My mid-life awakening

I didn't have a mid-life crisis. I had a mid-life awakening.

It all began at the end of 2020. I had just accomplished a life goal of mine: becoming an MBA grad. After a 3.5-year marathon of going through the Professional MBA program at UT Dallas (as well as getting my Master's in Finance simultaneously), I spent a lot of time reflecting on those last few years. Something occurred to me that was both a tough pill to swallow and yet exciting at the same time....

The Exciting

During my 3.5-years working through my MBA, I accomplished a LOT. I did not do a full-time MBA. I worked full-time then spent my evenings in class or studying and working on projects. This included transitioning out of public accounting and moving to a new role at a publicly-traded company, as well as pivoting to a FP&A role a year later and figuring out my new responsibilities.

My cohort began in the fall of 2017. At the end of that first semester, my wife gave birth to our firstborn. The day we left the hospital, I drove my wife and newborn home, then two hours later headed to campus to take my finals and turn in a couple of projects. Fast forward 2019 and we decided to have a second baby during all of this.

In 2018 I also decided to check another item off my to-do list: study for and take the four required exams to finally obtain my CPA license. It was something I had pushed off for years because of laziness. I figured it would be good to take advantage of the study mindset I had and just go all in. Five exams later within an 18-month period (I failed my first attempt at FAR) I finally applied and became a CPA.

It was also during this timeframe that my cousin began his real estate business (at the time creating syndications and buying mobile homes) and he had asked me to help with some accounting and finance work. So I did that for a bit as well.

I remember one night in the kitchen in early December 2020 submitting the last item of my MBA career at midnight. My wife was in the kitchen with me. When she watched me press the submit button for the last time she began crying, overwhelmed by the emotion of feeling the weight of it all lift from her. It had been a grueling 3.5 years of stress, anxiety, tears, and sacrifice. Not just for me. She had to take on the burden of keeping the house in order and figuring out how to be a mom (twice!), while also juggling a job working 36 hours per week. If it weren't for her tenacity and grit, we would not have pulled all of this off.

When this season had finally ended, I reflected a lot on all that I had done. As I did, two powerful realizations hit me. First was how much I had actually done in a relatively short time frame. If I could do all that I did in the last 3.5 years, what else could I accomplish in the next 3 years? And the next? I recognized that my capacity to achieve was greater than I originally thought.

The Tough Pill

The second realization was the stark contrast of the last 3.5 years with the several years prior to 2017. Between my undergrad and 2017, I realized that I had accomplished very little in my life. Sure, I had a career in public accounting and I had finally married at 32, but other than that, I had done nothing that I would consider noteworthy. I had lived a live of mediocrity, status-quo.

In short, I felt that I had effectively wasted my 20s.

That obviously wasn't intentional. There is a verse in the Bible that has always stuck with me since before college: "Where there is no vision, the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18). After graduating college and getting the job I was aiming to get, I no longer had a vision of what I wanted to do or be. I recognized this early on but struggled to identify where I wanted to go next, at least from a career standpoint. So I effectively stalled out and went on auto-pilot. This unfortunately impacted how I thought about and approached work, and it wasn't healthy or productive.

This was the tough pill for me to swallow: the regret of wasting a significant portion of my time. I graduated with my MBA at age 37. I realized I had done virtually nothing in the first 20 years of my adult life.

Looking Forward

That is when I woke up and decided not to waste the next 20 years of my life. I knew I needed a vision or else I would perish again. It has taken the last 5 years since grad school to refine and flesh out what I want and how to get there, but I believe I have narrowed it down. 

Ultimately, I want "time freedom"; freedom to do the things I want to do and not have to wait until I'm in my 60s and 70s to do them. To me, this requires a certain level of financial freedom. Employment is not going to get me there. As such, I've chosen to use M&A and business ownership and investing as my vehicles to achieve my vision.

I also recognize that in the past I let fear take the driver seat of my life and make decisions for me. This acknowledgement has been a necessary step in the right direction for me. Pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and making myself extremely vulnerable more recently has been ground-breaking in pushing past my fears. 

I believe success is on the other side of fear, and it's about time I start living the life I've been dreaming of for a long time.