Years ago before I started selling hotels, I owned some fast food restaurants called Mrs. Winner’s. It was basically like a Kentucky Fried Chicken without the support of the franchisor and the sales. Ha. I bought them in 1988 with an investor when I was 30 years old and thought my financial future was in the food business.

If there is anyone that reads this blog that has the desire to really complicate and jack up their life, get in the restaurant business. I lost so much money I couldn’t even keep up with it. Also, I was working 100 hours a week and all of this took place when our girls were little. It took me 10 years to get out of that investment and pay back all the money I owed.

One summer in the early ’90s, we went camping for a week. I was dreading going back to work and to the restaurants because I knew what was waiting for me. I told Elaine’s father, Max Phillips, this and he said something that stopped me cold. He said you need to find a business that you enjoy because if you enjoy it, you will be more successful. Max owed a fence company and if there was an Olympic event of fence selling, Max would have owned the gold medal for 30 years. He loved what he did, and he did it very very well.

So, I took Max’s advice in 1990 and started selling hotels while still running the restaurants. I sold the final restaurant in 1998 and the bad dream was over. By 1998 when I sold that last restaurant, I had established myself in hotel brokerage, and that is where I am today. I can say without question that I love selling hotels and look forward to each day and each week. Max was right because I found something I enjoyed doing, and it makes life so much sweeter in all areas.

When you go to work today, enjoy it to the fullest because one day you will not be able to work. I look at men who because of health and age are unable to work any longer, and I know in their hearts they wished they had enjoyed those years more. Don’t go grudgingly to work, but rather embrace the period in your life where you can work and contribute financially to your family’s future. I believe in all areas of your life if you can figure out the “why,” you can figure out the “how.”

So, Max’s advice was spot on: find work that drives you, challenges you and that you enjoy because life is too short not to enjoy that part of your life. KT