to reach out.

Now the new leaders kind of think anything above 0.8% is okay.

(other folks simply want to see others as leaders... that they can trust... without trust there is no money... with trust comes power...)  

When someone has health or religious reasons for being unable to eat the type of food served at a restaurant, tell management you want to pay for a meal and explain why they don't have to go to the expense of preparing it for you.I like that idea.

Sure you have guys like Todd Dexheimer who didn't have either previous education or work experience, but they started small and worked their way up to the MF space by being successful in all their intermediate steps.Like you mentioned, being a commercial broker who syndicates deals on the side is another way into the game.Omar knows way more about the thought leader path than I do, but from the little I've seen it seems to involve a lot of luck.