feeling old now wrote:
Good perspective though. I need to hear both sides of this.
A little more info about me - though I was biology major, I now work in commercial real estate. So I can't envision a path for myself into a different field other than by getting some background education in that field.
I finished my M.S. at age 38, and at the end couldn't want to be done. There was so much theoretical bull sh|t that it was a total waste of my time and money, plus a lot of ass kissing. If you didn't buy into the crap then it would come back. For example on one of my first exams I scored the highest including 30 points above someone else who got an A. The jackass professor gave me a B, and said there were other things to consider besides how I did on the test - meaning me asking pertinent and probably embarrassing questions in class. Anyway I managed to do well and got the degree, in the meanwhile reassessing my objectives.
Due to all the politics and hypocrisy, yes the same that exist in the professions and all of society, I found that what I though I had wanted to do, was not, and that I really wanted to do something else, which was to find out about owning real property for myself. I went into real estate and have done that for the last several decades, now retired. There were many things that I liked about real estate. I set my own hours, I made my own decisions, my work was completely up to me, I got paid based on my own efforts, and there were things that I did not like about it too, mainly things that were out of my control, like other agents, and waiting for lenders to approve people's loans. But that wasn't too bad as I did both sides of the transactions for more than half of the houses, and invariably the loans were approved.
My advices, based on my experience, is to keep improving what you are doing, most of all to do it YOUR WAY. Maybe you're not happy because you're not doing your business your way, so change it. When I started, people told me to dress up when knocking on doors, which I did but hated it because I got soaking wet in the heat. Eventually I went around dressed neatly in shorts and comfortable shoes. The convention was to sit, do floor time and put ads in the paper. I learned to contact people directly and to do all my advertising myself. Anyway that's just a sample.
Remember the saying - there are three kinds of falsehoods, lies, damned lies, and statistics - and don't waste your time.