Origins of postgreen - part 1

Like many small business startups it has been a long journey to the start of postgreen. I suppose it all started back in high school while trying to decide what I wanted to study in college. While I never felt a strong pull to any one major I realized that it was my ultimate goal to have my own business. I had no idea what that business might be but knew that I wanted the freedom and control that could accompany having your own business if run properly.

I think this early desire came from observing others who had built their own business as well as those toiling away in corporate America. I noticed a difference from these two types of people. While I can’t say that I fully understood the misery that can accompany a career in the corporate world until I began working after college, I could definitely see early on that there was something different about the individuals that had successfully created their own businesses. These were the people that seemed to be at every one of their children’s sporting, music, acting or other events. They also seemed to be more involved in local school, church and community activities. Some even contributed financially in addition to their time. These were also the families that seemed to come back from summer breaks with stories of their month long vacations near some large body of water.

It was at this stage that I knew I wanted to someday build a business of my own. I knew it would be hard work and had no idea what the business would be but I wanted to experience the lifestyle I saw other small business owners around me had built for themselves.

So the time came for me to go to college and I decided on Electrical Engineering mainly because I was good at math and science and every test and teacher told me that was the major for me. I liked audio equipment so I picked electrical over mechanical. I soon found that electrical engineering was not for me and switched to mechanical. After a year or so of that I realized I was attracted to business, management and marketing so I changed my major a final time to Industrial Management which was half business, half engineering and a couple of Industrial Engineering specific courses thrown in.

Late in my junior year of college I started thinking about what my first job might be while I worked on ideas for my own business. This is the time that I started reading books on business, investing and real estate. I think the first book I read that convinced me I wanted real estate investing to be part of my primary business and investing strategy was Multiple Streams of Income by Robert Allen. This was the first time I read about the benefits of real estate including passive income (or making money while you sleep as Robert put it) and using leverage and OPM (other people’s money) to purchase large investments. I decided that real estate was the best investment one could make on earth and vowed to learn more about all aspects of it.

It was also around this time that I considered continuing schooling after college to become an architect. I loved the creating and drafting part of engineering and always had somewhat of a suppressed artistic side that I thought would merge well into a career in architecture. It also dealt with real estate and had the potential to grow into my own business if I was successful. Alas, by the time I was nearing graduation I knew I had had enough of schooling for the time being and wanted to get out into that real world and start gaining real life experience. This would not be the last time I considered architecture again though…

to be continued…