A bit after Afghanistan, Ryan was stationed in paradise, Hawaii, with his bride-to-be. He got his wish and took command of a company. And Although it was 18 tiring months, Ryan’s goal was finally fulfilled. Ryan loved his troops and did as much as he could for them, even at his own physical, mental health and career sacrifices. After a breath of air post-company command, Ryan began asking himself a series of questions: Could he “stick it out” for 10 more years and have a family on top of it? Did he want to? Did he want more control over his life? WHAT DID HE WANT?

He knew what he didn’t want and that was to continue to serve in the military. There were numerous reasons that led to this decision, but the major one was that he had accomplished goal and didn’t really have a “next” in the military. Through a series of decisions, Ryan left the military in 2016 and ended up in the retail industry in San Antonio, Texas before moving to Madisonville, Kentucky to work in manufacturing for GE Aviation. Over the next three plus years, it all began to sink in.

Things were great at first, he still supported his breatharian in the military by manufacturing parts that went into the very engine he used to fly. Ryan was also a hit at the factory, flying around and bringing a breath of life to this factory in a small town. He was defining a new self, networking, and angling to move to Cincinnati and climb that corporate ladder.

The next series of events started with game changer number two, the birth of his daughter, Ayla. Ryan and Christa had adopted a more green, holistic approach to life while living in Hawaii, and the birth of Ayla supercharged this lifestyle. Just like it was about his soldiers and not him, it was now about his daughter. At about the same time, Ryan’s hiring manager moved to a different facility. With the overhead coverage of this great leader gone, Ryan began to see the cracks in the corporate system he had never seen before…seemingly everyone looking out for themselves, especially those up top.

Ryan began to feel used and isolated after a series of “political” events that occurred at work. With no more support in his career, Ryan was seemingly stuck in a small town with no way out. Ryan and Christa still had each other, but it more or less ended there. First time parents raising a child 15 hours in the opposite direction from both of our families, who seldom seemed interested in or driven to help anyway. Where was the military? The comradery? La Familia?

Ryan was lost, no longer feeling like a leader and a difference-maker doing good in the world. Not knowing whether it was happen-stance or fate, Ryan retreated to Ken Burns’ “The Vietnam War,” PBS documentary. As a military historian growing up in New York, Ryan fantasized about the American Revolution and World War II. He considered himself a proud American veteran and therefore was never driven towards the internal and external conflict that was Vietnam. Quickly, Ryan began making connections to his service in the military, and in particular Afghanistan, to the documentary. He felt used by the government, just as he was feeling used by the corporate machine.

Up until that point, Ryan was always looking for two things: One, a new mission. Two, a mentor. He began to doubt if the latter was even possible, losing faith and ultimately accepting he would never have a mentor. He was now on his own and it became time to focus on what really mattered, his family. Ryan and Christa decided to move back to Austin, Texas to be closer to family and to provide stability for Ayla.

As Ryan began the process of networking and job searching, he finally picked up “Rich Dad, Poor Dad;” game-changer number three. Fact or fiction? Is Kiyosaki just a scam artist? It mattered not because the book had a clear message (rather than a path or program to follow). One can either go this way or that way. Well, after feeling used and abused by the government and corporate America, which way do you think one would go? And so began Ryan’s real estate journey, but not before COVID-19 hit!

As COVID moved across America in early 2020, surely our small town in rural Kentucky wouldn’t be hit. Work plowed on, right up to the end of the quarter, just like it did every quarter. We needed to meet a metric, which happened to be 11 straight quarters of surpassing our planned dollar output, all under one plant manager. We met that metric and amazingly, one hour after the quarter ended, we had our first positive COVID case and the plant was closed down for a long weekend to clean and implement new procedures. Ryan became one of the handful of positive tests at the factory, all despite his and Christa’s efforts to prevent such at home. He was locked away in the guest bedroom for a week where he continued to focus on networking and applying to jobs in and around Austin, but everything went cold…radio silent.

There he was again, lost with no way out. Well, there was one way that Ryan would have never considered before, given his high standard and competitive nature. With COVID’s impact on the commercial aviation industry, GE announced 25% layoffs of salaried workforce. Half of Ryan crossed his fingers that he was cut, but the other half didn’t want to feel like a failure. It turns out that when you are the only outsider in a small town and “leadership” knows it is not your ambition to stay there (because you told them when seeking out a mentor), you aren’t going to make the cut.

With that decision made for him, it was time to put the house on the market and move in with his mother and sister-in-law outside of Austin. It was during this time that Ryan’s real estate journey began. He took his military retirement and rolled it into a self-directed IRA and went in on a duplex as a silent partner with a friend; he began to see the path of the rich, the power of the entity and his passion for real estate. Back in Austin, Ryan and Christa shared his mother-in-law’s bed while Ayla slept in a closet on a makeshift bed. Talk about a low! However, he quickly bounced back by landing a role as supply chain manager and created Friendship Real Estate Investments shortly thereafter.

Ryan’s intent of Friendship was to passively lend money on notes while stabilizing his personal situation before then turning towards rentals as a means of cash flow. In the process of networking, Ryan was connected with an individual who was a retired reverend that focused on building affordable housing with sustainable materials, called structurally insulated panels. It looked interesting, briefed well, aligned with his values and, after background checks, seemed legit. A loan was made with the material as collateral.

The more he began to learn about the product, the more interested he became. Ryan wanted to support the concept via the green approach and began acquiring some small lots of land with plans to build sustainable homes on them in the future. Time passed and so did the maturity of the loan, but no cash ever came. After several excuses, Ryan began to realize that the money was never going to come and that he needed to secure his collateral, which he did. However, in order to pay off some of his own debts, Ryan had to flip some of those small lots of land.

Ryan found that flipping land was fun and a lot less emotional for people. Hunting down deals off the market was also fun, plus the competition in the land game isn’t what it is in the housing market. Ryan continues to have success flipping land, it is simple, he runs numbers and backs out if the numbers don’t work. He looks for especially good deals meeting certain criteria and then banks those for sale at a later date or development in the future.

But why develop? Out of survivability for one. Ryan was stuck with construction material. For two, land does not depreciate, and therefore, every little development on it makes it worth more. There is more opportunity to create value than in remodeling a house that is already standing. Simply put, you get more bang for your buck. Yet he still felt dirty. Ryan didn’t want to knock down trees and contribute to climate change while chasing the dollar. He was torn, stuck between being the rich and beating the rich. Boom! Then he found myself inpatient at a mental health facility, tackling my depression. Wait, what? Rewind…

This mostly occurred in 2021. Upon landing the job, Ryan and Christa got severely outbid on a few homes during the housing market frenzy that swept the nation as well as Austin, Texas and its greater area. Ryan was not going to be house-poor, so his option was to purchase a new build home, well a piece of dirt to be developed, that would be ready by June of 2021. With a job, and his brother-in-law needing a home, the Sweeney’s moved into a long-term BnB in Georgetown, Texas.

Their home was delayed until July, however Christa planned ahead and rented the place through July. Then, it was pushed back until August and the Sweeney’s had to move out to Bastrop, Texas, further from his mother-in-law, but no change to work and closer to his father-in-law. The first morning they woke up, bed bugs had eaten Ayla. Almost everything they owned was in storage, the rest they had squeezed into an Atlas and Optima. With possible bed bug infestation, they were left with only the clothes on their backs and forced to evacuate to his father-in-law’s (Charles) house for a week, as he remained at the coast in his RV as a high-risk individual due to a double-lung transplant.

The BnB was treated and they moved back in, but the next morning, bed bugs again! They were done and had no choice but to move to another BnB, but where? The market was so crazy, one could barely find a place to rent at a decent price. They found a place in Salado, two hours from Ryan’s work. Luckily (perhaps), within two hours of booking the place, they got a notification, their home completion had been pushed back into September. There was a guest staying one weekend in September at the recently booked BnB; the host would not cancel them and the Sweeney’s were sick of moving again and again. So they found a small two-bedroom townhouse in Pflugerville for two months. It was the best they could find and it cost them $10,000!

Finally, in early October, the Sweeney’s moved into their new home while seeking a fresh start. Settled in, we wanted to host Christmas. Ryan’s grandmother-in-law would come in from Lubbock and his father from New York and we would have Christa’s mother, sister and brother over…the Sweeney’s would finally have that family both of them had been searching for quite some time.

However, Ryan’s grandmother-in-law got sick and couldn’t make it down and his father, who fought him tooth and nail over COVID and policy, brought COVID down with him. It wasn’t about Ryan or Christa, it was about protecting our Ayla and Charles who remind you, had a double lung transplant. By grace, neither Ayla or Charles got sick and his father went back to New York. On Christmas morning, it was down to just Ryan, Christa and Ayla…just as it had been before that. All that and still no family.

Between family, moving, stress at work, tens of thousands of dollars lost in defaulted loans, Ryan lost it. He had no path for the future and was overwhelmed in the present and was on the precipice of suicide, still lost and feeling that there was only one way out. Luckily, Ryan has Christa, who has stuck with him the entire way, through all of this. Yes, it has been hard, but loyalty, love and commitment keep them together.

While inpatient, deep reflection of his past provided Ryan the path for the future. His mission was born. Ryan wanted the independence to spend time with his family; he loved real estate and loved Ayla and wanted to set her up for success in life. Emotionally, physically, monetarily, etc. he does not want her to deal with the things that he has.

Being “green,” climate change has weighed heavily on Ryan, not for himself, but for Ayla and her generation. However, he felt that he could not continue to sacrifice himself and carry such a burden. How to tackle all of this? Take the construction material he had, develop a BnB, but keep it focused on being sustainable, developed with eco-friendly, long-lasting material. Use the BnB and flip land to gain cash. Continue to trade up from developing sustainable houses to sustainable communities. The mission is now clear. Ryan cannot impact it all, but he can set Ayla up for success and still do some good in this world!