Great entrepreneur story....a must read.

[bizboy]

I found this on lambopower forum by poster cantwait2.

Hi Guys, it was orginally written in parts so now when I look at it it's pretty long. If you read it I hope you can take something of benefit away...enjoy

Thanks guys, I know everyone on here has a story...the similarities are sometimes unreal. It's satisfying when you come across a pic or something that reminds you of the journey and you think...damb I wouldn't want to start that again.
Funny thing was I had to borrow the money to buy that car, I didn't even own it. Before that I took a job driving a delivery truck so I could use it as personal transport on the sly after work lol.gif I'd pull up for a pint of milk in a huge delivery truck lol.gif
I didn't have furniture, we had our bed in the living room, we used an ironing board as the dinner table and sat on the edge of the bed lol.gif
Anyway enough of that shit - memories just started coming back and thought those of you chasing the lambo dream would take heart that where ever you are now, it can still be done.

I'm not into myself enough to think that what I have done is any more than what anyone could do and literally thousands of people could dwarf my achievements...but I'll give you the story if you think you can draw some positives from it.
I'll give you the key blocks that made up the final result because that's really where the skills and experiences came from to get it done...


Lesson 1: Learnt how to sell

My working journey began with selling Kirby vacuum cleaners, it was hard, grass roots, no where to hide type selling. You were in someone’s home trying to convince them to buy something they already had...not only that but pay $3,500 for it...that takes some selling.

My manager while being a real cheap used car salesman type personality could sell like nothing I had ever seen. He taught me the sales skills that would lace my movements in future years. At this point I was 19 and doing pretty well selling these badboys, money was coming in and it was enough to repel any derogatory comments because you sold vacuum cleaners for a living. (If you haven't already noticed I can't spell for shit icon_mrgreen.gif )

I was motivated to succeed like a mother fucker and was selling like there was no tomorrow, but it was all about to come crashing down.
One night when we were having a celebration at a colleagues house after a good sales month for the office things started to go bad. We were all young 17-22yrs and our manger (the kirby franchise owner) was 28. We were all drinking and let's just say there were a lot of illegal substances going around wink.gif The manager (lets call him John) arrived to get in on the party.

The night moves on and we see John taking one of the girls into a bedroom, no body thinks twice until 5 minutes later we hear this screaming and she comes running out clothes hanging off saying John was trying to rape her...John comes out and she starts screaming at him and gives him a slap that made the windows shutter.
Then John just starts to lay into this girl and we all jump him, I have his arms wrapped up and I am standing right in front of him...he lets fly with an almighty head but and connects square on the middle of my face - just for my troubles.

The girl files charges. John hires a high powered lawyer. They argue we were under the influence of various things and got the story wrong. I say if need be I will go at him with assault to help her cause. Lawyer says he anticipated me hitting him so was self defense. I among others leave.

While some ups and downs in that period of my life, I'm now armed with some bad ass sales skills and once you've knocked on someone’s door, invited yourself in and left one hour later with an old vacuum cleaner and 3.5k...not much intimidates you... so I move on...


<Replies to posts in between chapters>
so true...I remember litterally dozens of people would never come back after one day lol.gif
Yes infinity definately love or hate...
You have to be either extremely self motivated, or need money really badly, otherwise most people will find more reasons to leave than to stay. Preferably you'll have both and can do well...
It's like anything - your comfort zone is your number one enemy to accumulating high level wealth.
In short, no. I'm a private guy but no-one knows me so I don't mind sharing the journey if some of you young guys want an insight into what one path looks like to lambo ownership. I'll break it up into the major lessons I think have been relevant in my life in respect to gaining wealth and if you guys can take something from it, that's great.
</end of replies to chapter 1>

[bizboy]

Lesson 2: Hard work, Respect, Focus, and Profits before Politics

Once I left Kirby my Mother pointed an ad out in the paper for a sales rep position with a major FMCG company, I new that I could sell anything so I applied for the role. I was still 19 about to turn 20 and younger than they would typically recruit but managed to sell myself into the position. It was a tough role because other sales reps didn't take kindly to some young punk coming in and pushing the envelope.

Regardless I worked hard and treated the company as if it was my own...I was progressing fast and moving from city to city accepting roles no-one else wanted and moving to towns and cities no-one else wanted to live in. While others were picking and choosing enjoying their comfort zones I was making a name for myself and starting to make things happen. I would transform the market as best I could before moving on to a new role and new city, I worked in 5 locations across the country in 3 years.
The second to last role I had with the company was managing a large geographical area, the manager there was pushed to a side role reporting to me at half his age. Infact every one of my staff was older than I was. So you have to quickly learn how to be respectful and lead people gently while minimising confrontation, another skill that would help me in the years to come.

People still left. I hired more. Some liked me, others didn't. Regardless the job got done and I was offered a promotion to head office.

Now 22/23 I was flying high...my salary package was $100k+ and I had a budget to buy any car I chose. I pretty much had as much money as I could spend in those days...times were good and the world seemed at my feet – I was roughing it with the best of them in the corporate world.

Unfortunately though things again would start to unravel...I've never been one for the corporate boys clubs and copier room politics, I treat the company as if it was my own and try to deliver the result. The problem was when I hit the head office, to most, the company was a distant second and it was all about who you knew, who's ass you kissed, and the boys club you could muster into. It looked as if I had gone as far as ability alone would get me, I was being stone walled on new ideas due to internal politics. I thought to myself, If I was the MD tomorrow would that satisfy me? The answer was no, so I resigned, it was time to be 100&#37; in control of my own progression.

I had saved up a significant wad of cash over my time moving from city to city with nothing to spend it on and was now going to venture over to the UK and start a business, what, I wasn't sure...but I new business was where I was meant to be so within 6 weeks of resigning I was on a plane, destination - Heathrow, London....I didn't know it yet but my life was about to check in to crazy town and I was running for mayor...


<posts between chapters>
I have been giving this next post some thought as I wasn’t sure I really wanted to continue this thread…the next couple of chapters in my life are pretty dark to me and there is an underlying anticipation that writing this on an internet forum could come back to bite me in the future…
I’ve thought about it and decided that my journey is just that, mine. It’s brought me to where I am and that’s somewhere that I’m intensely proud of, so everything to this point has been an experience and a learning curve, it’s real, it’s life, and something I won’t falter away from if ever challenged about it in the future. The reason I write it is because gaining wealth is often about attitude and when things are bad, you need to find the mental strength to turn things around…this is my journey of self discovery.
<end posts between chapters>

[bizboy]

Lesson #3 – Drugs have Consequences

After 37hrs of continuous travel (the cheapest route from NZ to London, via LAX and Munich, throw in a 2hr tube ride) Myself and my lady arrived at our accommodation which had been prearranged with some friends of mine. There was anywhere from 6-9 of us living in a 3 bedroom house at any given time…this wasn’t unusual for travelers so added to the atmosphere.

On the night of arriving I honestly wondered what the hell I had done, it felt like the worst decision ever however upon waking the next day I was refreshed and ready to start looking into some business opportunities.
I was running the numbers on various options…internet cafes, traveling books which detailed the various scams present in different countries, recruitment companies and more…

I was feeling good because I had money in my pocket and a dream in my head, I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 25 and was going to make it happen.
Friday night arrives and of course we as well as my flatmates are ready to party…we take the tube about 45 minutes from where we were living (close to Wimbledon), I forget where we were actually heading as we hadn’t long arrived.

I am being introduced quickly to the custom of snake bite pints they are going down smooth and fast, the music is pumping and we’re all catching up on old times. By this time I’m really charging and up to the bar for another round…”How ya going bro” I happily blurt out to a random guy waiting for a drink next to me…he’s bouncing around obviously having a good time and welcomes the small talk. Then comes a line that would set off a chain of events that I would never have thought would be part of my life.

“you riding the e buzz?” were his exact words. “Na bro, not tonight” obviously not drawing attention to the fact I had never ridden this e buzz he spoke of.
“I’ll hook you up, come with me”…5 pound later I was riding the e buzz and I liked it! 40 minutes later and I had my shirt of and was carving up that dance floor like there was no tomorrow.

And that’s how it started…it grew quickly from there and starting a business started to slip further and further to the back of my mind. I made new friends and Wednesday through Sunday week after week became one party merging into another.
I’m not preaching whether this or that is wrong, you make your own decisions but one way or another drugs have consequences.

The first for me was my girl of 4 years had seen enough and to a degree I had had enough because now my kiwi accent was starting to pay dividends in the night life so she left me and headed to the Netherlands.

As the months rolled on it had got to the point where I liaised directly with a significant dealer. Every two or three weeks I would catch 3 connecting tubes on what was a 2 hour journey to the roughest neighbourhood I had ever come across, in movies or otherwise. I would walk a couple of blocks and then knock on this door with mixed anxiety and excitement.

“ Howz it brew” he would mellowly roll out in his Sth African accent, “Good bro, you?” I suppose our native slangs reminded us of the worlds we had left behind.

I’d follow him past the living room where there was always anywhere from 3-10 people off their head sitting in there playing playstation or whatever with a bong making the rounds. We’d head up stairs and into his room where typically Jimmy Hendrix or similar would be playing quietly in what was surprisingly always a clean room.

We’d make some small talk but out of the corner of my eye the glock resting on the speaker was a subtle reminder that we weren’t buddies and this was simply business. I guess somehow the fact that this process was cloaked in civility seemed to normify the madness.

He would open his closet and pull out a large cardboard box, he’d fish through it like a kid through his toy box and then pull out small bags bursting with ‘x’ maybe 300 or so e’s in each bag, then he’d pull out large plastic bags full of weed divided carefully into various blends etc, mushrooms would follow and then there were options which would vary…acid, coke, whatever…it was like going to a supermarket for drugs, crazy.
I’d buy around 300pound worth of supplies and then seal the deal with a session from my newly acquired stash.

A little more small talk and I’d leave for the 2 hour journey home in hind sight stupidly weaving my way through these streets with my pockets literally busting with class A’s, despite this happy knowing the next few weeks would be good ones.

I had continued to do this until every last penny I had saved to start a business was gone…but not to worry, 3 years of high income and huge savings had given me lines of credit people of my age would only dream of…it was time to start on these.
I had lost a massive amount of weight due to loss of appetite and I started to realise that I was really in trouble, it was starting to get a little scary.

Something had to break this cycle, and it did…it came on September 11, 2001. The world trade centre was hit and the world looked like it was on the brink of war. I started thinking about what was really important in my life and all I could think of was the lady I had let get away.

I had to get her back, I had to protect her from whatever was going to come. But to do this I had to venture to the devils doorstep, I had been writing cheques my body couldn’t cash for months and now on what felt like my last legs I would have to face these demons on there home turf…I was on a plane – Destination - Amsterdam, Netherlands…


<posts between chapters>
DG, baby steps my friend, baby steps. You must begin, and every day keep doing something that takes you a little closer to your goals... you can never look at things in this perspective, to be a billionaire by 50yrs old I need to make $20,000,000 every year...orrr man I'm only making $30,000 a year. Keep moving and a little magical friend will help you along the way...the law of exponential growth. Good luck and I want box seats
<end posts between chapters>

[bizboy]

Lesson 4: A good women is priceless

I arrived at Amsterdam’s Airport Schipol and made my way to the city via train. As soon as I stepped off the train it was like being swarmed by the worlds congregation of human filth, if it wasn’t someone trying to peddle drugs it was someone trying to scam you for a few dollars.

“coke, coke, you want some coke? You try you don’t like you don’t buy”, it rolled of their tongue smoother that their own name.

Then it would be some homeless women who had attempted, very poorly, to put lip stick on and look respectable only to ask you for a few guilders because she had missed her plane and all her luggage had gone with it, and so it went on. I weaved myself through and once I finish judging them I started to analyse just what I had become and where I was heading, quickly realising I was in no position to judge.

I walk from the station and head towards the city wondering what the coming days and weeks would bring, I now had no money and was burning through my lines of credit, I was on the other side of the world, I had no job and was on a crusade to win my girl back. To use a worn out cliché I felt I was trying to find who I was or at least who I used to be. Maybe if I could rekindle my relationship I could find the road back.

I meet my lady at the most popular backpackers, I forget what it’s called but I think it’s the flying pig. The hostel is filled with people crashed out on cushions smoking weed and a few people playing pool, joints in hand of course. I had now entered a place where some drugs were legal and what wasn’t may as well be. While I thought it could be a slippery slope and an environment where I could be finished off, I surprised myself and was a little more focused on the task at hand.

We talk and air things out, have a few beers and really just explore where we are as individuals and whether things could progress from here. I’m playing pool and looking at her while she’s playing and starting to remember just how great I think she is and alongside that I must admit I also start thinking, damb girl you are looking fine…I start feeling like I want to get through this talking stage of making up and jump to the more physical of reunions.

Suddenly it feels good to have a goal again, no matter how sexually charged, self serving and short term it may be, and even better to achieve it…we head into the dorm room where there is 5 double bunks, it’s still early so no-one is in bed yet, that is except us.

I’m no physics genius but when you are on a top bunk and you start rocking it forward and backwards with any sort of force biggrin.gif you soon think you are going to snap something, anyway enough of that.

So if you can put things down to moments, maybe that was the one where we got back together, it seems as good as any and one I’d prefer to remember.

She had a good job with a pharmaceutical company about an hour south of Amsterdam in a place called Den Bosh or similar, she had managed to secure a house to rent there which is no easy task in the Netherlands so I was happy to make my way a little further away from Amsterdam. She was able to borrow a bed, tv and two deck chairs from some family and that was all that occupied this house, the TV didn’t work however I was able to rig up a couple of coat hangers, one end jammed in the back of the Tv ariel port and the other wrapped around the metal curtain rail, wala a bad but watchable tv reception.

All I needed now was a job, this didn’t scare me because I knew how to sell and although I had been warned that the Netherlands had very strict laws regarding illegal workers I was sure I could get some work in the fields and apple orchards. I was able to learn in dutch how to ask for work and how to ask if they spoke English. With my new found literacy skills I hit the pavement going from one farm door to the next, this was nothing new to me as I had knocked on thousands of doors when selling Kirby’s the only difference now was every door was between 250 metres up to a kilometer apart.

I came home after the first day and felt a little defeated, I had walked for what seemed like forever and no-one would take me on. The language barrier was killing me and if the farmers could speak English I swear they chose not to in order to get rid of me. I knew I had no alternative so I kept pushing, day after day, door after door, I hounded them to the point of just standing there, talking slower in English somehow expecting that miraculously they would all of a sudden understand and say “orr you want work, no problem, you start tomorrow”. It never happened.

It seemed as if it was the last burst of energy I had, I was still pretty frail and down from the past months but I sucked it up and hit these doors relentlessly for weeks with no give. What people had told me was becoming reality, I hated to admit it but it looked like I was beaten.

I started to look at myself and where I had been compared to where I was now. Black and white, it seemed no starker contrast could be made. A young guy taking the corporate world by storm, making huge $$$, wearing suits and driving nice cars, the world at my feet, success in my smile and confidence in my step…where had that person gone? Was that really once who I was?

I started sleeping in as long as I could because it meant it was fewer hours in the day to kill. The TV was all in a language I couldn’t understand, there was one Australian program which ordinarily would have been the worst program ever to grace the screen but to me it was my key to sanity, my connection to the English speaking world. So every day you would find me 3 feet from the screen sitting in a deck chair absorbing this limited enjoyment for 30minutes a day.

[bizboy]

My existence now disgraced me, I daren’t tell anyone I know what I was doing or more to the point what I wasn’t. I was broke, physically a mess, mentally hanging on by a thread and no-where to go. At least I had my girl, but could I really expect to keep her, I knew not for long if I couldn’t break free from this, this world of if only’s.

This went on for weeks and as I spoke of moments before, this was the one that I define as the worst of my life, and what a simple deduction it is, like a black smear on an otherwise colourful wall, I had now gone as low as I felt I could go, at least as low as I was prepared to go. Although failure had not finished with me yet, I was no longer running…


It was February 2002 and there was a major celebration about to take place, the royal wedding between Willem and Maxima in Amsterdam. I had an idea, it wasn’t much of one but it helped me view myself as an out of work entrepreneur as apposed to a useless bum, it was something to grab hold of in an attempt to get back on my feet.

I had seen some Dutch flags and novelties in one of the local junk shops, they were cheap and I thought at an occasion like this I could sell them for 1 euro each for the flags and 5 euros for the hats. Ok, now we’re taking, I can do this, I’m not going to retire but who knows where it could lead, it was a start, a baby step maybe but when you have been going backwards for this long it seems like everything.

I pushed my credit card deeper and purchased a shit load of Flags and Hats, if I was going to do this I was going to hit it hard. My lady was going to help me sell them and she brought home from her job two lab coats which we completely covered with dutch flags, we added the hats and while a little stiff to walk we had our impact marketing ready to roll. Next was the sign, we made HUGE picket like signs displaying “FLAGS 1 EURO” and underneath “HATS 5 Euros”. My girl had managed to borrow a car from a family friend and we loaded it up, we were ready, I was ready.

We made the drive to Amsterdam and I can say that I had never seen anything like it in my life, it was like an orange sea had risen and engulfed the city. There were people everywhere, the place was going crazy, we couldn’t have wished for more of a market to sell to, the atmosphere was exactly what we had hope for. “I knew it, I knew this was an opportunity” I was getting excited, I had sold $3,500 vacuum cleaners, 1 Euro flags at a royal wedding, candy from a baby.

We unload the car and suit up, “one bag at a time” I say with confidence, “we’ll sell these and come back for more”…my girl agrees and we head for the city.

We start walking past some people and they are chuckling at our flag suits, that’s ok, that’s the attention we’re after. As we get closer the attention starts to build, I start walking up to people “aine uro? Flark, aine uro?” What’s wrong with these people, I know my dutch isn’t great but just read the sign if you’re struggl’n.

We move toward the parade site to get where the action is, we’re heading down an ally way and we can see the crowds at the end. We come out of the allyway and the amount of people is unreal, there’s people everywhere, bands playing, people singing, unbelievable. “Look” My lady says speaking loudly to get her voice above the noise of the crowd. I turn around…the street is paved with discarded flags. I walk closer, confused, trying to process what I am seeing.

The radio stations and a number of large organisations had hired people all day to go around giving away free flags with there logo’s on them, they now paved the roads, and were in the hands of thousands. As I am down on one knee tactfully trying to pick up one of the flags which isn’t easy in a lab coat glued entirely in flags a bit like a suit of armour with no knee or elbow joins, the laughs and sniggering seems to be gaining momentum, I stand up and as we both stand there with our signs and hats in our flag suits we realise that we are becoming quite the side show to this wedding and people have actually started gathering around to point and laugh.

Total number of flags sold, zero. Total number of hats sold, zero. Total number of dollars wasted, lots.

Failure? Maybe, depends on how you look at it, it was a turning point, the process was a victory.

Between myself and my lady we had enough money for a plane ticket home if we wanted to retreat. We couldn’t stay where we were because the property company wanted the house back. To go home would mean the ultimate defeat to me, to leave such a success and return such a failure it wasn’t something I could consider. If not home, then where. In my head was playing that crappy little Australian show I had been clinging to for so many weeks. It was close to home, English speaking. A little like swimming with one arm on the side of the pool, perfect.

It was time to rise from the ashes of failure and self pity, it was going to be a long road and the biggest and most adventurous goal I could muster was to get a job and pay off my huge debt. However small the goal it was a positive one and worthy of pursuit.
We were on a plane, together once more…Destination - Brisbane, Australia…a new journey was about to begin…

[bizboy]

The below is one of my favourite passages of writing. I felt I could relate closely to it and I was taking a lot of inspiration from its message. I thought I’d share it as you may take something from it also…I don’t want to get all soft and philosophical but I think it’s a good enough passage to risk it on this occasion as it relates closely to these lessons. I don’t know who wrote it, I wish I could say it was me.


Man is made or unmade by himself.
In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself, he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy, strength and peace.
By the right choice and the true appreciation of thought, man ascends to divine perfection. By the abuse and wrong application of thought he descends below the level of the beast. Between these two are all the grades of character, and man is their maker and master.
Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul, none is more gladning nor fruitful of divine promise and confidence than this: That man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment and destiny…



Lesson 5: To achieve, first begin.

Coming from the Netherlands where temperatures were maxing out at 6 degrees C, Brisbane was a nice change with consistent high 20’s and low 30’s.

I had organised for an old friend of mine to pick us up from the airport and he was nice enough to put us up until we were able to find work. We were focused now on getting back on track so the day after arriving we were both on the trains and working the agencies and applying for all the roles we could. I could legally work in Australia with no restrictions and could dismiss my overseas period as a holiday so given my previous experience I was confident to find a good job quite quickly with the strength of my resume.

The problem I kept running into was the length of the recruitment process for the roles I was applying for. First the applications were normally open for a month, then the recruitment company would conduct there preliminary interviews and then refer their short list to the client who would conduct the final interviews. If you made it to their final call back list, you then went through all their additional physcological testing etc etc and then they would make their decision, I could be waiting at least 2 months to hear if I had the job and we didn’t have two months…we were living on our last dollars and needed work yesterday.

We moved out of my friends house and into a shared flatting arrangement with two other people, they were nice people and it worked in well because we were able to share their furniture and cutlery etc as we didn’t have any of our own furniture just a suitcase and an inflatable air mattress.

We had been chasing jobs for a couple of weeks and I was getting knocked back from some pretty basic jobs, given my previous roles they just couldn’t accept that I would stay with them for any length of time so would dismiss my resume. Things were starting to get desperate. We were literally down to about $20, we had found a cheap fruit and vege shop which sold $1 loafs of bread and $0.50c packets of pasta. This is what we were living on but now we were even running out of loose change for these basics.

I’ll never forget when after another day of job hunting, my girl had managed to secure a temp assignment in a milk factory on a production line, the type of job they advertise on the “stay in school” ads. Even so it was like winning lotto, we were literally bursting with excitement, we were jumping around like a couple in one of those strange celebratory Russian folk dances, it was a real high, the first natural one I’d had in a while.

A few days later and she received her first part weeks pay, my God what a relief. We walked down to the supermarket and were actually able to buy meat, we brought half a dozen bags of groceries and were acting as if we were the king and queen of Babalon with more money than a small country. We went through the checkout and proudly paid with our new found riches.

We were saying very little to each other when we left the supermarket, just walking in a weird kind of silence, maybe we were both rolling back the last months to this point trying to draw some meaning from them…I know that’s what I was doing. We made our way through the parking lot and across the road, we each had a few bags and for a couple of moments just sat on a nearby brick fence, still saying nothing just blindly staring back at the supermarket and the cars racing buy in front of us…it was a really emotional moment and my girl quietly started to cry, the type of tears where you want to hold them in and be strong but the emotion is simply too much and they just start to flow...I had just court a bit of dust in my eyes so any passers by probably thought I was crying too. Even typing this now brings back the clarity of that moment and the emotion that surrounded it. Total Relief.

I knew that sending my resume was getting me nowhere so I started calling the managers advertising the roles and trying to sell myself straight into the interview, eventually I struck it lucky with another large FMCG company who was looking for a delivery driver, they invited me in for an interview the following day. The Manager I met was a really nice lady and we had an instant repore, once we had finished the interview she said “look, I think this has been very positive and if you wouldn’t mind I’d like you to meet our state manager”.

Obviously I had no objection and she led me to another office down the hall. I waited and a few moments later they both returned, we exchanged pleasantries and he began to flip through my resume…”hmmm” he’d say nodding his head as he flipped back and forth through the pages. I didn’t really know whether this was good or bad but then he calmly looked up and said “What are you doing here?”,
I replied “I’m not sure I understand”…

”You should be in my seat, it doesn’t make any sense, are you fully aware of the role we are hiring for?”

“Yes sir, I would just rather prove myself in any capacity you have available and I’m sure if I do that well and something more senior comes available then you’ll consider me for it”. I was confident that was the best answer as “well actually I’m totally broke and currently living on bread and pasta I’d probably polish your shoes for a fiver if you asked me” may have come across a little desperate.

They agreed to give me the job on the spot and took me outside to show me what I would be driving to make the deliveries. Damb it was a good sized truck, I may not be able to go through the McD’s drive through but it was going to be transport and that was a huge bonus. I took the truck home and while strictly meant to be for work use only, my manager eventually worked out what I was doing and chose to ignore it, I thank her for that.

[bizboy]

$527 a week. When that first payment hit my account I felt like a new man. I was back in the game…we had money coming in and food in our stomachs…It was funny, I’d never been so poor but I felt good, we’d pulled ourselves up off the ground and I could start to see a little break of light. I drew up a budget on how much money I could put towards my debts and now knew exactly how long it was going to take to pay them off.
We were on the rails and now I was ready to raise the bar…It was time to bring back the dream of starting a business but this time it wouldn’t just be a dream…


It simply had to meet these criteria…
1/ require no money to set up.
2/ require no staff other than myself
3/ require no connections, friends, or family to assist (because I only new one person in Australia)
Ok, I then thought to myself…I might need a few days on this one…

I started coming up with lots of different business ideas and going to the library to use their computers to research them on the internet. I was looking mainly at online businesses as they would require the least start up money. In the real world I was looking at possibly being a freelance sales person and finding a really good product and negotiating distribution rights in exchange for selling the product.

I was also looking at utilising my corporate history to contract my services to companies in order to run sales incentive strategies.

All could potentially meet my very restricted criteria. I eventually decided to sell a set of quality products on behalf of their manufacturer, I would not need to hold the stock I would simply promote and sell them and they would drop ship them to my customers. I wrote a business plan and I was ready to take the next step.

I needed a website and a computer, my only hold back was I didn’t have any money. By presenting myself in the right way I managed to commission the building of the site I had designed with no money down. I figured buy the time the site was finished I would be able to save enough money to pay for it, well that’s what I hoped. When asking myself how I was going to afford a computer it came to me in a moment of clarity…I had been given $500 of shares from each of my parents for my 21st birthday which I had totally forgotten about. I quickly sold them and was able to by my computer…oorrrh yeah things were starting to hot up.

The total cost of the website was $1100 and by the time it was finished I had saved the money to pay for it in full, it meant slowing the speed at which I was repaying my debts but I thought it was for the greater good. I won an incentive prize at my work which gave me a $350 voucher to a department store which was great timing because I could now get a small computer desk.

So there I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at my website...watching...watching...waiting....hello.. ..is this thing on.....anybody out there?
...now what?
So I guess it’s not that easy…it was time to get serious...



<posts between chapters>
You've got to respect the fact that almost all people who have reasonable wealth have there own story which will often involve a huge amount of tough times, hard work and sacrifice.
When people come along and ask “What do you do?” or “I must be in the wrong business” bla bla it’s almost insulting because they without realising it are trivialising your achievement. They think that you have just stumbeled across the next mouse trap, the fact is it’s not what you do most of the time, it’s how you do it and what you’ve done.
If you have a good body the first question a lot of people ask you is, what roids are you on? Same thing…
The fact is while they were scratching their balls lying in bed for the past 3 years, your balls were sweating while you were pushing weights at the gym at 6am in the morning.
People’s what do you do questions are often translated to “I’m looking for an easy way, have you found it, if so what is it” That’s why I don’t think many people like those questions…my 2c anyway
<end of posts between chapters>

[bizboy]

Lesson #6 – Self Belief

I was starting my delivery runs at 5am and working as fast as I could to be back at home with my full days work completed by 11am. I’d then knuckle down researching competition and trying to figure out how they were getting their business. I heard through the grapevine that one of my competitors was advertising in the TV guide on the Gold Coast…I thought to myself – if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.

For the next 6-8 weeks I used every penny that was left from my paycheck after food and debt repayments to pay for this little ad, I had the phone number on an automatic divert to my company mobile so if I was driving my truck along the motorway and the phone rang I would pull over as fast as I could, turn the engine off, and answer the phone in my most professional voice, hoping they didn’t pick up on the traffic noise relentlessly hammering at the side of the truck.

I was getting calls and making a very small amount of sales but I was making no where near enough sales to pay for the ads I was placing. There had to be a better way, I was spending $200 to make $30, as nice as it was to make sales, it obviously made no sense. My next angle of attack was to try and spin the PR wheel…I had no experience dealing with the media and I was in no position to hire a PR firm, I did have a phone so it was time to start calling the newspapers and talking up these great products I was selling.

It was difficult to actually get through to the person who could make the decision and I seemed to be making no progress, I was about to chalk it up as a dead end when I got some interest from a local newspaper.

“Sounds interesting” this anonymous voice on the end of the phone murmured.

“I think it’s a story, I’ll have a photographer meet you tomorrow and we’ll run it” he said. I’m listening to every word attentively trying to play it cool while throwing my fist in the air several times while he’s ending the conversation.

The photographer meets me the following day and I’m all dressed up for the occasion, he does the shoot and we both leave. This was the break I had been waiting for, this newspaper goes out to approximately 1 million readers, photo and copy would be taking up at least a third of the page…I could smell the C-notes on there way.

The next morning while I was making my deliveries I had the most intense butterflies in my stomach, I couldn’t eat with anticipation, every petrol station or convenience store I drove past I would be staring in to see if the bundle of papers had been dropped outside. I didn’t have to wait long, on my second stop the delivery guy comes in and drops the bundle of papers on the floor. I’m hanging around like and annoying blow fly and convince the worker to cut the bundle tie and sell me a paper.

I grab the paper and still trying to play it cool walk to the truck trying not to break into a jog. I get in the truck and start whipping through the pages, my mouth is now totally dry with anxious excitement...then I spot it, there it is, I’m in the paper, the picture is much larger than I expected, and the story is longer than I thought it would be, the article is taking up just shy of half a page. I start reading the article out loud to myself ensuring I digest every word. It’s reading well and really getting behind the benefits of my products…money, money, money...this is my break, right in front of my face.I get to the last paragraph and then it ends. No mention of my company name, my phone number, website, nothing. Devastated.

The do it yourself PR campaign hadn’t quite set the world on fire like I had hoped, so I had to find another angle. I never thought starting a business would be this much of a battle.

Almost a year had past since arriving in Australia and I had now repaid all my debt.
Now that I was debt free I was looking at things in a different light, I really needed to concentrate on the business full time and to do that it was going to mean putting myself out on the edge once more, the business was far from generating enough money to house, cloth and feed us so I needed a better plan if I was going to give up my constant pay check. We were also approaching another hurdle, my lady was on a work permit in Australia and that was fast running out, she had already had the only possible extension. That would mean if I left my job I would have to support both of us and the business, it was a big ask and a decision that could break us before we even really started.

I decided to roll the dice, the way I saw it we had to give this everything we had, I just wasn’t prepared to stay where we were. I knew that once I left my job I would need transport and I had an idea on how we could spin it…before I resigned I utilised my work history and income to apply for a car loan, this was really pushing my buttons because after almost a year of paying off debt the thought of going back in was almost sickening. The fact that it could be sold again if necessary was my only consolation. All of my previous debts had been overseas luckily didn’t interfere with the approval process, I was given the thumbs up for my new car, well not exactly new, but a car nonetheless. We were now the owners of a ’94 Nissan Maxima, good reliable car.

With that done, I resigned from my delivery job. I was now feeling really exposed to the wrath of failure which had plagued me so much in recent years. I now didn’t have a job, I had car repayments, my lady had approximately 3 weeks left to work and the business was sitting there, to say it was ticking along would have been an over zealous exaggeration.

The internet just wasn’t working for me, I didn’t really know much about it, I had a website but it had been developed on a shoe string budget so was put together using frames. Basically what that means is the search engine can’t access the content of the pages so they largely ignore it, not that it really mattered because it wasn’t optimised to make a dam anyway.

It was time to hit the streets and get back to the old school selling which had served me well in my early work years. I couldn’t sit around and wait for people to find my website. I started calling businesses, finding the right contact and then simply trying to book an appointment for further discussion. I just started going through the phone book, business after business…I began getting some bites and booking appointments. I’d drive out to these businesses and then try and sell them my products. Some started to buy, this was encouraging as I could now place myself directly in control of the businesses success.

I was still a way off retiring and although I was making sales, it was taking me a huge amount of time to fully close the deal, firstly it was the cold calling, then it was the initial sales call, if I was successful it almost always meant having to go back out and train all the relevant staff on how to use these new products. Then I’d have to chase the money. To a degree it was working but not fast enough, there wasn’t enough hours in the day. The business was no longer scalable, it was limited to what I could do.

My lady finished her job and now the pressure came flooding in, I had to make this work. We would both sit next to the one computer and she would help me call businesses and try and book appointments, when I was going to appointments she would answer the phone and try and book me additional slots. We were working like this for no more than 3 weeks, although it was making it a lot easier for me and I could stay out on the road and meet with more people, still wasn’t selling enough to support both of us.

We were in trouble again, quickly sinking and the memories of late started to eat away at the back of my mind. I ran the numbers and thought we could probably last about 2 to 3 weeks and then that would be it, it would all be over. I could probably scrape by supporting myself but I knew the business wouldn’t support us both, I had hoped it would but I was wrong, I had given it my best shot but just couldn’t get it to fly, I was really gutted because I knew my girl was putting her livelihood in my hands and I was letting her down. She had chosen to come with me to Australia and give up a really good job, I had to make this a success, I was just running out of ideas.

[bizboy]

We looked at our options and I thought the best solution was for me to find a night job. My girl disagreed arguing it would simply put me back in the same position I was making deliveries. To her credit she never doubted me or gave me grief through these hard times. Her thoughts were that she may be able to get some under the table work at horse stables as she’d had experience in that area and the industry was sometimes known for cash work.

The very next day we had luck, she approached a stable and they agreed to take her on. $200 for a full weeks work, surely they weren’t serious...they were serious. Despite that, it was all we really needed for now, it would cover about half our weekly expenses and I was confident I could keep enough business coming in to pay the other half.

I keep ringing businesses and booking appointments, but I knew now I had to find a new angle. This was enough to just keep us afloat but we were going nowhere fast. I had a new idea, something that through all my research no one else was doing. I knew this was a 10 million dollar business at least, I just had to get it up and airborne before someone else did.

The concept was this: When you were at the point of wanting to make a purchase such as a video hire, pizza, movies, fast food etc etc…you would text on your mobile phone the “keyword” whether it be “pizza”, “video” or whatever and a promotional offer would be automatically bounced back to you, takes a few seconds. I was going to call the business UDeal. The text would cost the user $0.50c of which I would make up to $0.25c and then I would charge the companies supplying the promotional offers up to $0.75c per display.

It was a powerful offering, as a business what would you be willing to spend to target you advertising dollars so that you only spent them when consumers were at the point of decision and ready to purchase. It was a highly motivated consumer group, asking for a reason to by your product type. Yours would be the only offer sent to the consumer so your target was totally captive.

From the consumers point of view, you were going to buy this good or service anyway so why not get a deal on it.

It also gave advertisers the chance to break existing consumer loyalty and introduce them to their products. Ie. If you go to one video hire store or a movie theatre you tend to go there every time, you build it into your routine, if you are given a good enough deal you will likely break that routine and go to a competitor. The supplier then has an opportunity to create a new routine with that consumer.

There were great consumer benefits, in my opinion you couldn’t get a more cost effective, targeted and measurable advertising medium and it was 100&#37; automated and scalable.

All I needed was to get the major franchises on board to fuel the offers and I was off, I had already researched and negotiated with the technology suppliers, all the necessary infrastructure was ready to go.

The big challenge was all the people I needed to meet were based in Sydney, I had to chase this opportunity, it would also open up a huge amount of new and bigger businesses for me to sell my other products to…

It was a huge risk, the cost of living was considerably higher, my girl would once again have no work and I would now be in a totally new city, we knew no one, the odds were firmly staked against us but we had come too far, there was no turning back…if I was going down this time, I wasn’t going to die wondering…

We were on the road, u-haul trailer loaded up with computer desk, everything else in the car…I had been politely knocking on successes door but no one was answering. I’d had it with manners…time to kick the door down…Destination – Sydney Australia
kick the door down…Destination – Sydney Australia...

[bizboy]

Lesson #7 – Never Give Up

We weren’t able to live very close to the city as it was simply too expensive. We ended up being pushed further and further west to a place called Parramatta. We found a small unit which was the least feral of those we looked at and agreed to the rent which was $220 per week. I set up my computer and we blew up the air mattress and there we were ready for our next wave of attack at successes seemingly reinforced door.

We once again traveled the local stables looking for cash work and my lady managed to source some which was quite close to where we lived, this was a huge deal at the time, it again just dialed down the temperature slightly on this pressure cooker we seemed to continuously be working in. This time it was $500 a week which was a pleasant surprise.

I was meeting with marketing managers of all the major franchise groups along with movie theatre chains desperate to breath life into the Udeal idea which I knew could be huge. Looking back, I simply lacked the horsepower to sell this concept as a one man band. Every marketing manager who I spoke to loved the idea but at the end of the day you are talking about hundred million dollar franchises with mega buck budgets and here I was sitting at their boardroom table by myself with my printed out powerpoint presentation trying to sell them on a major cutting edge marketing strategy. I just don’t think they thought they could trust that big of a marketing push to one guy. Not that I advertised the fact I didn’t have anyone else in the company but I was still relatively young and I know they could see through it.

I kept pushing this concept with the view that if I could get agreement from one franchise group the others would follow, I needed one to take the plunge and have confidence that I could deliver, unfortunately that one never came.

I remember when I had exhausted all avenues of the franchise groups, met with anyone who was anyone, and I finally heard back from a small movie theatre chain I had approached as a last resort to keep the concept alive and they to eventually turned me down.

I went into the bathroom and lent over the basin and splashed water on my face, looked up at myself in the mirror and thought – is there any gas left, is there anything else I can give, I’ve pushed and pulled and shaken this cage with everything I’ve got and I’m not getting any love. Maybe I have to call it, maybe I have to accept that I need to know more people, I need more contacts, more people who can give me a leg up, put me in contact with the right people, I can’t do this by myself anymore.

I had come across a brochure in the library about a new division of the army they were recruiting for. It was basically a very small number of people that they would recruit directly into the Commando Special Forces unit. It really court my eye and I thought to myself that maybe this was somewhere I could find success, sure it wouldn’t be financial but I could do well at this and feel proud again, it could give me the sense of achievement which I now craved for so badly like an unrelenting hunger. My body ached for some form of recognition, some kind of reward for this seemingly never ending pursuit.

I decided to apply. I arrived on the day scheduled for interviews, there were over 40 people there in this one recruitment branch, there were at least 5 branches in Sydney and they only recruited about 20 people nation wide for this particular unit so this wasn’t going to be easy. They took us through the role and the training and everything it would involve, essentially pulling no punches, I guess from the outset trying to scare a few people away. Once they had finished they said anyone not interested could leave, a few did.

They then started to call us in one by one for extensive interviews, once that was finished you found out if you would be invited back for further physcological questioning. Once you were given the green light as not being a crazed nutter who would lose it in battle and open fire on your own men, you then progressed to undergo a myriad of physical tests, medical exams, drug tests and so on. I made it through all and was looking good. Then came a final interview with the chief recruitment officer, he turned me inside out and back to front, he let me hang out to try like he wasn’t going to bring me on and I would have to keep fighting not letting him say no…finally he said “ok, you’re in”.

So that was it, three months of testing process and I had now been excepted into a prestigious direct entry special forces unit in the Australian Army. I simply had to wait up to 4 weeks for the official paper work and then await a start date. I was excited, although it wasn’t what I had always had in mind, it was giving me a path, one which would give me the mental states which I wasn’t finding in the business world, pride, achievement, honour, recognition. Obviously at this time the Iraq war was raging on and Australia had troops there, it was a real likelihood that I would be sent there early on after training as Australia typically always sent Special Forces prior to general population units.

It was a hard decision because I would have to leave my lady for up to six months at a time, maybe more, but I had reached a point in my life where finding a real purpose was simply a necessity, I would just have to deal with the periphial areas of my life and make it work. I didn’t know what else I could throw at my business, maybe it just wasn’t for me, you can only do so much before you stand there and ask yourself “what the hell am I doing?”

About a week before I received my paperwork for enlistment, the manufacturer of the products I had been selling, had a major development with some new products and was expanding there operation into Sydney and Melbourne with other states to follow. This had huge implications for me because I was the only one down this side of the country selling there new products, the manufacturer and all there present clients were in Brisbane.

I was still pushing these products at the same time as I was pursuing Udeal with the same average result but with these new products and a bigger pond to cast my net, the phone started to ring…sales were coming in almost on there own and I was starting to close more sales for bigger values. I found a couple of relevant publications in Sydney and Melbourne and ran a very small ad, the phone started to ring of the hook. A couple of weeks later, my girl had left her job and was helping me full time, we were starting to make some real money. Things are starting to move, can’t stop and over analyse, must answer the phone. We started to get some traction and money was flowing in.

Now was a real decision time for me, I had seen short term gains like this before and they had fizzled out to nothing, was this going to follow the same direction of could this be the moment where things just keep going up. I had spent 3 months recruiting for acceptance into this Amy position and I had mentally adjusted to enlistment, I wanted to go, it offered me what I was chasing. But now I was maybe being offered a shot at the title I had been fighting for for over 2 years. If I didn’t accept these papers by the end of the week I would miss out. I had told myself that this time if I was going down I wasn’t going to die wondering, well now if I went into the army I may end up doing just that…I had to take one last shot.

[bizboy]

A few months go buy and I have been pushing harder than ever, the bank balance is starting to look really healthy I mean well into the 6 figure zone, it’s to the point where I know we need more help so I take the gamble and open an office, now we’re starting to employee people. The whole time I am analysing where every single dollar is being spent, I’m developing systems to automate everything I can, I grow to find that this is something I’m actually really good at. I start designing massive maps of code layout and I don’t even know how to code, I would just give them the logical layout of fairly complex systems and hire people to join the dots with code, this was saving me tens of thousands of dollars in development. We were starting to pump but we were still low key, we would go to the movies if we wanted without worrying about how much it cost but I refused to buy any furniture or luxuries, I wanted to maintain this fire under my arse, it was driving me and the drive was far more valuable than any new toaster or lounge suite.

At this stage I was having to buy my girl flights out of the country and back again every 3 months to comply with her visa, she would fly out on a Friday night and return on the Sunday night. We were going through all the channels to get her a residency but this was our only option in the mean time.

The business continued to grow and I start expanding to include other areas for growth, bolt on businesses if you like, that way we could maintain our existing overheads and the total GP of the new area was all cream. We’re hiring another person and like a little squirrel I’m just staking the money away, we’re still eating off an ironing board but make no mistake we’re doing the business.

Then we hit an obstacle, and when I refer to it as an obstacle it’s because I was trying to be positive, it was more like a cannon. On trying to leave New Zealand to come back to Australia on her routine 3 monthly exit my girl is stopped by immigration at the airport and not allowed to enter the country. They classify her use of the temporary visa as an exploitation of the system and say that’s it, no more.

This couldn’t be, I had trained her in every aspect of the business and she had become critical to its daily operation. I wasn’t in a position to do it all myself and because of the complexity and sensitive nature those areas of work contained it was a real issue. Not to mention she had just been told she couldn’t return to the country for 1 year. What the hell were we going to do, we had just started to build some momentum, someone throw me a frigg’n bone.

I take a few breaths and reassure myself. Laws are made and enforced by people, and people are people, they are like you and me and your next door neighbour, they have emotions and can be reasonable and can bend the rules if they so choose. My job now was to convince them to bend those rules.

I speak to immigration and we fight, not in the arguing sense as that will go nowhere but in the discussion sense. I tell my girl to ring and do the same. We had to find the right person at the right time and I knew we would have a chance. It took three days and no less than 50 phone calls between us but we got her back in the country. But there was a catch, no more. This was a one stop show, a visa that could not be renewed and after this 3 months she could not come back for 1 year.

We now had three months, to somehow, do something. We weren’t exactly sure what that something was going to be. We were critical to the business and there was zero chance it could be run independently. I didn’t want to sell it because we were growing out of our skin and I knew it was going to be a great business. These were times of decision with swift consequences if we got them wrong. Staying in Australia and letting my girl go back to New Zealand and occupy herself for a year wasn’t an option, she had hung around through the derelict cesspool of garbage we had dragged ourselves through and now it would be both stay (her illegally), or both go and figure something out.

The next three months were insane, the business was growing steadily and we had all the challenges of maintaining that growth and dealing with the day to day operation at the same time I was making critical staff appointments that would be subject to the highest level of trust. I was also then trying to organise offices, phones, eq, accommodation, transport the whole works to be waiting for us when we landed in New Zealand so that through those offices and the staff I had meticulously recruited, there was a chance it could work. It was a logistical nightmare but we had to try, only time would tell if the business would survive or crumble under the weight of independence and alienation…

We were on a plane, we were going home…Destination – Auckland, New Zealand

[bizboy]

Lesson, #8 – Appreciate now.

Well it’s coming up to 15 months since we landed back on New Zealand’s pristine shores. What can I say it’s been one hell of a ride. The business has continued to thrive, we have expanded and now trade in New Zealand as well as Australia. The key appointments I made in Australia have proved to be the lynch pin holding the delicate process of running a new company from afar together. We are now strong enough to continue uninterrupted even if those personnel were to break away.

Based on the 100 fastest growing companies published in Australia, we would rank in the top 20 which gives me a real sense of satisfaction.

I have kept true to my original business criteria and that is to maintain low overheads and startup costs, have a highly automated business that is easily scalable. The local version of Ebay here in New Zealand sold for $700m and they only had 50 staff. This is where I envision taking our group of companies. By industry standards which are in line with where I would value our company, puts its value in the 8 figures range, I will continue to chase that ninth digit.

We purchased what I think is an amazing $2m home on the water in a nice secluded area where we can enjoy all the trappings and space. I’ve been fortunate enough of course to realise a childhood dream and purchase a Lamborghini Murcielago with cash, flat to stack - paper pride. I have stayed away from finance as a personal preference after feeling the crippling weight of debt in the past. We still choose to live a relatively conservative lifestyle financially, and I still squirrel away money as a back up although it’s no longer six figures but seven.

The freedom to be able to live without the worry of money troubles has been a really great feeling, being able to help close family when their backs are against the wall. I am still with my girl and we will chalk up 10 years in June, that’s right let’s hear it…ooorrrrrrr

This has all been an amazing reward and I never lose the intensity of satisfaction or appreciation for this new lifestyle we can afford ourselves. I still on occasion just as I did from the day we moved in, stand in the middle of our home and without consciously preempting the action just put both my arms in the air as my own moment of victory.

Since being able to live a more financially abundant life I have found myself realising that money alone isn’t the holy grail that we sometimes think it is when we don’t have it. I guess it’s the fact that when we don’t have it and things in our lives aren’t going well it can easily turn into this perceived missing link that “if only we had money everything would be ok”.

I’ve started to look around me and really notice that our quality of life is all relative. I encourage you to watch what I think is an amazing movie, it’s called The Castle and is a low budget Australian film. It’s about a guy who lives in a very small house right next to the airport, the planes land almost on his roof, it would be fair to say they are a basic family with a modest home.

This guy is just the happiest guy on earth, he loves his home and his family and nothing bothers him. Then on the other hand I see extremely wealthy businessmen and successful actors and performers who are miserable. One of the most successful stock brokers in Australia Renee Rifkin committed suicide when I was living in Australia. They have all the money they could spend and this is where they are. If the Father from the castle and any one of these extremely wealthy people died tomorrow and arrived at the pearly gates of heaven, who would have lived the most enjoyable, satisfying and fulfilling life?

I believe the key to our maintained enjoyment of life is our gratitude and appreciation for what we have, both possessions and relationships. I try to remember the past so I can appreciate the now and look forward to the future. Every time I drive my Murci I get a rush from every angle, the amazing rush from the car itself, the intense satisfaction of my journey to acquire it and the feeling of pride to be seen in it. I never want to lose that because that is the heart of my enjoyment, if I lose any of those elements I start to lose what is to me the real life value of the car, it then just becomes a car that sits in the garage that I show people and then try and desperately feed off their excitement hoping to regain what I once had but lost.

I’m not wanting to preach some self titled eternal wisdom here, this is just my final lesson in this stage of my life and if you’ve found value in my journey to this point I simply make the assumption that you may too find value in the distinctions I’ve made since achieving a degree of wealth. I’m sure everyone takes a different view of the world this is just mine.

I’m still relatively young at 28 years and certainly don’t have all the answers but maybe I have some. Be assured I’ve always got a lot more questions than I do answers. I’m happy to follow those that can teach and lead those that can listen.

I guess the point of where I’m going with this is that not everyone can be wealthy in a financial sense, but everyone can live an equally fulfilling, happy and enjoyable life.

Because people don’t have money I believe they don’t concentrate on being happy because they think that if they had money they would automatically live happily ever after and thus live their life on lotto tickets and if only’s.

But don’t get me wrong, wealth is a legitimate and worthy goal to pursue, and if you want it bad enough you will find it in even the darkest corners of hardship. Just don’t let it be a condition on your right to enjoy life now, because that is a right I believe we are all inherently bestowed.

I must also say thank you for your interest in my story. It has helped me recapture the focus that brought me to this point and I am excited to harness that again in the new chapters and the new lessons of my life. Of course everything till now has simply been an apprenticeship for me, it now gives me credibility in the business world, on the world stage of business I have only just begun, it is 9am on the Monday morning of potential and let me tell you that this is a working week I’ve been looking forward to all my life.

I’ve enjoyed the road to this point and every experience really has been a lesson in one form or another, I’m happy to help people with advise based on my experiences if someone asks me for it. I don’t often mention stories from where I have come, to be honest when people ask me what they need to do to achieve wealth, I sometimes wonder if they are really ready for the answer.

So now when I pull up in my Murcielago at a restaurant or caf&#233; or even just to get gas and someone says with hope in their voice, “how can you afford that?”

I just smile and with a curious smirk politely reply “where would I begin?”

When looking back I have to admit that it isn’t a course of events that I would want to repeat anytime soon, but it’s an initiation than many of us will have to complete. I believe there is a natural law of selection when it comes to opening the treasure chest, while others can give you a map, everyone must go in search of their own key.

[krupt]

i didnt read anything coz of the way u typed it and it just seems so long

[brandnewman]

Wow. I've just finished reading your story and it was like watching a movie. I've barely began my journey and much like your time in Amsterdam I've stumbled upon some direction altering situations which have thrown things off course. But I've learned so much and do not regret every second of it. I hope other members will take the time to read this. Life is an interesting journey, even if you don't accomplish what you set out to achieve. To have shared your experience with the world is in itself an accomplishment. Thank you again bizboy

[bizboy]

Story it's not my story, it was story I found on another forum. (I don't own a lamborghini yet like that guy)