Christopher Sayson

Early on, Robert Kiyosaki "ruined" my life (for the good). It's tough living with a desire for instant gratification, trying to have a B/I quadrant mindset, but with E/S quadrant circumstance. In 2003, I was 20 and joined the Air National Guard. At 21, and fresh out of military basic training and technical school, I was fixing aircraft electronics part time and found a job using my new found knowledge working a more professional job. I had a more money than I needed. So I did what any "normal" 21 year old would do, I blew it all on partying, doodads, and trying to impress my friends. Later, I remembered Rich Dad, and started thinking let me buy a house to rent out. So, in the end of 2005, as an uneducated, risk-taker, I tried to dabble as a real estate investor. My first attempt was when I had posted ads on Craigslist looking for tenants who could choose their house for me to buy. I once remember looking at condos and houses by the local university with some college-attending prospective tenants with the intent to buy the condo to rent to them. It didn't end up working out. In 2006, after failing to buy and rent a property, I caught the house-buying bug. So, I ended up using a high interest, bad debt loan to try to "house hack". All in all, I ended up renting to my brother (who brought his girlfriend and dog, trashing my basement), to a military colleague (who eventually moved his pot smoking cousin in), to a pothead wannabe MMA fighter (whose dad only paid the first couple months of rent then stopped), to a traveling salesman a couple days out of the month (one of my only reliable tenants), and even rented my 4-car detached barn-style garage to a car subwoofer system builder who also stored car wash cleaning machine thingamajigs (the other reliable tenant). During the whole campaign, I was still looking to stuff to fill my life — I couldn't have enough toys. So, I started to leverage my income to buy bigger and more expensive toys. At one point, I bought a car that had an imported, turbocharged, high performance engine that wasn't even street legal. During the housing bubble pop and market crash, I was downsized and depressed. I still had a hole in my life that I couldn't fill. All I did have was a driveway full of mostly unfinished project cars, my house was trashed, and I couldn't pay the mortgage. So, I sold the cars for less, short sold the house to avoid foreclosure, and ended up becoming a tenant for a decade. Since then, I've found what I was searching for, started cleaning up my debt, and started getting paid to learn. My first lesson was sales, just like Kiyosaki said. I joined a couple MLMs where I learned a couple valuable, yet expensive, lessons of overcoming fear, striking up conversations with complete strangers, and motivation. With the inspiration of a girl, I graduated college in 2009 and became a "professional" salesman. I still want to own my own business. I always have ideas and have even started to execute on some of them, but they're always in fields or markets that are either severely underdeveloped, where I would have to pioneer and/or in markets that have such a high initial capital investment requirements that I've put them on the back burner. With many who have gone before me leading the way and teaching those who have the desire, I'm looking toward real estate as the vehicle to take my income to the next level and to be the foundation of my foray into owning a business. My expertise is finding a need and adding value to fulfill the need. Now, with a wife and 4 kids, success is not only a desire, Success is my duty.