Started mowing yards at twelve to buy cloths and stuff. Kids made fun of me in the rich area I grew up in.

I sold that business at 17 for 60k and all I gave them was the contractors I had acquired, no equipment, no physical objects.

I bought a house at 18 for 10k, it was horrible and not something someone should live in. I did. Took me a year of building fences / decks to pay my bills (bought a brand new ford ranger...dumb) and get enough to fix up that house.

I sold that house at 19 for 80k and I have no clue how much cash and labor I actually invested beyond the purchase.

At 20 I had 2 kids and a wife trying to go to nursing school, I stepped up my game and started moving into houses and fixing them to sell, bought cars at auction to fix and sell, and had a full time handy man business, while I drove a wrecker to transport cars at night.

Over the next 23yrs (I'm 43) I met several investors who hired me to fix things I didnt know how to fix until I knew how to fix them, and moved into, fixed, flipped, 2 dozen houses, hundreds of cars/motorcycles, and divorced my wife. (Its fine, we are friends still)

At some point I decided to be a G.C. and did that for most of the time I was flipping houses, and flipping cars, which allowed me to stop driving a wrecker, but didn't cut my work hours.

As a G.C. I rehabbed, remodeled, and built 1000's of structures/homes. I have developed over 1 million sqft of retail and 100's of thousands of office space.

A few years back I bought a house I planned on flipping but then sold my G.C. business and went back to being a handy-man (my passive income way more than paid my bills...I was bored.) And for about a year I did all the favors that friends and family had been asking me to get to for the last several years.

Now, I still flip houses, build out developments, flip cars/motorcycles, and partner with investors who have all the energy of a person who hasn't been doing this for all their life. But I do it exactly how I wanted.

I didn't realize how rewarding it would all be, I just was trying not to be broke and feed my 5kids. (yes, I now have 5. *get cable, its cheaper)

I wanted to write this so people could be "inspired", but not by me or my tale of back patting. But so you can understand that every single week someone tried to pull me away from what I was doing, or telling me how I could be doing things different/better/easier. Ignoring the nay-sayers and my own doubts was WAY harder than any house I had to finish or inspector I needed to show the error of their ways.

The balance of "confidence" that you will do right, and the willingness to admit you were wrong has to all happen in your head. Not everyone can manage that, but if you can then never let anyone ever manage to change your mind on your goals.