How I ended up where I am.....

Yeah, so this continues my recollection stories for my countdown to 30. For those of you who are family or know me really well, this will be old news to you. I have my own Medical Billing business. But nobody goes grows up saying, "I want to bill medical insurance companies when I grow up!" So how did I get here?

Well, growing up, my family wanted me to become a doctor and really, that is what I thought I wanted to. I was super smart and when you are smart like that, that is just one of those jobs people expect you to do. I don't know when I realized deep down that I didn't want to become a doctor, but I know it was around the end of my elementary school days. I never mentioned it to family though as I wanted to please them. It was also around this time that I had some great teachers and I started thinking about becoming a teacher myself.

Going into Junior High and High School, I still pretended to want to become a doctor when I really knew by now that a teacher job was what I really wanted. As I was now very much into sports, I decided that maybe I would stick to the doctor path by being a physical therapist with a goal of a sports team doctor. For a while, near the end of High School, I actually became excited about this proposition. It also didn't help that I was now hinting at becoming a teacher and it was not only shot down by my family, but by the teachers I idolized.

So, I started college with the goal of physical therapist. I just wasn't into it though and that coupled with my sudden freedom and dramatically more difficult classes left me in academic probation in my first year. I tried to turn it around and after the first quarter of my second year, I was still on academic probation. This is when my life turned around. I met with a counselor at school and discussed my options and future. I mentioned the teacher dream and she convinced me to go for it. I was hesitant at first, but then jumped at the opportunity once I thought about it more and more. I changed my major to a wonderful major called American Studies which analyzed the American Culture. I was able to take some amazing classes in this major that I will remember forever and while I took this, I took my prerequisites for a teaching career. A couple of quarters later, I made the Dean's List. Quite a turn around. I graduated happy and with a goal in site.

I then took the year program to become an elementary school teacher which was thrilling and easy at the same time. After one year of training to get my credential, I was now teaching 4th grade in the same district where I grew up. I started my first year full of confidence and wanting to have the same kind of fun classes I had as a kid...

But I only lasted three years. In those three years, I had some wonderful students. The thing is though, my ideal of what teaching was had completely changed since I was a kid mostly because of a change in the way kids were in that period. When I was a kid, kid's were scared to death when a teacher threatened to call home. When I taught, most kids just laughed and shrugged their shoulders when I threatened to call home. I just had no support and that included from administration. I knew after one my students stabbed me with his pencil in my hand and he only was suspended 2 days that I had to get out. I actually ended up teaching one more year after that incident, but that is mostly because that incident happened at the end of the 2nd year and it was too late to change my mind for the following year. I was miserable the 3rd year and it didn't help that the class was mostly a class of rugrats.

I wanted out, but I didn't know what to do. This is about the time Jessica and I bought our first house and I fell in love with the home buying process. I decided after much deliberation to leave teaching at the end of the year and try my hand at real estate. And why not? Real Estate was BOOMING in town! I made many friends while teaching and had some amazing students, but I happily left and was excited to start my new job.

So I started my real estate career and almost right away, the real estate market took a giant dive downwards. I became depressed as deal after deal fell through. I couldn't believe my luck or lack of it as everything seemed to go against me. It didn't help that Sacramento was now being called the 3rd worst real estate market in the entire United States. I made a little money, but after a year, I had to get out. I LOVED the job, but I couldn't stay in a job where I wasn't making money. In fact, the market has only become worse since then.

I applied for some State positions and scored extremely well on their entrance tests, but I was either too well qualified for entry positions(which I was okay with taking) or they just weren't hiring. To make some money on the side while I waited for a job to apppear, I started working the Medical Billing business with my mother in law. And then a funny thing happened; I actually liked it. I liked all the math I got to do. I liked having to make things balance at the end. I liked the freedom of working from home. Perhaps as a gift from above for my bad luck, a colleague of my mother in law decided she was ready to retire and wanted to sell her business. I jumped at the opportunity and as of yesterday, I have now had the business one full year. And you know what? I love it! Yeah, I deal with stupid people and I get frustrated at times, but I love it. Let's hope the ride lasts...