[Matthew Haupt]

Hey everyone, I was referred to StevePavlina.com by my brother, and I've been reading for a few months, and a couple weeks ago I starting lurking the forums. I've been very impressed with the caliber of articles and forum posts and I hope to make some great contributions around here.

I thought some would be interested in this story: I thought 2005 was going to be my year. I had gotten engaged, decided I needed to make more money, started a side business, then found a great opportunity to take a job with a business consulting company. This was something I wanted to do myself and I saw this as a great opportunity to make some more money and break into the field. My fiancée was supportive and I moved about six hours away, and we would drive out to each other on weekends (I’d drive up one weekend, she’d drive down next weekend, andso on). I was very excited and enthusiastic about the job and felt like I was progressing towards my goals. However, to make a long story short, I realized that my fiancée was not the one, and I broke it off a few months after I moved. At this point, everything else seemed to fall apart. I couldn’t seem to focus at work and I lost the job. Nevertheless, I know my prospects were good, and I started thinking and focusing on what had gotten me to this point. I realized that I had focused on making more money and getting this great job, and that’s what had brought me to this job. Once I had gotten the job, and started getting distracted by my fiancée, I lost that focus. I had been a film major, and found myself in southern California, so I bummed around Hollywood for a month, being an extra in some movies and TV shows, and it was fun and felt like a dream come true, but I didn’t feel like I had a lot of control over how much money I was making. I wanted more.

My father had been a tax & wealth advisor ever since I was 2 years old, and the business consulting job had been with a firm that consults financial advisors, so when I put my resume online, I started getting calls from AXA, Wadell & Reed, and they were asking me if I’d ever thought about being a financial planner. I was like, “No… but its starting to make a lot of sense!” I felt like this was an opportunity opening up, after all the other doors had closed. In the end, after several interviews and some research, I decided to join up with the family firm, since my brother had been working with my father for a few years already. I thought I could make some positive changes there and be able to have more flexibility. For the first year, I was studying for the Series 7 exam (the test Will Smith studies for in “The Search for Happyness”) and how to prepare taxes, and being the office coordinator and helping to reorganize the office and streamline processes for more efficiency. Towards the end of the year, my brother had just had a second child and was wondering how to make ends meet, and we were talking about new ways to market the biz and get him some more clients. We were all thinking a lot about this, particularly around Thanksgiving time, and the Monday after Thanksgiving, my father is opening the mail, and there is a letter telling us there are some tax practices for sale and one was quite nearby, and in a convenient location! We were excited because this could mean a lot of clients not only for my brother but myself as well. We bought the tax practice and it went so smoothly it was like it was meant to be. I should also mention that during the summer of that year I met the girl of my dreams and she’s now my wife. And I know that this has come to pass because of faith, intention manifestation, whatever you want to call it! 2007 was my year so much more than 2005 could have ever been.

So now my wife is pregnant and I want to provide more service, and make more money to make sure I can provide for the family without her income. I’ve started wanting to grow more again and this website has really inspired me. I hope I might do some inspiring in turn as well.