Built From the Field by Chris Momongan
🗓️ Posted: @May 11, 2025
✍️ Category: → Mindset or Personal Growth
Part 1: I Had Stuff. But I Didn’t Have Direction
The quiet chaos of growing up without a blueprint.
Yesterday I started thinking about how many times I’ve had to start over in my life.
Honestly? I might be the king of it.
That could be seen as a bad thing. Or maybe it’s just... life in chapters.
After high school, I was angsty. Restless. I didn’t feel prepared for life on my own. I didn’t have a clear path.
I grew up in a nice neighborhood, but while other kids had parents laying out the blueprint for their futures, I just felt… unshaped.
At Filipino parties, you’d always hear about someone’s kid becoming a doctor—just like their parents.
At school, the popular cheerleader was already shadowing her real estate mogul mom. The honor student was on track for neurosurgery. The foreign exchange student was fueled by ambition born from hardship, dead-set on building empires.
And me? I had stuff.
A two-story home. New Gateway computer. High-speed internet (well… 56k). Playstation. CD burners.
But I didn’t have direction.
I didn’t have depth.
I didn’t have real conversations with my parents about their work, their struggles, or even their dreams.
And when I asked? It was usually brushed off. Silence. Change the subject.
They gave us everything—except a map.
Looking back, I don’t blame them.
They were engineers. Up at 5 a.m., home at 6 p.m. They did their best. They made sure we had everything we needed materially, even some luxuries.
But emotionally, it was a quiet house.
Everything Everywhere All At Once helped me reframe a lot of that.
Our parents didn’t get to dream with us. They just tried to survive with us.
Like founding a startup you didn’t fully understand.
Only in this case, if the business fails... it’s not a product. It’s your child.
I didn’t want to become them.
In my teenage years, I felt that so strongly it bordered on vengeance.
I told myself: if I ever become a parent, I’ll show up differently. I’ll ask the hard questions. I’ll teach my kids the things I had to teach myself.
I went to college intending to become an engineer—why? Honestly, no clue.
My sister got into Georgia Tech, so I chased that path too. Not because it called to me, but because it was the next step I was told made sense.
But the truth is... I lied a lot as a kid.
When adults asked what I wanted to be, I said “doctor” or “attorney”—not because I believed it, but because I knew it would make them proud.
And maybe deep down I was just trying to build something that looked like purpose.
I didn’t know it yet, but this would become a pattern.
A life of restarts.
Of pivots.
Of burning down what wasn’t real—and building again.
That’s what made me the king of starting over.
Part 2: Why Starting Over is a Strength
I’ve heard it said that the best trait you can have as an entrepreneur is the ability to start over.
The ability to reboot yourself.
Almost like Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow—if you don’t defeat something, you come back and try again, but smarter.
Sometimes, life feels like a game like Elden Ring.
I remember hearing Bobby Lee on a podcast say he enjoys games where you have to grind. That’s what makes it fun and challenging.
It’s like golf—if everyone could break 70, the game wouldn’t be worth playing. People want it to be hard. They want to grind and see improvement.
The struggle is the satisfaction—because it makes the breakthrough real.
If you love the game for the game’s sake, you’re the type who enjoys the journey.
Sometimes the journey is just getting in the golf cart every weekend, drinking seltzers, and bonding over how humbling the game is.
But the joy hits different when someone breaks through.
You don’t just break 70—you break 100, then 90, then 80.
That’s when I came across a word from Cyan Banister: incrementalism.
She described it as progress through small, consistent steps.
You don’t need to have everything figured out to take the first step.
Big results are the compound interest of small actions.
Each step I took laid the foundation for the next.
Literally—brick by brick.
What’s wild is I had been doing this all along without knowing the word.
My first step was education.
I knew I wanted to invest, so I absorbed everything.
BiggerPockets podcasts. Audiobooks.
Couldn’t afford books? I got a library card.Checked out five at a time like they were currency.
That actually got me into reading for pleasure, too.
When things got real—when I quit my job and had to act on my first BRRRR—I went looking for community.
I got active in forums. Asked questions. Got out of my comfort zone.
I even asked some of my wealthy Lifetime Fitness clients if they’d be open to private lending or partnering.
One guy actually said yes—but only if it was a big enough deal, like a multimillion-dollar apartment complex.
Maybe he was testing me.Maybe he knew I wasn’t ready.
Either way, I passed.
I knew I had to do this on my own.
So we self-funded.
Sold our house (see: $155K fixer-upper story) and used that equity on a leap of faith.
I knew if I kept waiting to feel comfortable, the dream would stay a dream.
Like having kids—people say you’re never really ready.
Everyone I know has kids.
Few have a business.
This would be our creation.
When we sold our home, I’d never seen that much money in my checking account—$120,000.
We moved to Augusta and lived in the bottom bedroom of my parents’ 3,700 sq ft house.
So big, but it felt claustrophobic.
My parents welcomed us, but more out of obligation than excitement.
I wasn’t forced to move back—but I was made to feel like I had failed.
I had equity.But I didn’t feel like I had dignity.
My parents and my sister’s family live on the same street.
Less than a mile apart.
Coming back felt like stepping into a fishbowl.
I had my own ecosystem in Atlanta. Friends. A support system.
I’ve never felt deeply connected to my family—and that’s hard to admit.
It always felt like their job was just to get us to adulthood.
Not to enjoy us. Not to teach us.
But we had seed money.
A vision.
And the belief that small steps—taken consistently—could turn into something real.
This wasn’t the end.This was just the beginning.
Final Thought: Keep Starting Over
Starting over isn’t failure.
It’s the price of evolving.
It’s how you build a life that’s truly you
The quiet chaos of growing up without a blueprint.
🔗 Follow the Journey
More stories like this—honest and in real time—are coming soon.
→ @builtfromthefield (brand)
→ @chrismomongan (personal)
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