Step up or get the fuck out!

I was doing some calculations today and basic projections on my business, and I realised how foreign this was for me. I've never been a numbers person. It's been 3 and a half years since I stepped up and took control of my business. 3 and a half years since my business partner was diagnosed with aggressive stomach cancer and then passed away extremely quickly.
Shortly before her diagnosis I had been trying to negotiate with her to either buy my share of our company, let me buy her share or we sell up and go our separate ways. None of these options appealed to her, as it essentially meant that her income stream would be cut off. She didn't care that mine had been completely cut off for the previous year, that I'd been paying my home loan with credit cards and moving the debt between low interest cards as often as possible, we'd had to sell my husbands car, and had to put our house up for sale. Care factor from her was zero. Too bad.

It was around this time that I learned a few key things in life. 1- Your self worth doesnt have to be connected to your net worth (although at the time, both of mine were in the minuses!) 2- You can take all my money, my company, my car, my house... But you can't take my spirit, my creativity, my business brain or my drive... I could start another business and build it from scratch. So I did! I started a company with my sister selling training and renting out our training room! We sold our house, and the bit of profit I made, I invested... On myself and my husband. We trained and trained, did course after course, personal development, professional development. Learned everything we could get our brains around.

During the year I'd been pushed out of my business, I'd pretty much had a nervous breakdown. Flashbacks and nightmares had become a daily occurance, I was struggling to stay sober, I felt like a huge failure for allowing myself to be bullied out of my company, and was just generally feeling worthless. I had started studying my Diploma of Community Services which I'd put together in my training room (next to my companies offices) and was forced to see my business partner a couple of times a week while I was training. I was suffering from extreme anxiety and could barely leave the house. But somehow, I knew I was meant to be back running my business. I'd worked too hard to just walk away... Even though I felt I had no real options.

 Then on our last class before Christmas in 2012, my business partner told me to take the business, she had cancer and it was aggressive. My head was spinning, I didn't care about the company, I was worried about her, despite our issues, her health was the most important thing. At that point I didn't care if the company went under.

2 weeks later she called me into the hospital, she had given up, and didn't expect to live much longer. She gave me all the passwords, the bank account details etc and said, just keep going! She passed away a few days later.

Being thrown back in the deep end, I knew I had only two options... Sink or swim! So I doggy paddled the shit out of the next few years, barely keeping my head above water! A lot of the money I'd saved from selling my house was invested back into my company. I continued to invest in myself and spent money on business coaching, I learned to hustle, I learned to do every single aspect of my business myself, vowing never to rely on anyone, things I'd never even had access to before became my responsibility. I had amazing friends and family supporting me, helping me, backing me. But most importantly, I backed myself!

One of the biggest surprises I was left with was a huge couple of hundred thousand dollar tax bill! Talk about one of the biggest threats to my sobriety! I've never been so stressed in my life. I thought about a lot of things over that time, I considered suicide more than once, I considered drinking most days. Then I remembered why I was doing this. Why I had brought the company in the first place... My clients and staff! My main concern was always them. I had to claw my way back for them!

Today I was reminded of all of this, as I typed numbers into excel spreadsheets, as I realised this month it's been 8 years since I purchased the company. We made a $140,000 loss in the first year. We've doubled our sales every year since I took it back over. I managed to pay off $70,000 in tax debt in just over 30 days this year... And I finally hit my elusive target number in sales last financial year!

Am I rich? Nope! Did we make a profit? Probably not! Do I love what I do? Absolutely! Do we make a difference in people's lives everyday! Hell yes! Are there days I want to give up, pack it all in, that the stress almost kills me? Yep! Am I proud of how far I've come? Fuckin A!

Some things almost kill us, some things make us stronger, some things are not optional... As my business coach said today in a video... GO HARD OR GO HOME!!!!!

STEP UP OR GET THE FUCK OUT!

Happy 8 year anniversary of owning a business to me! Thank you everyone who has supported me, challenged me, threatened me, screwed me over, and generally done anything to make me stronger in the long run!