Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Announcer: Where entrepreneurs come to grow it's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:06] Richard Gearhart: It's time for your new business journey. And I'd like to ask each member of our panel, what was the one decision or moment that most changed your career and what did it cost you to make that decision? Todd, welcome again to the show.
[00:00:19] Todd Drowlette: What was the one decision I made? So when I was in college, so I went to see which is now university, but I went to Sienna University in Loudonville, New York, and I was there on a full academic scholarship. So I never wanted to miss class.
And I went to every single class. And my senior year, I had an opportunity. I was making fun of me for being from a small town and a guy had died who was from a very small town that this is before GPS and mapping software. It was a town that had a flashing light and that was about it. And the guy was on the board of trustees, had founded Avis Renicar, and he wanted a Catholic priest to be at this funeral, which was the president of the college. So they called me up and said, hey, the president of college needs to go to St. Regis Falls, New York, which if you Google it, it might return zero results. But it exists.
And that's where this funeral was. And I had to make a decision in that moment, geez, do I miss class? But I'm going to get connections and meet the president of the college and be in the car with him for the next 15 hours. So. But I was like, at the time, I was on the fence about as an adult. I would in two seconds been like, yeah, what are you crazy? It's a no brainer. But I, when that happened, I was like, it was that critical moment I struggled with. I'm like, no, I'm doing it.
And then I never looked back from there. He, I started driving for him. And then there was a real estate developer that was looking for a driver on the weekends, and the president recommended me for that. He was doing commercial real estate, retail development.
And that's how I ended up driving for him for several years. He gave me a first internship, and that kind of changed everything.
[00:01:53] Richard Gearhart: Great. What a great story. I mean, that is certainly a way to get exposure and mentoring in so many positive ways. Christine, welcome to the show.
[00:02:03] Christine Haupt: Hi. Thank you.
[00:02:04] Richard Gearhart: And what was one decision that you made that changed the trajectory of your career?
[00:02:08] Christine Haupt: Well, mine's kind of a longer story. So I originally started, I was working at a bank in a little strip center. And a bunch of the customers that would come in, I Became friends with and they came in and one of them came in and offered me a job at their real estate company. And it was a big decision to decide if I was going to take it or not because I was starting the job making less money than I had currently been making. But I decided it was better. It was going to be Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. So I took the job.
I started on a Monday making less money than I had previously been making. By Friday, I was making more money than I had previously made. And that job led me to then working with Todd. And then I left that company.
[00:02:56] Todd Drowlette: It was a terrible decision.
[00:02:58] Christine Haupt: I left that company to go with Todd and then we left the company we both went to then. And he started Titan and I went to Titan with him. And we've been together, I don't know, over 20 years.
[00:03:10] Richard Gearhart: Sounds like some pretty important decisions. I mean, was there any trade offs you felt when you were making that decision?
[00:03:17] Christine Haupt: No, I think it was all ended up being positive trade offs.
[00:03:20] Richard Gearhart: All right, Camila Drollette, nice to have you on the program too. You're married to this guy over here, right? Yes, we've been
[00:03:27] Camila Rodriguez Drowlette: married for three years now.
[00:03:28] Richard Gearhart: What was this one decision that you made that changed the trajectory of your career?
[00:03:33] Camila Rodriguez Drowlette: I mean, I feel like there's always a bunch of little decisions that you have to make. But I want to say probably, probably a big one that I really think changed my life was learning English.
So I'm from Bogota, Colombia, I speak Spanish.
And when I was 18, I thought I really want to make money and like do different things, open new doors.
So I started learning myself English and that led me to have a really good, good paying job in Bogota. And then I came here and because of my English, I was able to get a nice job here. And that's how I ended up meeting Todd. And one thing led to the other. So, you know, learning new skills as simple, like something as simple as learning English can, I don't know, open really big doors for you.
[00:04:25] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, your English is great, by the way.
[00:04:28] Todd Drowlette: The other, I guess was a six month old.
[00:04:32] Elizabeth Gearhart: So you have a six month old now. Congratulations,
[00:04:34] Richard Gearhart: Elizabeth.
[00:04:36] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I was working as a chemist in corporate and I wasn't super happy.
And I had my second child and I decided to quit corporate. That was hard, really hard. I lost part of my identity, I lost all my friends at work, et cetera, that day to day thing.
But I got to raise my kids my own way. I. And then when they were grown, I got to decide what to do the rest of my life, which absolutely does not include corporate.
So here I am.
[00:05:09] Richard Gearhart: Well, we're glad you made those decisions, and we're glad you're here. For me, I would say one of the things that changed the trajectory of our business was actually moving into a building. We used to be working out of our house, and people would come in and they would, like, wander through the kitchen and smell the spaghetti sauce and use
[00:05:30] Todd Drowlette: leftovers so
[00:05:31] Richard Gearhart: late. Yeah. And it was just.
It really got on Elizabeth's nerves, and I didn't really like it either. But eventually we decided to move out, and we ended up in a commercial building. And it really changed my view of the practice. And it also changed my.
I think it changed the how the clients viewed the practice, too. It's just created a whole new level of professionality, I guess, is the word. And so for us, it was a really big step forward. So actually had felt like I had a real business when. When
[00:06:04] Todd Drowlette: you go to the office.
[00:06:05] Richard Gearhart: When you go to the office.
[00:06:06] Todd Drowlette: Yeah. These guys wanted to kill me because. Because during COVID we went to work every day. You know, real estate agents were considered whatever the term was, essential workers or something. So literally every day we went to the office.
[00:06:18] Elizabeth Gearhart: He went to the office every day. I worked from home. I think that saved a lot of our relationship.
[00:06:25] Christine Haupt: See, we're worker bees. You know, we work all the time. You know, we don't stop. And I found myself. When we were working from home, I found myself. We had one week. We were told we couldn't go into the office. And I found myself wandering the house like, oh, I'm reorganizing the pantry, and I'm doing laundry in the middle of the day when I was supposed to be at my computer working.
So I found how easy it was to get distracted when you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be working. And I'm, you know, reorganizing the linen closet and stuff. Todd ruined the party.
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[00:07:09] Announcer: Learn more at passagetoprofitshow.com.
