I spent almost ten years in the Army. And the hardest thing I've ever done wasn't a deployment. It wasn't a field exercise. It wasn't any of the things people assume are hard about military service.

The hardest thing was taking off the uniform and figuring out who I was without it.

When you serve, your identity is clear. You know your rank, your role, your mission. You know where to be and when. You know what success looks like because someone defines it for you. There's a structure so complete that you don't realize how much you depend on it until it's gone.

Then you separate. And you wake up on a Monday morning with no formation to report to, no mission brief, no chain of command. Just a civilian world that moves at a completely different speed and operates on completely different rules.

That transition is where a lot of veterans get lost. I almost did.

Finding the Vehicle

I didn't stumble into real estate by accident. I went and got a degree in Real Estate Construction and Portfolio Development from APU while I was still serving. I knew I wanted to build something. I knew real estate was the vehicle. The degree gave me the framework. The Army gave me the operating system.

What I mean by that's this. The military teaches you how to think in systems. Everything is a process. Everything has an SOP. Logistics, leadership, planning, execution, after-action review. You learn how to take a complex mission, break it into components, assign responsibilities, execute, and debrief.

That's property management. That's asset management. That's running a real estate portfolio.

The skills transfer perfectly. Not metaphorically. Literally. The way I run a property today, the way I manage a team, the way I plan capital improvements and model acquisitions, it all comes from the same operating system I learned in the Army. Different context. Same discipline.

But knowing the vehicle and knowing how to drive it are two different things. The early days proved that.

The Early Days

My first property was an education I paid for twice. Once at closing and once in mistakes.

I made every error you can make as a new investor. Underestimated rehab costs. Overestimated rent projections. Trusted the wrong contractor. Learned what "deferred maintenance" actually means when you're the one writing the checks.

I don't say that to be self-deprecating. I say it because the real estate industry has a problem with highlight reels. Everyone posts the closing photos. Nobody posts the $8,000 sewer line replacement they didn't budget for. Nobody talks about the tenant who stopped paying and the eviction that took three months. Nobody mentions the nights sitting at the kitchen table wondering if they made a terrible mistake.

I made mistakes. They cost money. Some of them cost a lot of money. But the Army taught me something that matters more than any deal: when the plan falls apart, you adjust and keep moving. You don't quit. You don't freeze. You assess, adapt, and execute.

That mindset has been worth more than any course, book, or mentorship I've ever encountered.

Building with Nicole

Top Tier doesn't exist without Nicole. She's my wife, my Director of Operations, and the operational backbone of everything we build. She's not "involved in the business." She runs the entire operations side. Property managers, maintenance teams, tenant relations, day-to-day execution. They all report to her.

We split the business deliberately. I lead asset management and brokerage. Nicole leads operations as Director of Operations, overseeing the property management arm. We tried blending the two. It doesn't work. Strategy and operations need to talk to each other constantly, but they need to be owned by different people. When one person tries to do both, the urgent always beats the important.

We figured this out the hard way. Argued about roles and boundaries and who owns what decision. Came out the other side with a structure that works, for the business and for the marriage.

Building a business with your spouse requires a level of communication that goes beyond what most couples practice. But when it works, the alignment is unbeatable. We're building something for our family, together, with complete context on both sides.

The Freedom Fighter Podcast

We started the Freedom Fighter Podcast to document the journey. The real one, not the polished version.

Over 70 episodes in, it's become a community. Veterans transitioning into real estate. Small investors trying to scale. Business owners wrestling with the same challenges we face.

My co-host Ryan runs Avara Investments. He's deep in the trades, plumbing, HVAC, the mechanical side of real estate that most investors never think about until something breaks. Our conversations are the same ones we'd have over a beer. No scripts. No guests booked to sell a course. Just two operators talking about what's working and what's not.

The podcast name matters to me. Freedom Fighter. It's not about politics. It's about what freedom actually means.

What Freedom Really Means

People hear "financial freedom" and they picture a beach, a laptop, and a drink with an umbrella in it. That's not freedom. That's a vacation.

Freedom is options. Freedom isn't being told where to be at 0600 tomorrow. Freedom isn't checking with a boss before you take your kid to the dentist. Freedom is building something that produces income whether you're present or not. Freedom is creating infrastructure that your children can inherit, not just assets, but the systems and knowledge and relationships that make those assets perform.

I have seven kids. That's not a typo. Seven.

Everything I build, I build with them in mind. Not in a vague "providing for my family" way. In a specific, concrete, "I want my kids to inherit a portfolio and the infrastructure to manage it" way.

Because here's what I've learned. You can leave your kids money and they'll spend it. You can leave your kids properties and they'll mismanage them. But if you leave your kids a business, with systems, with relationships, with a team, with a reputation, that's generational wealth. That's the kind of inheritance that compounds.

That's my WHY. Every unit we manage, every deal we close, every episode we record, every article I write, it all ties back to that.

Where Top Tier Is Headed

We're building toward 500 units under management by the end of the year.

But the number isn't the point. The model is the point.

Top Tier is a vertically integrated real estate platform. Asset management, property management, and brokerage under one roof. Strategy, operations, and transactions all connected, all sharing data, all pointed at the same goal: making our clients' portfolios perform at their ceiling.

Most investors have a PM who doesn't talk to their broker who doesn't talk to their CPA-is-not-your-financial-strategist). Nobody is connecting the dots. That's the gap we're building to fill.

We're focused on 5 to 50 unit multifamily owners in Omaha and Lincoln. These are the investors nobody is serving well. Too big to wing it, too small for the institutional players to care about. They're our people.

The Honest Version

I could end this post with a highlight reel. Growth numbers. Revenue milestones.

But the truth is that building a business from scratch while raising seven kids is the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than the Army. Because the stakes are personal in a way that military service never was for me.

There are days when the bank account says one thing and the vision says another. Weeks when I'm not sure any of it's going to work.

And then I sit down, look at the numbers, look at the plan, look at the team we're building, and I get back to work. Because the alternative is going back to trading time for money, with a ceiling on what I can earn and no equity in what I build.

That's not freedom. And freedom is the whole point.

If You're a Veteran Thinking About Real Estate

Let me tell you something nobody told me. You're more prepared for this than you think.

The discipline, the systems thinking, the ability to operate under pressure, the leadership skills you built in service, those are exactly the skills that make great real estate operators. You don't need to start over. You need to translate what you already know into a different domain.

It won't be easy. The civilian business world doesn't operate like the military. Nobody is going to hand you a mission. You have to create your own. But the operating system you built in uniform is more valuable than any real estate license or course or certification.

If you want to hear more about the journey, or if you're a veteran building in real estate and you want to connect, check out the Freedom Fighter Podcast. We're on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. And my door is always open.

We talk about this every week on the Freedom Fighter Podcast. Listen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. Or reach out at Tanner@TopTierInvestmentFirm.com.

Tanner Sherman is the Principal and Managing Broker of Top Tier Investment Firm in Omaha, Nebraska. He co-hosts the Freedom Fighter Podcast with Ryan of Avara Investments.

From Army Veteran to Managing Broker: Why I Chose Real Estate