I spent most of my life in the suburbs of Chicago. Although downtown Chicago is still one of my favorite cities to visit, melding big business with top-notch culture and some of the best food diversity in the country, the congestion of the city did not make it an ideal place for us to raise our young children. After our children were born, my visits to this entertainment mecca from the outlying suburbs became infrequent. The benefits of Chicago quickly dissipated when the snow would begin to fall and the wind would begin to tear my face apart, forcing me into hibernation until flowers were once again blooming. Additionally, when I wanted to break away for a weekend, the only options within an approximate 5 hour radius were Milwaukee and St. Louis, neither of which represented exciting destinations to us. I have always been thoroughly unimpressed with the flat landscape of Illinois and was especially tired of having to deal with the frigid, relentless winters. Since a relatively young age, my dream in retirement was to live in a warm, mountainous environment. I was confident that waking up to palm trees, sunshine, and beautiful scenery would result in a significantly improved quality of life. As discussed in the section on attitude, there is a direct correlation between one’s level of happiness and their ability to be successful.
In August 2007, my wife and I paid a visit to some good friends in the west valley of Phoenix, Arizona. During this visit, we were taken aback by the beautiful scenery and the onslaught of commercial and residential development that was sprouting up throughout the valley. Although it was August and temperatures topped out around 108 degrees, my wife and I golfed, rode bicycles and enjoyed the outdoors. We were amazed to find that the lack of humidity had such a significant impact on our overall perception of those blazing temperatures. It felt like a 90 degree day in Chicago – while still extremely warm, it certainly was tolerable. On a whim, we decided to take a look at some of the new houses that were for sale in the area.
As we walked through a few houses in one newly developed community, the southwestern architecture, mountain views, and shockingly low cost per square foot seemed too good to be true. The entire picture was congruent with the dreams that I had been playing over and over in my head for the past decade. I had always envisioned moving to this type of personal paradise in retirement, and a number of questions began to flood my brain. Why should I wait until retirement to realize my dreams? What is the balance between risk and reward? How would my day to day life improve if I were living in this environment? How would my children like growing up in this environment versus the Chicago suburbs? WHY NOT?
It was 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon, and we were scheduled to fly out the following morning. I asked my wife, “What do you think?” She loved the house, loved the west valley, but was concerned about the commitment that would need to be made. The housing market had begun a major decline and we likely would struggle to sell our house in Chicago. She was a stay at home mom taking care of our two toddlers while I was the sole breadwinner in a lucrative, stable position with a large distribution company that offered plenty of upward mobility. After a bit more thought, I looked my wife squarely in the eye and said “Let’s do it.” “Are you serious?” was her immediate response. Rather than focus on the negative, we made a decision there and then that we would make things work. The house was going to be built on a vacant lot, so we had 6-8 months to sell our existing house and find employment. We signed a contract that afternoon, wrote a large check for earnest money, and committed to live our dream. There was no turning back now. I placed myself in a position where I would either sink or swim, and although I had buy-in from my wife, if things didn’t work out the results could potentially be devastating to our family. That night, I couldn’t eat or sleep thinking about what I had just done. I had put our family in quite a predicament.
As it turns out, this impulsive decision took place on the cusp of an economic crisis and a meltdown of the housing market. Foreclosure levels reached a historic peak, housing values collapsed throughout the nation, and unemployment levels had hit the highest levels in decades. The job market was exceptionally weak in Phoenix and, despite solid work experience, companies did not seem to be willing to look at the resume of someone who was based in Chicago. We placed our house on the market in September at slightly below perceived market values thinking that would draw some interest. The day we put our house on the market, our area was hit with a torrential downpour, knocking out power for nearly 18 hours. As my wife and I sat in the kitchen late that evening ensconced by candlelight, she mentioned that she hadn’t heard the sump pump kick on in a while. Panic ensued. Since we had never lost power before while living in that house, I never even considered the possibility that the pump might not have a battery backup. We walked downstairs to find that the rainwater had begun to flood our finished basement. I jumped in the car and quickly drove one hour to borrow a backup generator from my sister, but it was too late. After spending a few weeks and thousands of dollars to fix the damage to our basement, we finally were ready to show the house. However, at its current price point in a rapidly depreciating market, we were struggling to draw any activity. Suddenly, the house next door went into foreclosure, dropping values of comparable properties in our area significantly. Over the next few months, our prospects for success were starting to look awfully bleak.
In early November, my company offered me an unexpected promotion to run a division based in Chicago. They saw this as a great opportunity for upward mobility while enabling me to stay in Chicago. At that point, I could easily have given up on the dream. Our Chicago house was not selling. I had an opportunity to advance my career and income. Although we would have lost thousands of dollars in earnest money, the promotion would have eventually enabled us to replace those losses and provide for even more. I needed to make an immediate decision. If I were to pass on this opportunity for promotion, my company would offer that position to someone else. Furthermore, they would likely view me as ungrateful and think twice about offering me future promotions. After a few minutes of deliberation, I came to a quick decision. I opted to remain FULLY DEDICATED to the dream. Instead of taking the easy way out, I chose to burn my bridges. I informed them that I could not take the position as I needed to move to Phoenix. They were completely shocked and upset that I had never discussed this with them. They pressed to understand why and, backed into a corner, I began to make up excuses. I just didn’t feel that I could tell them that I impulsively bought a house because I liked sunshine and mountains, and was willing to give up my career based on that dream. For some reason, I just did not feel that they would understand. After additional discussion, I begged them to create a position for me in a much smaller Phoenix division. They told me that they were disappointed in my decision to pass up a tremendous opportunity but would see if there was something they could do for me. In the interim, we needed to begin implementing a transition plan so I could train a replacement for my current role, whether they had a position in Phoenix for me or not.
That night, I began to get extremely depressed as I had hit an absolute low point. My career path was temporarily destroyed. In just four months, I could potentially have no job, two houses, and a family of four to feed. With economic conditions in the dump, I simply did not see things working out. However, I was unwilling to accept failure. If I was going to keep my dream alive, I needed to do everything within my power to create success.
This was not the first time in my life that a low point had been reached. In prior instances, it always seemed that before anything great happened in my life, I would reach a point of ultimate despair and frustration, but through persistence always managed to turn things around. Even though I was at a point of desperation, instead of looking at the negatives, I began to believe in the positive and envisioned things working out. As remote as that possibility seemed at the time, I refused to believe anything else.
A few weeks later, I received a call from an executive recruiter in London. They had acquired my name from a former employer and were seeking to fill the role of Executive Vice President for a start-up steel company. This newly created position would lead their sales and marketing efforts in North America and, since a U.S. office had not been established yet, the successful candidate could live anywhere in the U.S.! Although the position was roughly two steps above my current role, it was an absolute dream job. I knew that if I could land this whale, half of my battle would be won. Over the next few weeks, I spent all of my free time surfing the internet to learn everything I could on the company. I researched history of members of the executive team, built a mental timeline of the notable activities the company engaged in over the last decade, and uncovered as much research and technical data on their products as I could. By the time I arrived at my interview, I had established a strong level of confidence as I felt in tune with the history, markets, and needs of the organization. Things were starting to look up.
By March 2008, our Chicago house was sold, I was fully engaged with my new company, and we had begun to transition into our new and quickly improved life. Although some would interpret everything working out as it did as being extreme luck, as I reflect on this experience, there are a few key concepts that I believe were critical in achieving success. To begin, I never gave up on the dream that I had created for myself. I set the vision, continually imagined myself actually existing within that dream, and dedicated myself toward converting that dream into reality.