Askesis In Action
Everyone’s Askesis journey will look different. This is the example of our founders journey. We all have talents that match up with our life experiences and personality. The Askesis mindset avoids comparison and instead promotes possibility. We can look to others as inspiration but should always provide ourselves with compassion. We should always remain grounded to our personal boundaries and limitations while being open to pushing our perceived limits, avoid creating unnecessary boundaries, or allowing negative thinking to talk us out of not even trying.
The percentages below represent the amount contributed to our founders total net worth by the year 2025 when he retired. Naturally, due to compounding, investments could take up a greater and greater share moving forward, but that’s for a different discussion.
Real Estate: 23%
My First Home
ROI: -10%
My first home was a good learning lesson. I went through some personal financial trouble. If you add the money I put into the home versus what it sold for, it was a net loss of an investment.
The Sacrifice
ROI: 0%
After selling the home I moved into a condo in an undesirable area to rent with the intention of saving enough money to buy again and began putting a significant amount of cash flow into investing.
The Springboard
ROI: 86%
I bought a condo in a questionable community for a price that was well below my means. I worked hard to make the community better and made DIY interior improvements
Reinvestment
ROI: 74%
Purchased a burnt down house with cash that was saved. Cleared the lot by hand. Hired a builder to build the home. Had a bad experience and thought if those guys could build homes, so could I.
The Challenge
ROI: 68%
Through investing I had enough funds to build this house as an owner builder. In all, I built 30% of the home with my own two hands and acted as the general contractor. A truly great experience and extremely hard work.
The 9 to 5: 13%
Hospitality
In 2002, I started my first W2 job at Domino’s Pizza. At $5.15 an hour, I was ecstatic when I received my first raise; 10 cents! Due to financial hardship, I received a child labor law waiver from my assistant principal and worked 45 hours a week my senior year of high school. I left Domino’s making $45,000 per year as a franchise supervisor. This experience was an instrumental part of my journey in learning how people, businesses, and the world works.
Law Enforcement
Once the great recession started to hit in 2006, sales at most hospitality institutions dropped significantly. At this point, I was without any college degree and at a crossroad. I decided to take a job as a corrections deputy while I started to go to school and earn my Bachelors degree in Business Management. Salary at the time was $36,000 but overtime was always available and I believe I took home around $50,000 annually. I quickly learned that law enforcement wasn’t for me and left after 2 years, but I appreciate the men and women who serve our communities.
Education
For 10 years I taught in public education, working in some of the most difficult and underprivileged schools. My results earned me the State of Florida High Impact award for teachers performing in the top 1% of the state. I went on to win the Golden Apple and was consistently rated highly effective. I started this job making $32,000 annually and ended 10 years later making $58,000 after earning a doctorate in Educational Leadership. Education for me was never about the money. It was about paying it forward to all the teachers that put up with and believed in the kid with ADHD that couldn’t sit still or be quiet, but had potential.
Building Businesses: 12%
Insurance
I assisted opening two new captive lines branches. Top 5 new agency in the country. Over $1 million in premium personally written annually, significant in 2014.
Public Adjusting
After Hurricane Ian devastated SW Florida, I assisted a multi line business as COO to help produce content and assist recovery efforts.
Pet Accessory Company
As COO, assisted this company in starting up, launching, and eventually selling to private equity within a short period of time.
Roofing
As general manager, helped a roofing company increase revenue 300% and implement EOS. Built out standard operating procedures and hired top tier talent to springboard the company.
Helping Others: 0%
In addition to generally working 60-80 hours every week without fail, I prioritized helping others. There isn’t an ROI here but the networking opportunities that present themselves while getting out and doing good for others are abundant. Not everything in life is about money and sometimes you can find great happiness and purpose in helping someone else.
Volunteer Sports Coach
Big Brothers and Big Sisters Board Member
City Council Advisor
Home Owners Association President
Education Mentor
Side Hustles: 4%
If I ever saw an opportunity to earn additional income, or barter, I took it. I can’t even list everything here as it would be ridiculous. My best advice is to learn several trades. Your local library and Youtube are the best places to learn how to do something new. Try it on your own, like painting, and then once you’re good, sell your services. Many times we focus on dollars per hour. The real wealth lies in amount per job/contract and then completing that within a reasonable time frame. Example, you work part-time for $15 an hour. You work an additional 20 hours per month over many days, that equals $300. Alternative, you paint a living room for a friend and charge them $400. Subtract $100 for materials. You complete it in 6 hours. You’ve made $50 an hour working one day. Not included here is the work I completed building my own homes and real estate, which is technically still a side hustle that paid significant dividends.
Investing / Compounding: 48%
If you take into account my general costs of living, food, insurance, child care, vacations, etc. then investing and compounding would account for much more than the 48% of my current net worth. However, it took building houses, working the 9 to 5, side hustles, and living in housing well below my means to generate the capital necessary to invest. On average I spend about 1 hour a day researching companies, talking to investor relations departments, pouring over financial statements and guidance, etc. Average returns in the S&P 500 Index are about 8% a year historically. My annualized returns since I started investing are around 23%. Early on, I did a lot of high risk investing (volatility assets, leverage, etc.), but honestly made no more money than strategic opportunity investing. I’ve never invested in cryptocurrency or any non traditional investments. Just good quality companies during the right events. I don’t provide investment advice or guidance. Investing will take you years to learn and is something that you must constantly stay on top of as it is ever changing. Most people would do well just putting their investments into diversified low cost index funds with dividend reinvestment and calling it a day.
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