Big Update! I am married and I passed the NMLS Exam!

I promise to begin posting here more often. I’ve been getting a lot of messages asking why I haven’t been updating much. Truth is, I’ve been so caught up in life and have met some amazing milestones in my life.

First of all, I passed my National Mortgage License Exam (with an 86%) and my Ohio Exam. I am now a Licensed Mortgage Loan Originator for Residential Finance Corporation. What does that mean? Well, I am a Residential Loan Officer. I refinance home mortgages and extend purchase loans for houses. I love it!

Here are some tips on passing the National Mortgage License Exam (NMLS).
Get the ProSchools Course ($95 for the basic course, or $350 for the full kit which includes your pre licensing education course required for your 20 hours)
Once your done going through everything once, take the final course exam. If you get an 85% or better, you should be good if its the first time you’ve taken it. If you get less than that, try to figure out where you are weakest and do that chapter from page one. Dont take the quizes more than once after reading through the entire chapter. You dont want to memorize the questions/answers or you will really hurt yourself. When you do take the quizes, you want to be able to answer the questions with an explanation in your head. So if it asks a question and you have to guess, then you dont know enough yet.

Finally, when you are taking the actual exam, you wont know how well you are doing until the end, even if you are doing really well. The way the questions are worded and answers setup, you will often find yourself seeing more than one correct answer, but, if you can explain the proschools answers in detail, then your chance of selecting the correct exam answer will be MUCH better.

Before I took the national exam I had 3 full copies of the entire pro schools course highlighted and noted and was scoring 90′s on the quizes with no memorization and answering them in full detail explaining the answers.

Do that and you’ll pass the test.

Thats about it really. Everything you need to know to pass the exam is in the proschools course. Screw abacus, dont touch compucram. Just focus on learning and knowing the pro schools material.

When I was taking the exam I felt like I wanted to throw up and was shaking like a mad man. The stress was really difficult. I had no idea how well I was doing and the minute it takes to process your answers before giving you the results is the longest minute of your life. When I not only saw it read: Passed, but with an 86%, I lost it. I really couldn’t believe it. I knew I had earned it after studying as long and hard as I did. Dont let the crazy high fail rate of the test freak you out, if you do what I said above, you’ll pass it.

So, I’m writing this from my Father In Law’s Condo on the Beach at Daytona Beach, Florida. Yes, I married my best friend and the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Cristen Schuerman, now Cristen Appleton. 5 foot 1 inch of miracle. We’ve been together 2 years now and I have only fallen deeper in love with her with every day. She is amazing with my daughters who absolutely adore her and shes just a fantastic mother and truly my best friend. We talk about everything, we have no secrets and we live our lives as a team. I’ve never before experienced what I now know as a soul mate. We were simply created for eachother. We were married at the Cincinnati Masonic Center in Downtown Cincinnati on May 5th, 2012. Pictures will be coming soon once the photographer has finished doing her thing with them.

What can I say other than this: if you are reading this and know you are in a bad relationship. If you are with a Narcissistic man or woman who makes your life miserable. If you are in an abusive relationship of any kind, be it physical or mental. If you fight and argue a lot about anything or everything. If you aren’t trusted for no reason or can’t trust who you are with for multiple reasons….DONT SETTLE. You can and WILL do better. My wife and I have argued 3 times in 2 years and we had a bit too much to drink two of those times and were just being stupid. When she walks into a room, I feel complete and safe, not fearful or concerned. When we talk, I know I can believe her every word not having to be concerned with her spinning some self serving lie. When we laugh, it’s from the gut and when we cry, its because we love each other and are typically overjoyed about something. My point is, in 34 years I’ve experienced a lot of horrible relationships and always wondered if it was me or the women I dated. What I realized is that, to become wise you have to have experiences to learn from. To appreciate the greatness of the person you are meant to be with, you have to experience the ones you aren’t. I know that Cristen is my reward for all of the battles I’ve had to fight before finding her.

Too often I see people getting married too young or for all of the wrong reasons. At 34 years old, having seen all I’ve seen, I know without a doubt that this is true happiness for the first time in my life and I’m grateful for my past for showing me just how great true and real love really is. I hope any of you reading this who are struggling through a bad relationship can see some light at what should be the end of a dark tunnel knowing that it’s ok to get out. You will find the one you are meant to be with and to be honest, if you know in your heart that you are the cause for your partners misery, you know you can’t tell the truth to save your life, you play games, take your partner for granted, cheat, steal, abuse etc, then you need to take a step back and look at yourself. Stop dating and try to find the reason you are the way you are. I’ve dated a person with textbook Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I mean, to the letter, and I know that she knows how messed up she is, as I’m sure you do as well. You may never admit it to anyone else, but you can admit it to yourself and then begin to figure out how to resolve those issues that cause you to find yourself doing all of the things that create a horrible environment for yourself and your partner. Until you do, you will never find happiness in your life and neither will anyone you ever date.

The point to all of this is, I see so many people in bad relationships or simply not happy in their relationship and believe it’s too late to change their lives or leave who they are with in fear of being lonely or never finding someone else etc. If you focus on being the best you that you can be, then the person you are meant to be with will find you when they have become the best them that they can be and the two of you will compliment each other and fill each others cracks as one from then on.

Drastic changes in ones life is scary. I have gone through a complete life transition. I’ve quit doing something I’ve done for over 6 years in going from self employed fight promoter and going into a completely new and unknown career in the mortgage industry. I’m now married to the love of my life and spend every day learning, listening and focused on how to make our lives and our childrens lives better, and I love my life for the first time in 34 years.

Hopefully, this long winded post to be aged blog helps you in some way and if it does, I’d love to hear from you.

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