(MY APOLOGIES FOR THE LACK OF INDENTATION HERE) I grew up the same way most people did in the Seattle area. I went to school and had fun playing with my friends. My father raised us on the income he generated as a real estate agent. But I didn’t want to follow in dad’s footsteps, and joined the military as a way of going my own direction. I signed up at the end of summer in 2001. The following month, the trajectory of my life changed. I ended up going to Iraq twice during my enlistment. Nothing too exciting happened, not like what some of my friends experienced. But following my time in the military, I would be doing a lot of soul searching for my next move. “What could be bigger than that?” I wondered. I started working in manufacturing. I had a great time, but wanted something bigger. I had to admit I felt pulled to real estate but didn’t want to do retail brokering. So I tried wholesaling instead. That’s a game of buying a house directly from an owner who needs a quick and easy solution to a problem they might have. Then you repair some items in the house, and re-sell it on the retail market. I’d have the staying power to go through the regular process of selling, and keep the difference. I didn’t yet realize, I had a lot of learning left to do before I’d have the capacity to succeed on my own. I needed more hands-on direction and mentoring, which had been sitting there the whole time, in the form of my father. I ended up getting my real estate license, and joined the retail game. It was about this time, my wife had our first child. I found myself with an outsized capacity to spend time being a father. I brought our daughter everywhere! Office meetings, open houses, listing appointments, whatever it was, she was there. It was a great time. My wife was earning enough to keep the lights on, and anything I brought in was icing on the cake. One fun thing, it allowed me to teach our children what good salesmanship can look like. I took them door knocking with me; they’d see different people tell me no and no and no and yes. They’ve since perfected this skillset and regularly defeat me with it! All the way through this time though, I’d been remembering my time in Iraq. What did I want for my children’s lives? Like other veteran fathers I had seen, I realized I wanted them to steer clear of military life. So I needed to engineer their upbringing in a way that they’d end up with as many options as they could possibly have. I didn’t want to decide for them, and I didn’t want them to be pigeon holed into anything. They needed to have a whole list of life choices to pick from. I read about people who created options for themselves and their children. They did it by emigrating to a different country, thereby securing this other place. They’d always have that option in their back pocket, in case they ever felt like they needed it. Then my wife told me she was expecting again. So I asked if she’d be willing to possibly-maybe look into giving birth to the baby in a different country. A few months later our son was born in Southern Brazil. He then invited the rest of us to naturalize in his country with him, and I checked off my second option box. Being in South America gave us time to think. What would we do with the rest of our lives? What is the money we make even for? We realized the thing we want most is a peaceful existence. Having second passports lets us relax, knowing we’ll always have another place to go. Real estate brokering allows us the flexibility to move back and forth. This gives us that peace. I have to admit, it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done. We’ve learned the future doesn’t have to be anything like the past. Having children just furthers this change. We love helping people change their situations, because we have children ourselves and understand what’s going on. It’s what led us to create our Move Right Method. Hearing all the life stories from our clients is so much fun, and we love connecting with friends and family. So I made it a priority to partner with my dad and work with him on some of the deals closer to where he lives. We’ve also partnered with other agents around Western Washington if it’s too far for him. My wife has also joined the team, so every day I get to work directly with the people I enjoy and love. We’re all grateful for the opportunity to be part of your family’s life and help it grow by getting you into the right home. You just take care of your work and your children. We’ll make the transition process as seamless as we can get it.