In this candid YouTube short, Jake Burhans and an unnamed speaker discuss how early‑career financial stress created a lingering fear of answering phone calls, and how that anxiety can be recognized and eased through self‑awareness. Jake describes the physiological reaction—energy dropping in his gut—triggered by the ring, recalling his first years in real‑estate when he had no cash reserves and felt desperate to close deals. He notes that once he answers, the conversation flows well, indicating the fear is a pre‑call trigger rather than a performance issue. The second speaker shares a personal real‑estate nightmare from 2004‑05: after leaving a demanding corporate job at Mellon Bank, he partnered with an out‑of‑state investor to buy five houses in a single week, all 90‑100% financed, based on promises of pre‑lined tenants who would pay above‑market rent. The deals collapsed because the tenant/lease promises were fabricated, leaving him with heavily leveraged properties and a harsh lesson about due diligence. Both narratives intertwine to illustrate how unprocessed emotional trauma can affect business decisions and how recognizing triggers can prevent future financial missteps.
Chapters
It's like a past emotional event that you were unable to process. And what I linked it back to is when I was just getting started in the industry and I had no money, right? And I had no money in the bank. I was so scared, you know, I was so worried about these deals getting to the finish line, 'cause I was like, I need this money right now, that anytime a seller called out, instantly, and I didn't have the mental tools to be able to handle that kind of emotional situation. So anytime the phone rang, I was right into fear, anxiety, oh my God, what's gonna happen? I gotta keep the seller on the line, right? So I was like, every time my phone rings, I feel my energy drop right into my gut, and I'm just like so afraid. And here I am, literally a sales manager, right? And I'm literally scared to pick up the phone. You know what I mean? I'm like, what is this? And I realized that— and the best part about it was as soon as every time I'd get that feeling, but when I get on the phone, instantly it'd be okay. I'd be okay, great. It would be a phenomenal conversation, right? Everything would be fine. But it's just that initial reaction to the phone. And I realized it was from that a few years ago. 5 years ago when I initially had started, and it just stuck with me and I never processed that. So now I've been able to recognize it, now that I'm aware of it, and when the, you know, obviously I'm past it now, but when that happened, then I could just kind of relax into it. And I noticed that trigger and I'd be like, "It's fine, just a phone call, you pick it up and it is what it is." The awareness of that trigger, right?
I started in 2004 and '05, and I got involved, my first 5 deals in real estate, which went horribly, horribly wrong. I didn't know what I didn't know. I had partnered with somebody out of state, and the story is now, I wrote a book about it, but I'll still tell it to the people, but, right, like, he had promised me, he had lined up these 5 houses, we were gonna buy the houses under market value, he already had people lined up to rent the houses, to pay above market rent for them, and then we were gonna sell them in 3 years for higher than what we paid for them, so we'd make money all around. So I didn't buy one, I was so infatuated also with getting out of the corporate grind, that was my motivator. 80-hour week in the bank, at Mellon Bank in Boston and in Everett.
Brutal.
It was brutal. I was promoted, fun fact, and by the way, huge, if my boss ever sees this, his name was Joe, he was the best unbelievable manager I ever, ever, ever had. So he was amazing, but being promoted 4 times, overseeing a team of like 48, and still making under $52,000 a year, and being expected to work 70 hours a week was a lot.
Yeah, it's a no-go.
So real estate appealed to me, right?
Yeah.
Bought 5 houses in one week. All 90-100% financed. And I'm only saying this because it links directly to your fear.
Yeah.
We had our call with him for next steps and lining up the tenants to bring them in to start paying— Helping pay the rent. And he didn't show up to the call. And it turned out the tenants that he had showed us, the applications were not real. The leases were not real. But the mortgage I just signed were very, very real.
