Success Story: Benjamin Yeh, Helping Stuck Top Performers Tap Into Their Intuition

Benjamin Yeh is a business and transformation coach and host of the Boom Vision podcast, as well as a father, husband and real estate investor, and a member of our private membership community for entrepreneurs, SPI Pro.

I spoke with Ben about his own transformation and transition to a career that fulfills him and helps other high achievers find their "why".

Ray Sylvester: Can you briefly describe your journey to becoming an entrepreneur? What were you doing before starting your business and what made you take the plunge?

Benjamin Yeh: I am in what I would consider the third chapter of my career. I started as a hospitality real estate consultant. I basically lived out of a suitcase for four years. It was a great learning and training ground, as I went to graduate school to get a master's degree in real estate. I have primarily worked with hotel owners/developers, hotel management companies, the food and beverage and gaming industry.

It's funny because one of Pat's stories gets to me: I also went to CAL, and on Christmas Eve I was laid off during the financial crisis of 2008.

I remember that morning on my way to work, I had a hunch, "I think they're going to fire me," and of course that's what happened. past. But I've learned in life, usually when one door closes, another opens when you look in the right places. And luckily for me, I had this incredible opportunity that presented itself in the midst of a layoff where, given my skills and experience, I was able to add value to their organization as a manager. investments for a family office. A family office is just a fancy term for an investment team. And the people I worked for were the founders of Panda Express, which is a family business.

The initial objective of the family office was to develop its real estate portfolio. So we bought malls, office buildings, apartments, etc. In the space of 7 years, my team and I have invested over a billion dollars.

During my stay there, I also met my wife. When we got married and had our first child, I had this really interesting vision. It was two weeks after my son was born. I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and I had this flash vision of my two children in the front yard of a house running around, having fun. He seemed very happy. And my wife and I were there, but I knew it was a vision for the future because at the time my wife and I were living in an apartment, and we had just had our first child. But what was very strange and confusing to me was that outside everyone was happy, but inside I was not. I felt empty. I didn't feel the same level of happiness, and there was this huge disconnect.

I was like, why do I have this disconnect? And so when I really sat down with that, what I realized was wow, the path I was on was really designed by others. It wasn't a path my soul really wanted to be on or create.

And that was a tough pill to swallow because I felt like I was living the American dream and building a career that I'm really proud of. But when I was really thinking, as an investment officer, I didn't want my life to be measured by a single number, which is IRR, right? Internal rate of return. I wanted my life to have more meaning than that. My soul yearned to find and create more meaning.

And so a few years later, after having this vision...