It’s time for another guest post! This one is from Nathan Hangen, and it made me cry. Seriously.
The glory days
I spent 8 years of my life being miserable, not because I wanted to be, but because it was easier to be miserable than to fail again.
Years prior, I built a very successful real estate management firm that held over 20 properties and make 5 figures per month. It was something I built on my own in less than 2 years.
And then something horrible happened.
At the time, I didn’t see it coming, but looking back, it seems impossible to miss.
It doesn’t matter though, because what’s done is done, and my business, which I was extremely proud of, collapsed in the same way that a skyscraper does during a controlled demolition…quickly, and with extreme force.
Everything I built was lying before me, collapsed into a heap of rubble. Dust…smoke…quiet.
The despair
I had nothing left. I was down to my last few dollars, and my ego was in the same shape as that of my business…tattered and lifeless.
I had to borrow money to survive, but worse yet, I was still in shock…paralyzed by fear.
“If something I’d worked so hard to build could collapse in an instant, then what case did I have against a life of poverty and desolation?”
My wife and children were relying on my support, and I saw it in their eyes…but I was paralyzed.
It was fear.
It was pain.
It was guilt.
I wanted to hide, but there was no place to go.
I was only 22, but I had convinced myself that my life was over, and I spent the next 8 years reminding myself of it.
The climb back up
Even though I managed to work my way through college, by the time I reached 27, I was no better off. I’d been job hopping and living from paycheck to paycheck.
I was starting to rationalize the fact that I’d given up on my dreams. I’d started to convince myself that it was OK to “be realistic.”
I wound up getting a nice corporate job with a Fortune 500 company as a manager in training, and for once, I felt a twinge of happiness.
What goes up must come down
And then it happened again… I was fired a week before Christmas without warning, and without a pat on the back.
I cried as they told me, which was something I never did. It got worse as I drove home and thought about having to tell my wife, who thought I was finally back on my feet.
Seeing the look in her eye was one of the lowest moments of my life. I felt lower than low, and I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life.
So I did the only rational thing I could think of, which was to join the Army and ship off to bootcamp.
Next thing you know, as I was preparing to deploy a few years later, I started running with a friend.
Something clicked, and as I started to take control over my body by making it suffer beyond its comfort level, I became addicted to running. I started running 5k’s, and then 10k’s, and then half-marathons, and then triathlons.
But that wasn’t all. Somehow, without realizing it, I’d recovered from the pain of my former failures, and I felt called to once again make an attempt at building my own business.
The only problem was that I was deploying in just a few months, and I was running out of time.
The final chapter
The pain of deploying was the most horrible pain I’d ever experienced. It was the night before that my son finally realized what was happening, and he cried…no he wailed…for hours. I felt like the worst husband and father in the world.
So I made a vow that by the time I returned from Afghanistan that I’d have a business established and that I’d be making $3k/month online.
Even though I didn’t quite make it, I came pretty damn close, and by the time my 8 months were up, I’d done everything from selling Afghan Scarves to creating ebooks (Twitter Rockstar) and blogging.
By the time I got home I was making a few grand per month while working part-time as my buddies played X-Box. At that point I realized that after all these years, I’d finally climbed back up to the top, and I’d found my way back to being happy. The best part is that I wasn’t just happy, but I was once again confident.
How did it happen?
Was it the running? I think that was part of it, but I think what was more important than the running was the progression I had to go through. I had a lot of things to learn before I claimed my destiny, and it seems that at 22, I just wasn’t ready. Had I not been miserable, been fired, joined the Army, and started running, I’d probably still be rationalizing my “average-ness.”
Instead, I’m a year into being back home, and my business is doing awesome. But better yet is the fact that in 2 months, I’ll be leaving the Army and starting back on the path I once left, which is the path of the warrior…of the entrepreneur.
I’ve got a long way to go, but that’s OK. The past 8 years was the most intense and useful education I’d ever received.
I learned that it’s OK to fail as long as you bounce back, and that as long as you never rationalize being miserable, there’s a world of awesome waiting for you.
If my experience taught me anything, it’s that it’s not the failure that matters, but the way you respond to it that counts.
Don’t let anyone take your destiny from you, especially the worst of all enemies…yourself.
Now it’s your turn
Inertia is one of the hardest forces to overcome as an entrepreneur, and if you let it, it will slowly press you into the ground until you’re unable to move. What’s the one action that you can take today that can help you get ouf of the undertow and start building some positive momentum?
Become an unstoppable force
Now, here’s the fun part. Instead of taking just one action today, take a few minutes to write down a series of actions that you can start today and finish tomorrow, next week, next month, this year. One action today is nothing without another to follow, so take a minute to analyze the things that are holding you back from where you want to be, and then take twice as long to find a way to break through that barrier.
Can you turn a weakness into a strength and blow your own expectations out of the water? I think you can.
Nathan Hangen teaches people how to build digital empires, helps them rock through their workday, and works with small businesses to implement digital marketing campaigns.