How I turned my passion of helping others into a career
This was THE question I was trying to answer for most of my early 20s.
I dropped out of college when I was 19 because I was more excited to help the sick and homeless than to sit in another classroom for 2.5 more years.
I asked myself this same question during those nonprofit years because I couldn't fathom any real life "job" where I could directly interface with and help people the same way I was able to in the nonprofit world.
But after 3 years of traveling, speaking, and serving the sick/homeless, I began to get an itch when I noticed that there were a lot of people in my space who were very well-intentioned and passionate, but lacked finances, organization, strategy, and systems.
I scratched that itch by spending a summer reading books about business, finances, and investing and ended up reading somewhere that 70% of millionaires owned real estate.
I made a broad assumption that maybe real estate was the best way to go to learn all those things and dove in headfirst and started flipping houses in the Silicon Valley.
Nonprofit to Flipping Houses.
Now that's a transition you don't hear everyday.
At first glance, it doesn't seem like that'd fit someone who is passionate about helping people, but I invite you to get a glimpse of my world.
As a few of the other answers here have already mentioned, every business is predicated on helping someone somehow. Maybe some needs aren't as "noble" as others, but fundamentally, businesses create solutions for people in need of them and are willing to pay for them.
In the world of house-flipping, we work with distressed sellers, people who need to sell not just want to sell.
One of these kinds of sellers that I work with are people who are facing foreclosure. Foreclosure is when the borrower stops making their payments (for whatever reason) and the lender (usually a bank) takes steps to repossess the home.
The story begins with me showing up at the doorsteps of a home that I knew was facing foreclosure (these notices are actually public record). I knocked on this door in San Jose and ended up speaking with the girlfriend of the son of the mother who had passed away but was the owner of the home.
To make things worse, the son was actually in jail.
Yeah.
I ended up visiting him in jail twice to understand what he intended to do and to explain what our team could do for him.
Here is a guy whose life is falling apart; his mother passed away, he got caught and is facing jail time, and the inheritance (equity in the home -- hundreds of thousands of dollars) his mother left him is literally in front of him but it's about to be stripped out of his hands because he doesn't know how to stop the bank from foreclosing, nor did he know how to claim rightful ownership as an heir.
Our team, knowing a few loopholes in the banking system, helped postponed his foreclosure date multiple months in order to buy him time.
Then we helped him file the paperwork with the court in order to petition to gain control of his mother's estate. Normally, an attorney would do this, but we were able to shortcut the process and do it internally and thus, save him on hefty attorney fees.
Mind you, we did all this without ever getting a commitment from him to sell us his house. He actually told me he wanted to keep it, and I respected his choice, never tried to convince him otherwise, and helped him anyway because it was the right thing to do.
Within 60 days, he gained legal possession of the home. He profusely thanked me -- we never charged him a penny, except to reimburse us for the court/filing fees.
I thought it was all said and done with, but 30 days later, he ended up deciding to sell and got in touch with me.
We did flip that house.
And it was a grand-slam of a deal.
My client ended up getting released from prison but was on probation. He ended up reclaiming his mother's inheritance and moved to Central California to reboot his life.
I can't tell you how many times he thanked me.
I can't tell you how many times I personally showed up at his front door unannounced to give him an update because he didn't have a cell phone or email.
In my industry, most people wouldn't have dealt with that headache of a case. Most people wouldn't have helped my client unless they had a guarantee that they could directly and contractually profit from the get-go.
Every industry has a unique way to solve a customer's problems. Some industries are purely digital interaction, some industries are face to face.
As someone who is passionate about helping others (some would say I help too much), I know I need to be in front of people. So real estate investing makes sense.
I had no idea that I'd end up here. All I did was follow my half-informed logic. Maybe there are a few lessons you can glean from my story.
But I don't want to mislead you, not all of my clients have stories like that. Not all of them are as warm and fuzzy with happy endings like this. But the handful of stories are significant enough for me to continue down this road for the time being.
My strategy is to gain mastery in building/leading organizations and reach a level of financial abundance so that I can then go back to the nonprofit/social enterprise space.
Sorry, I don't have a blueprint for you.
But the one thing that has given me the most perspective in this regard is talking to people who have the same passion and hear their story.
I've had conversations with a phlebotomist who used to be drug abuse counselor in SF's Tenderlion district who loved seeing her clients take incremental steps toward recovery.
I've had conversations with a physical therapist who thrived on seeing the look on her client's face when they made progress they never believed they could.
I've had conversations with an elementary school teacher in a low-income district who relished the fact that her previous students would send her thank you cards and she could spark hope in the lives of kids who typically grow up in turmoil and chaos. On the side, she also helps clients gain confidence by revamping their wardrobe to make them look good based on their body type and tastes.
I've had conversations with a private dating coach who works exclusively with introverted engineers in the Silicon Valley. She excels at helping socially awkward, logic-driven men to embrace their own kind of sexiness and bring that confidence directly into their own version of the dating game. She has changed many lives through her practice for the better and also makes a great living doing it.
I've had conversations with a highly reputed tech CEO -- whose daily consulting rate is 5 figures a day -- who firmly believes in serving anyone and everyone in each interaction. "Add value" became the theme of his life when he had a NDE (near death experience) and was saved by the kindness of 8 strangers (blood transfusions) just before he turned 30.
I've had conversations with a guy who was a former rapper and drug addict, miraculously turned his life around and became the director of a soup kitchen for years and now travels the world healing the sick and serving the poor.
I've had many, many conversations with a dude who flips houses and intends to build and fund social enterprise ventures when he has the skillset and funds to do it. On the side he does what he can by writing on Quora and sharing all the bits and pieces of wisdom he's accrued over the years ;)
There's an infinite number of ways to fuel your passion to help others while making money.
What you choose is ultimately a unique combination of 5 main things:
The people you know
The opportunities you're aware of and exposed to (which often plays off of #1)
The preferences you have
The skills you have and/or are willing to learn, and
What trade-offs you're willing to make
Hopefully my experience gives you some helpful perspective!
If you want to read more about my story/journey and how it developed as it pertains to career/passion, here are some additional Quora answers for reference:
This answer was originally published on Quora.
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