Build a Business that Works for You even when You Call in Sick

I'm REALLY sick! COVID finally got me, and it is terrible and hateful! I’ve been avoiding this for the last three years. I was making deliberate and compulsive efforts to protect myself and my family. I’m that guy who ordered takeout and wiped it down with sanitizer. During the initial phase of COVID, I dreaded and hated those in-person meetings back in my W2 days. But Covid, for its treacherous ways, my family ended up getting it too. Fast forward to today, over 6 million people have lost their lives. Thinking about those family and friends and everyone who suffered inconsolably, I fear that it will be extreme for me with my tendencies (not afraid to admit it, being a big baby, man cold, and all).

Oh well, it’s Day 5 for me. How can it still be worse today than yesterday!?

Battling with Covid and being so sick for the first time in many ways re-centers my perspective and mindset. My Mom is always right about “Health is Wealth”! She used to tell me as a child that I was so blessed every morning to see another day, to experience the sun rising, and to feel its warmth, and the price we are all willing to pay for just a day, even a minute or two to guarantee it for us. So yes, in my sick days, and tale as old as time, to the many others who's struggling with sickness and fighting for their lives, and to those whom we dearly lost and fondly remembered, they all want us NEVER to forget…be thankful for we are winning the fucking lottery just for being able to wake up every morning. For that, I’m genuinely grateful.

One big realization, too, I’m just so glad I don’t have to call in sick to work, file for PTO, or get a doctor's note (although I did call off my Group Coaching Calls last Thursday because I sounded like baby Yoda, even Siri couldn’t pick up my talk texting). When I worked on my Healthcare W2, I felt I was letting everybody down. Still worse, I felt everybody was mad at me, and those negative repercussions of coworkers shaming me because I called in sick with Covid. Managers would say just suck it up. Gosh, what a world we live in, right?

Today a year after quitting my W2 job, I’m so thankful and lucky to have a team behind me. And by design, I have this business that rolls by itself. I am grateful to have had the chance to prioritize rest and recovery. And why it’s so important to have a business that can be there for you. I took a gamble on hosting travel nursing agencies, listing my home on Airbnb, and continuing to invest in real estate because today, I can be out for a week and still have income coming in while calling out sick. (I hate to be out sick. It makes me feel like I’m not doing anything, but I think the universe and God have put me in this spot to reflect on what I’m writing you all today.)

I HAVE BUILT this machine that will work without me, that my family can benefit from. God forbid something were to happen to me (I had two nights where I thought I needed to go to the ER and be hospitalized) like the millions of family, friends, and colleagues who succumbed to COVID. I sit here humbled and grateful that we have these amazing bodies (and vaccines, too) that can heal themselves like superheroes, immune systems that fight infection, lungs that breathe, and a brain to think, absorb information, create ideas, and build businesses.

This is why I urge you all to continue in your real estate journeys, whether that’s rental arbitrage or you’re just getting started, or you’re working that W2 with the purposiveness and ambitions to leave in time. Remember, building a funnel of income that works for you while you sleep is FREEDOM!

So continue on your journeys to have the dreams of building your Mid-Term Rental or Short-Term Rental business. It’s not impossible to have these businesses that will work while you sleep, that will provide food for you and your family, and that will be around in years, especially if you go about them intuitively and intelligently.

Let’s be thankful to have another day, to continue to educate ourselves in our business, that we won the lottery waking up this morning, that we get to drop our kids off from school but most importantly, that were here. Right now present, thinking of how we can better ourselves and our families by building something that will work for us even when we can’t. I’m grateful for all of you, for the trust, for those comforting recovery messages, for the care packages you sent my way, Keep safe, and I look forward to connecting with you, fully recharged and recovered, in time. And yes, to gather for meetups too.

All THE Best,

Jesse