I have heard stories like this numerous times, some are even worse with the businesswoman developing health issues due to the stress. The female entrepreneur Chalene Johnson also has a very similar one. I don’t personally agree with going into bankruptcy or debt if you can avoid it but this article is a huge theme of what I do: Finding regrets of people who have gone there and done that so you don’t waste years of pain and effort. The following is from Alexis Neely:
A little hope for those of you who are freaked out about debt, your credit score and investing in your business. In 2009, my businesses were making $2mm/year. I had invested about $300,000 to get there in debt to get there. Some of it in coaching, consulting, and support and some of it in big, expensive mistakes.
In 2009, I hit the wall. I had all the external success (best-selling book, lots of TV appearances, businesses making $2mm/year, house by the ocean, fancy car, kids in private school — you know what I mean), but my internal self was not in alignment with the “success” I had created.
Something was off, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I ended up moving to Colorado (from LA), giving up doing TV, shrinking down my businesses, taking on another $150,000 of debt to build out what I thought would be a community/retreat center and then realizing what I really needed more than anything was to discover who I was if money didn’t matter.
What did I really love to do? Who did I really love to serve? How did I really love to serve? What would I choose if money was not my primary motivator?
So, in 2010/2011, I shrunk my businesses back to the bare minimum and went to live on the farm I bought that I swore I would never live on, stopped paying all my bills (other than just what was necessary to keep the lights on), reconnected with my kids, lived on only what I earned doing only what I would do for free, and discovered who I am.
In August of 2012, I filed bankruptcy and wiped out over $500,000 of debt.
This was a HUGE thing for me because my financial success was a huge part of my identity and I chose to let go of all of that. Anyway, that’s a whole other story that I’d love to share some day (or you can read on my blog), but that is not the point of this post.
The point of this post is that you do not need to be afraid of investing in yourself, your business, or going bankrupt.
Three years later and my businesses are once again making a couple million a year, but this time with revenue models that work for me and my life and my teams and allow me to be all of who I am, rather than the one-dimensional person I felt I needed to be before.
And, I just got approved for a low interest car loan (so I can take advantage of the 179 deduction and decrease my taxes this year significantly — please read my post about that, if you have not already) and my credit scores are back! Amazing.
The biggest thing I see holding people back from becoming truly successful in business is the unwillingness to invest in their businesses. Or the fear of investing in the wrong things. Or the lack of trust in themselves to make the investments.
I get it. I was there. And I did fuck it up, a lot. But the good news is that miss-takes are how we learn. And if we do not give ourselves permission to make mistakes, we are stuck in ways that don’t truly work for us or for the planet.
Personally, I find the story fascinating because while she’s making millions of dollars in supposed revenue, Her mentions of bankruptcy and debt make me think that she’s not really rich. Her business expenses may be so large that she barely makes six figures after we get the net income.
Even after she comes back from restructuring her business, the fact that she mentions a car loan rather than just purchasing the car with cash without any debt makes me wonder if he has really gotten to the point of true wealth where you don’t have any debt and you have a bunch of cash sitting in the bank that you can spend without worry. In terms of financial sense, I think she may still have some room to grow in terms of not relying on debt.
Sure, in certain instances, that is necessary to grow your business. But in your personal life, you should have things squared away where you have enough cash in the bank that you don’t need to buy luxuries or necessities using debt.
As far as her journey for happiness and fulfillment, I would’ve loved her to dive into more detail on why she wasn’t feeling fulfilled in what exactly fixed it. However, I think it’s an inspiring story that’s reveals many lessons, including the fact that money, perception, and self-worth aren’t all that lead to happiness. She definitely built a lot of her belief on the fact that she should feel happy if she lived a glamorous life and if she was seen as a successful person living in Los Angeles with a TV show and all these cars and houses. By wrapping up her own self-worth and self-esteem and that, it causes a unhealthy, unreliable sense of worth predicated on the external world, which can change. If a company goes bankrupt because of the economy or other circumstances, which it did, out of her control, her self-worth plummets. Similarly, it’s so taxing and stressful to base your self-esteem on the whims of other people, which can change over time and can lead to manipulation by social media or disingenuous people.
Her story reminds me of another YouTube or who went into the mountains after feeling disillusioned with these city life. She didn’t like being a slave to a mortgage or living some picket fence, city life where she had to work a mindnumbing job, hating what she did. Her YouTube channel has exploded and she has built a loyal following of hundreds of thousands of people who resonate with her message of a simple living. As a traveling digital nomad and now a woman who lives a simple, off the grid life making own food, showering by a river, and living a minimalist life, she’s much happier.
Why she much happier, that’s subject to interpretation. Perhaps, it’s because all the fancy things that you’re supposed to bind, cars, fancy purses, a house, or the adoration of strangers and social media followers, really quickly lose their luster. No one really cares about that after a few weeks or months. Your shiny, fancy BMW sits in your garage. Your Ferrari stops being so amazing, and slowly just becomes a shiny object that transports you from point A to point B.
The adoration of lovers, fans, and friends for the objects you’ve obtained in the achievements you gotten turned to ash in your mouth because who really cares at the end of the day with they think? It feels superficial what they think. In some of them will easily turn on your say negative things based on other whims or behaviors you have.
Plus, you now have to deal with all the years of work and struggle that you sacrifice to obtain these things. You may even have debts left over that you have to work towards reducing. And it doesn’t seem worth it.
Maybe you even hate your job or the hubbub of the city lifestyle and your work life. But it’s different for different people. Some people love the city. Some people love their job. Some people still love driving the Lamborghini a year later. Every person is different.
But it’s up to everyone to figure out exactly what actually fulfills them and what doesn’t. For some people, what they really care about is having a free time to appreciate nature and living somewhere with plenty of grass, water, mountain ranges and beauty. Even if it’s a simple, low income life, it beats suffering through a mind crushing job in the city where you might earn twice as much.
