Real Deal REInvestor Network

The Domino Effect

       There was a time in my life when I did quit on myself. I had owned my business for about 6 years, and had more work than I could handle. My wife and I agreed on taking out an SBA loan to expand the business. This was in November of 2007. About 6 months later, the domino effect started.
       
       I went from having all the work my business could handle to almost no work at all. I thought it was short term, and that we could weather the storm. As time went by, business did not improve. After a few more months, I had to walk away from my business. My wife had saved some money, so we were okay for a while, but I needed to figure out what had happened.

      But walking away from my business destroyed me mentally. I felt like I had failed my wife, children, and above all myself. How could I have put us in that position? How could I have let that happen? I lost many hours of sleep asking question after question of myself. I had given up on chasing after my dreams, and was ready to settle for less.

      As the dominoes started falling, our savings account diminished, and we risked losing everything that we had worked so hard for up until now.  That’s when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started becoming the man I knew I could be. What had snapped me out of that free-fall was thinking about the advice I had given many others: “How can you help others if you can’t even help yourself?”

       I stepped back and started to assess the situation. The first thing I did was write down what I had done wrong with the business and what I had done correctly. I had to learn from my mistakes if I was going to move forward. As I started believing in myself again, my wife and I made some important decisions.

       The most important one was to file for bankruptcy, because we were a guarantor on the SBA loan.  The second was to walk away from our house and move into one of our rental properties. We had to downsize in order to speed up the recovery process. The financial hardship taught us a lot of great lessons. Some of which are: live within your means, set strong budgets, always pay yourself first, understand good debt vs. bad debt, and -one of the most important lessons- do not stack your business, personal, and investments up like dominoes, where if one falls it can start taking out the others.

       We survived those situations, and the experience of loss strengthened me as a person. Where most marriages would have ended, I am blessed that ours has became stronger. Yes, I quit for about a year, but I have become stronger and wiser from it. I am always moving forward now, building our dreams and constantly improving myself and those around me.