Ep. 51 - Hand-Built House: A Single Mom's $20K Gamble with Cara Brookins

So I know a lot of my listeners who probably have heard your name already, they know the book that kind of puts you on the map, if you will.

And just holding it up here for those watching on YouTube, it's Rise, How a House Built a Family by Cara Brookins.

And I actually have an autographed copy because I know you.

I know your family.

Your son worked for me in a business that I – a great business that we had that the business – started having to compete with Apple.

And guess what? We didn't win.

And so we all had to move on.

But so I know the story and I hope that doesn't get in the way of asking questions.

But here's what, before I talk about the book specifically, let's lay a little of the groundwork.

What was your life like when the years prior to writing rise?

It was tough.

It was really tough.

I was a single mom, and I had gotten married and ended up in a really bad domestic violence situation.

And with four children then in that situation, I hit a really, really tough wall.

I got really stuck in a situation where it was tough for me to find my way out.

In order to leave, I would have to start over from scratch.

And we finally hit a point where that's exactly what we did.

My kids and I had to start financially, emotionally, completely over from scratch.

There had to be, I mean, probably every minute of the day, just self-doubt of the journey and are you going to get out of this? Let me ask, did the idea of the book ever come before the idea of the house, of actually building the house? Why build a house? Most people would not start with such a bold step.

Yeah, both of those things definitely started on different timelines, very different timelines.

The idea of the house was absolutely first and never at any point while building the house would I have considered writing a book about it.

Never once.

We did not try to chronicle the building of the house.

We didn't share the building of the house.

And to back up a bit, because we were in that tough situation, because we had to start over from scratch, the decision I made that would rebuild our future was by hand-building a house from the ground up with the four kids by watching YouTube videos.

So I know a lot of my listeners who probably have heard your name already, they know the book that kind of puts you on the map, if you will.

And just holding it up here for those watching on YouTube, it's Rise, How a House Built a Family by Cara Brookins.

And I actually have an autographed copy because I know you.

I know your family.

Your son worked for me in a business that I – a great business that we had that the business – started having to compete with Apple.

And guess what? We didn't win.

And so we all had to move on.

But so I know the story and I hope that doesn't get in the way of asking questions.

But here's what, before I talk about the book specifically, let's lay a little of the groundwork.

What was your life like when the years prior to writing rise?

It was tough.

It was really tough.

I was a single mom, and I had gotten married and ended up in a really bad domestic violence situation.

And with four children then in that situation, I hit a really, really tough wall.

I got really stuck in a situation where it was tough for me to find my way out.

In order to leave, I would have to start over from scratch.

And we finally hit a point where that's exactly what we did.

My kids and I had to start financially, emotionally, completely over from scratch.

There had to be, I mean, probably every minute of the day, just self-doubt of the journey and are you going to get out of this? Let me ask, did the idea of the book ever come before the idea of the house, of actually building the house? Why build a house? Most people would not start with such a bold step.

Yeah, both of those things definitely started on different timelines, very different timelines.

The idea of the house was absolutely first and never at any point while building the house would I have considered writing a book about it.

Never once.

We did not try to chronicle the building of the house.

We didn't share the building of the house.

And to back up a bit, because we were in that tough situation, because we had to start over from scratch, the decision I made that would rebuild our future was by hand-building a house from the ground up with the four kids by watching YouTube videos.