My car broke down…
and I didn’t have $400 to fix it.
At the time, I was living on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi,
just outside of Waikīkī.
For years, I had lived in Waikīkī.
Since getting out of the military, I was working the streets.
Club promoting.
Selling tours.
If I needed to make money, I could go out and make it happen.
Everything was right there.
But I was trying to change my life.
Trying to break out of that cycle.
I had walked away from the golden handcuffs of the Waikiki tour business.
So I moved out of Waikīkī
and up to the top of a hill above Kahala.
It was quiet. Isolated.
Completely different from what I was used to.
And now, I needed my car for everything.
I had just started working on a real estate team.
Showings.
Appointments.
Meeting clients.
Getting to the office.
If my car didn’t work… I didn’t work.
And one morning, it didn’t start.
I tried it again.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
And I remember sitting there at the top of that hill…
feeling that pressure hit immediately.
Because I already knew where I was at.
I was living paycheck to paycheck.
Trying to make real estate work.
Trying to build something different.
But I didn’t have any margin.
And if you saw me online…
you wouldn’t have known.
I looked like I was making money.
But I was barely getting by.
My friend Romel, who was a mechanic, came to help me.
He figured out what was wrong,
took me to get the part,
and did the work for me.
That’s the only reason it was only
around $400.
And I didn’t have it.
I remember talking to my girlfriend at the time…
kind of hinting that I needed help…
but not actually asking.
Nothing came from it.
So I did the one thing I didn’t want to do.
I called my dad.
Since I left for the Navy at 18,
I had always told myself I wouldn’t need to ask him for money.
But this time, I did.
He gave me the money to cover my car payment…
So I could use what I had
to fix the car.
I got it handled.
But I’ll never forget that feeling.
Sitting at the top of that hill…
stuck…
feeling like my life was about to fall apart
over something that small.
At the time, it felt like everything.
Looking back now…
it was small.
But it didn’t feel small when I was in it.
It felt like my life was over.
At that point, I was working under Alesia Barnes
on the Barnes Hawaii team.
And I actually believe I could have made real estate work long-term.
But I didn’t have time to “eventually” figure it out
while living paycheck to paycheck.
I needed something that worked now.
Something with structure.
Something consistent.
Something I could build from.
So I made a decision.
I stepped into a different environment.
I moved into commission-based sales
in a more structured, corporate setting.
It wasn’t flashy.
But it gave me something I didn’t have before.
Training.
Structure.
People around me who knew what they were doing.
I wasn’t guessing anymore.
I was learning.
I got really good at it.
And over time, it completely changed my life.
Over the last 20 years, across all commission-based sales…
nightclubs, tours, real estate, and corporate sales…
I’ve sold over $30 million.
I’ve built savings.
Created margin.
Given myself room to breathe.
I will never be in that position again.
Years later, I started a YouTube channel.
I was interviewing people I respected…
trying to learn, trying to grow.
One of those interviews was with my friend John MacGregor.
I interviewed him at the house of
Robert Kiyosaki from Rich Dad Poor Dad
We were talking about money…
how people live…
what financial stability actually looks like.
And he shared a statistic that stuck with me.
Something like 60 to 80% of people
are living paycheck to paycheck…
and a large percentage of them
couldn’t handle a $400 emergency.
I remember hearing that…
and it hit immediately.
Not because it sounded crazy.
But because I had already lived it.
I didn’t need to imagine it.
I knew exactly what that felt like.
Sitting at the top of that hill…
car not starting…
trying to figure out how to come up with $400…
feeling like everything was about to collapse.
At the time, it felt real.
Like I had no room for error.
Like one problem could throw everything off.
But looking back now…
I’m grateful for it.
Because that moment forced a decision.
A real one.
I wasn’t going to live like that anymore.
Not paycheck to paycheck.
Not one small problem away from everything falling apart.
I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it at the time.
I just knew I wasn’t going to stay there.
That decision changed everything.
That was the moment I decided
I was done living paycheck to paycheck.
The $400 emergency that saved my life.