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Something From Nothing, With Something To Share
Betrayal, it can hit you
like a load of bricks falling from the
sky, leaving you with a pit
in your stomach that no pill can
cure.
Starting your own business
is hard enough, however when your
inside people are working
against you as well, it can make the
toughest of souls weak at
the knees.
Let me take you back a few
years, and share a little story with
you.
There I was, a fledgling in
the corporate world, I had just quit
my (steady) job and sold
everything I had to venture out into
entrepreneur life, when “it
never could happen to me” happened.
My closest friend and
business partner wiped out our bank account
balance, leaving me with
debt up to my eyeballs, and a lesson to
be learned.
I come from one of those
attitudes that believe that everything
happens for a reason, so
what could this reason be, I pondered?
It was tough; let me tell
you - faced with the biggest crossroad
of my life.
A failing business with no
cash to save me, a close friend’s
betrayal, and two roads
leading into separate directions.
One, go after the person who
did me wrong, obviously having a
slam dunk case and would win
in any court. Or two, use that same
precious time and energy to
focus in a more positive manner on
rebuilding what I once had,
and learn from the experience, if
nothing else, what I would
never tolerate again.
What would you do?
For myself, I chose the
second of the two, knowing darned well,
that by wasting my thoughts
and energy on ways to get back at
this person, and how I could
make them suffer as I, there would
be little left to focus on
what really mattered most:
-
- > Creating the business
model and dream that I had began
in the first place.
What made me take this
route, you ask?
There is an old saying that
goes ‘many receive good advice, yet
few actually profit from
it.‘
Since I chose to succeed, I
went back and listened to all my old
motivational tapes, thumbed
through the books, and messages, got
my focus back and quickly
realized that we are all dealt
obstacles in this world.
I mean, there will always be
stumbling blocks in our lives,
that’s just part of life
itself.
It’s our “Attitude” toward
these events that show the world who
we are as a person.
For, it’s been said: we
learn more about someone on one bad day,
than on all their good days
put together.
Have you ever wondered why
some people seem to always have drama
in their lives, while others
simply go with the flow? Or why one
group of people are happy
and content most the time, while some
seem to only attract anger
and chaos into their lives?
I believe it’s because what
we feel and how we see ourselves on
the inside is the direct
reflection on how we feel and see the
world around us.
Someone once said to me, “we
can’t control our circumstances all
the time, but we can control
our attitude toward them.” A true
statement I know, but come
on - I was stuck in a tight spot here.
So, there I was - with a BIG
decision to make and decided to take
on this challenge as just
that.
A challenge.
I figured, if I could
overcome this situation that seemed so
grave at the time, and not
only make it through it, but actually
grew from it, perhaps, maybe
- just maybe my business partner
didn’t fail me after all.
Here’s what I did.
I moved on and buried the
past. I went into the office the next
day, changed the locks on
the door, rolled up my sleeves and
never looked back.
It’s amazing what a new coat
of paint can do to a dreary old
room, and that’s what I did
for my business and attitude toward
it. Out with the old, and in
with the new.
When I called all my
customers and explained what had happened,
you wouldn’t believe the
response. It was like a brotherhood of
business people. Each person
I spoke with having more advice that
the last. It was strange how
I felt all-alone, and ashamed for
letting someone take
advantage of me, while others saw me as a
new start up, and simply
green behind the ears. Remember, we all
make mistakes.
There were many lessons
learned that month, and I took the advice
given to me by these people,
by hiring the best accounting person
I could find, and then one
of the best of Tax firms to oversee
their numbers as well.
By doing so, guess what
happened?
My business rose to the
highest of dimensions, allowing me to set
my sights on growth rather
than setbacks, and on the future
rather than the past.
That was many, many years
ago. The company became a corporation,
and eventually the
corporation was sold to another.
Now I find myself here,
writing this story as if it were
yesterday, remembering one
of the greatest lessons I’ve learned.
In life - things will
happen, both for the good and the bad. It’s
the way we handle these
situations that make us who we are.
It’s all right to feel
anger; it’s OK to sense pain, but in the
end, when the story is
written, which path will you have chosen?
Live in the past, or live
FOR the future.
Best wishes, and what ever
you do….
Keep Smilin'
- 30 -
By: Keynote Speaker
Gregory Scott Reid
GregReid@AlwaysGood.com
Speaker and two-time #1
best-selling author,
The Millionaire Mentor
and Wake Up: Live the Life You Love