I want to share with you something that I’ve never talked about publicly. It was actually the worst experience of my entire life and it happened a bit recently. I’m getting emotional as I think about it because it’s really difficult to share with you everything I went through.
You see, when I was first starting my online business, I struggled terribly. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was trying to get clients online and I was having a hard time selling my services. I didn’t quite understand how to deliver results. You know, I’m a bit of a technical dunce, so when it comes to using computers and using the internet, I’m not the sharpest tool in the box.
So, as I was struggling to build my business, I had a lot of mental resistance which was contributed by negative thoughts, and financially I was not doing very well. It was extremely difficult for me to transition from personal training to become a full time online coach.
I remember this one day like it was yesterday. It was a Tuesday night and as I was pulling up to my driveway alongside my house, the first thing I notice was that my lights were on. I remember saying to myself, “Whoa, why are my lights on?” I always turn my lights off and as I went to the front door, it was wide open.
As I walked through the front door into the living room, I was in total shock. Everything was all over the place. My clothes were strewn all over the floor and my couch was turned upside down on the other side of the room. I looked at the wall, the TV was missing along with the DVD player.
In a split second I realized I was just robbed. I freaked out, my heart started beating out of my chest. This rush of anxiety and uncertainty got the best of me. I’ve never been through such a situation. I ran up to my bedroom and my computer and all my electronics were gone. I continued to go through every single room and found that all my valuables were taken. Everything was gone. I was devastated.
As I ran back downstairs and into the basement, I saw that my back door was broken into. I didn’t know what to do. I thought to myself, what happens if the burglar is still in the house hiding. I was terrified. I quickly ran out of the house and immediately called 911. The police came shortly after and they checked the entire house and once they said it was safe to go back in, I filled out a report.
I was living in this house for over 10 years and I always felt safe and secure. Sometimes I would leave my door open and I’ve never had an issue, but on this fated day I was burglarized.
I felt a sense of violation, I’ve never had something like that happen to me. I was sad, I was distraught, I didn’t know what to do. At the time I was having difficulty with my finances, so having my house robbed devastated me.
The next day, I went down to the basement. I had forgotten to check out my safe that I had hidden in a closet down there. I had some cash and some valuables stored in that safe. When I opened the door to the closet, the safe was gone. I was in total shock! I had about $5,000 in cash inside that safe and the robbers took it all. This even got me more down because I was just starting my online business and money was so tight and now all that cash that I had was gone.
I was in a really rough spot and I was in a very depressed state. As I was telling my friends and family, they were consoling me. There wasn’t really much I could do because I was burglarized. In New York there’s a lot of burglaries so the police really didn’t give me any type of solution. They’re like, “Oh we’re gonna look into this” but nothing really happened.
As I was still in shock from this robbery, I called one of my friends who I had a business with. He didn’t pick up the phone, so I left a message, “Hey man, I just got robbed, I wanna talk to you about a lot of stuff.” He didn’t get back to me and I felt something was really off. The next day I get an email and my friend tells me that the business we had at the time which was a personal training business, he decided to keep it for himself. We had a lot of money tied up in the business and he kicked me out of it.
Now, I was severely screwed, because I did not have a contract. This was a close friend of mine. We grew this business together from the ground up. We had a verbal agreement, we were friends, how could he screw me over like that. At this point in time, especially with the robbery, I was even more upset. How can I have this massive loss and then my friend takes our business and throws me out and I can’t do a thing about it. I was screwed. So here I am with this massive violated loss of getting robbed then my friend robs me out of this business.
I was so distraught, I felt like I was in bad nightmare and I couldn’t get out. I was really sinking low. I said to myself, “what else could happen to me?” I was so upset and I felt like there was a string of bad luck or something that was going on, you know?
I remember weeks and weeks past and I was in this depression trying to recover everything. I was trying to figure out how to make some money, how to rebuild my life back after being burglarized and my business being taken away from me. I had this fear every single day that something of mine would be stolen.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been robbed or burglarized, but it’s like this violated and unsafe feeling of someone coming up behind you and taking everything you have and you can’t do anything about it. Your home is supposed to be a very sacred place; a safe haven, you know? It is a secure place, and you should feel safe. Now that my home had been burglarized I had trouble sleeping at night because I had this fear that they would come back and I would get robbed again or worse, murdered. I felt that my home was not safe any longer.
As I am on this long journey to recuperate and get back to the way it was, three months after the burglary and the loss of my business, it was a Friday afternoon, and I was at home working at my computer. It was in the dead of winter and it was below freezing outside. As I’m working, all of a sudden, I smelled smoke. I’m like, “okay, this is weird. I’m not cooking anything.” The smoke odor gets stronger and stronger and I realized something was burning. I ran upstairs to where my kitchen is and everything seemed fine there.
Then I go upstairs to my bedroom and all of a sudden as I’m walking towards my bedroom the floors are steaming hot. I knew something was off so then I looked inside my bedroom and there was smoke coming out of my heater. I realized very quickly that there was a fire inside my heating system.
Once again, three months later, I called 911, “Fire department, there’s a fire inside my walls, I need your help!”
I quickly started to panic because I don’t know what was gonna happen if my house is gonna explode or the fire is gonna somehow burst through the walls. I remember running outside and looking up and all of a sudden, I could see fire coming out of my bedroom. window and then my whole house caught on fire.
Luckily, the Fire Department came with axes and hoses and they knocked down my doors and went inside my house to put out the fire, but by that time it had spread throughout the second floor. There was smoke, damaged debris all over the house. I was devastated. The Fire Department said, “All right we got the fire. There was a fire inside the heater, but I’m really, really sorry your house is damaged. You should really stay somewhere else tonight. You can’t stay here because there’s a lot of smoke and a lot of debris.” There was also no heat.
I remember going inside the house and I just looked in disbelief at what just happened to my comfort place, my home, and how it had all burned up. Filthy debris and smoke now filled my home. Every room was a mess. Once again, I was beyond devastated. I literally at that moment in my living room fell down to my knees and started crying. I started crying my eyes out because everything I had was gone from the burglary, to the loss of the business, to my house burning down. It was the worst moment of my life.
I remember crying and calling my mom and she was like, “calm down, everything’s gonna be okay, this is all gonna work out.” And I just thought my life was gonna be over, like what else is going to happen? Am I going to die? Like this is the worst luck that I had.
I remember at that time I was really sad and distraught not knowing what else could happen, so I went on social media on my facebook and then I shared everything: the whole story of the burglary, the loss of the business, the house fire. All these wonderful people came out for support. Checking up on me, texting me, calling me, friends and family. I felt a little bit better. I soon realized that in hard and devastating times, there are so many people out there to support and encourage you and I felt so blessed.
At the time when all this was going on, I was in a mastermind group called the 25K Mastermind run by Joe Polish. They knew what had just happened to me and they said, “listen, we have a mastermind meeting next week. I know you’re in a really bad place but I really feel that if you come to this meeting and you’re around your peers, other entrepreneurs, you’re gonna be in a much better state. We’re gonna come up with a solution for you.”
I was going cancel that mastermind meeting because of everything I had to do since the fire broke out. There was so much paperwork for the insurance company and the police, but I decided to go, I needed to go. So off I went to the mastermind in Phoenix, Arizona in February, one month after the fire. Joe Polish, the nice gentlemen that he is made me go to the front of the group and kind of share my story; my three months of the burglary, the loss of the business and the house fire, my house burning down and then devastation, everything that occurred.
I remember just standing up and sharing my story and becoming really vulnerable. I got very emotional talking about it but had a sense of relief after I spoke it out. Venting was just what I needed. I never talked about it in a public arena like that. It was so amazing. Almost every person in that room came up to me after I spoke and congratulated me and said, “you know what, things are going to get better and this is all happening for a reason”. They recommended books and people told me stories of their own losses: a spouse passing away, a child having cancer, going bankrupt, losing everything then building it back, and in this mastermind, I was one of the younger guys there. People in their 40s, 50s, 60s, shared with me some of the most crazy and devastating things they ever went though and I was blown away by that.
After my presentation they invited me to their masterminds and their events. The fire had happened late January, February was the mastermind and then for the next few months it was like I was invited to all these different events for personal development, marketing, and mindset.
I slowly started to pull myself into that world of rebuilding myself, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Then I truly realized that all these different entrepreneurs went through devastating losses much worse than mine and they survived. They also said that it was the best thing that ever happened to them. As I was going to these different events they were sharing stories as well and I was feeling this crazy emotion of like I’m gonna build my life back, I’m gonna make a comeback and I’m gonna change my life.
Those next few months, I was really working hard, taking lots of action and changing my beliefs. The one thing that kept ringing true to me was even if my house got burglarized, I lost my business, my house burned down, after all these tragedies, I was going to be ok. All these external things were gone but I was ok. They could take the stuff in my house but they can’t take what’s inside of me. I could build it all back as long as I had my health and the right mindset, then I’m unstoppable. Being unstoppable became my mantra. I always anchor myself to feeling unstoppable.
Within a few months I had this newfound confidence like I felt fearless. Like the worst things that could happen to me already happened. Whatever happens I can handle it and from that moment on I had this like fearless resilience that anything in my path I can accomplish.
I started creating a lot of videos, putting myself out there, doing a lot of fearless actions and then all of a sudden, my biz started to grow from $20,000 a month, $40,000 a month, it kept going up and I felt this amazing confidence, this fearlessness and this new energy and that was like the most defining moment of my life.
What happened to me was one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through, but it changed my life, so what did I learn from that? Essentially the worst thing that can happen to you sometimes is the best thing that can happen for you. All of the challenges and turmoil was just testing me, making me more resilient, making me more powerful, making me fearless and then all that.
You probably went through something similar, or maybe you’re going through something right now. A tragedy, a painful experience, a severe setback and what you learned from that is does it make you better or bitter? Right, because we have a choice. All these things happen externally. Money, material items, a house, shelter, but my health that was ok. I was fine. God forbid I had a terminal illness, that’s a whole other story. The house burned down but I was ok. I didn’t burn. I learned so much from these challenges, but at the end of the day it’s realizing that you were put here for a reason and sometimes you go through the most challenging difficult circumstances to be taught a life lesson.
Winston Churchill said if you’re going through hell, just keep going, just keep on persisting. There’s sunshine on the other side. So that is my advice to you and that is what really created Online SuperCoach because a few months after coming out of that negative situation, I created Online SuperCoach as a company to give back, to help people attract their ideal client, sell their services at the highest level and serve with their superpowers because in that difficult period I found my superpower and I wanna serve you.
So, if you go to my site OnlineSuperCoach.com you can learn more about my program but literally I feel so much better sharing this story with you. If you feel that you’ve been inspired by this or someone needs to hear this message, please share this with them, because at the end of the day the worst thing that could happen to us makes us stronger, makes us wiser, makes us more resilient.
If you feel that you’ve been inspired by this or someone needs to hear this message, please share this with them, because at the end of the day the worst thing that could happen to us makes us stronger, makes us wiser, makes us more resilient.
If you’re going through something right now just keep on going because something beautiful is on the other side.